Euroopa Inimõiguste Kohus
30.01.2020
Facts
In 2004 the Telecommunications Act imposed on service providers an obligation to collect various personal details in respect of all their customers and store this data together with the telephone number attributed, even when not necessary for billing purposes or other contractual reasons. Retrieval and transmission of the data could be requested by various public authorities without a court order or notification to the persons concerned being needed. Requests for data retrieval could under certain conditions be automated and result in lists based on mere similarity (partial-data queries) in names or numbers.
The applicants purchased pre-paid SIM cards and were thus required to register with their respective service providers their names, addresses and dates of birth when activating those SIM cards.
Complaint
The applicants complained that, as users of prepaid mobile phone SIM cards, certain personal data had been stored by their respective telecommunications service providers owing to the legal obligation. They relied on their right to respect for private life and correspondence as provided in Article 8 of the Convention and their freedom of expression as provided in Article 10.
Court’s ruling
The Court noted that there was no European consensus concerning the collection and storage of information on pre-paid SIM card owners, the member states had a certain margin of appreciation, which the Court found not to have been overstepped:
- pre-registration of mobile telephone subscribers simplified and accelerated investigation by law enforcement, it could thereby contribute to effective law enforcement and prevention of disorder or crime
- the existence of possibilities to circumvent legal obligations could not be a reason to call into question their overall utility and effectiveness
- besides the lack of consensus, the fact that national security concerns were at stake also justified a certain margin of appreciation
The Court found that the interference was proportionate. Unlike in cases previously examined by the Court, the data storage at issue did not include any highly personal information or allow the creation of personality profiles or the tracking of the movements of mobile telephone subscribers. Moreover, no data concerning individual communication events was stored. After considering the availability of review, the Court noted that the lack of notification of the retrieval procedure did not raise an issue under the Convention. Thus, the Court found no violation.