New Bill Aims to Balance Data Protection, Access to Information

On Wednesday 25 January 2023, Luxembourg's Minister of Justice, Sam Tanson, presented a new bill on personal data retention.

This bill aims to adapt the national legal framework relating to the retention of personal data in the electronic communications sector to the requirements of the latest judgments rendered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the matter.

The challenge of the proposed text, according to the Ministry of Justice, is to regulate the storage and use of traffic and location data by aiming to guarantee a balance between, on the one hand, access to data processed by operators and communication providers in the context of safeguarding national security, combating serious crime and preventing serious threats to public security and, on the other hand, protecting the fundamental rights of citizens.

More specifically, the suggested legislative measures will allow the targeted retention of traffic and location data according to categories of data subjects or by means of a geographical criterion and the expeditious retention of traffic and location data.

Generalised and undifferentiated retention of traffic and location data will be strictly limited to: data relating to civil identity for the purposes of fighting crime, safeguarding public safety and national security; IP addresses assigned to the connection source for the purposes of fighting serious crime, safeguarding public safety and national security; traffic data and location data in the event of a serious threat to national security which is real and present or foreseeable.