A group campaigning for privacy rights has begun a High Court action against a recently passed law allowing the Government and the Garda Síochána to access, collect and store fixed and mobile phone line data.
Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) said yesterday that it would argue that the measures, contained in the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005 and the European Data Retention Directive of 2006, are contrary to the Constitution and to existing Irish law.
Under the recent data retention legislation, details - but not the content - of every phone, mobile and fax call are stored for three years. This information includes a daily record of the physical location of mobile phone users and data on every number called, the time of the call and its duration.
Gardaí can access such data for any crime, including misdemeanours.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell had promised that access to call data would be tightly controlled, but access restrictions were never imposed, a situation repeatedly criticised by Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes. The chairman of DRI, TJ McIntyre, said yesterday that the law was "a direct deliberate attack on our right to have a private life without undue interference by the Government".
He said he accepted that law enforcement agencies should have access to some call data. "But access must be proportionate. Neither the European Commission nor the European police forces have made any case as to why they might require years of data to be retained." DRI said its court action named as defendants the Minister for Communications; the Minister for Justice; the Garda Commissioner; and the Attorney General.
As well as challenging the constitutionality of the recent Irish law, the group will ask the Irish courts to refer the EU directive to the European Court of Justice. The incoming EU directive will expand the range of information collected to include e-mail and internet usage data. Ireland already has the longest retention period for such data in Europe - three years.
DRI says that such monitoring is a breach of Irish citizens' rights to privacy, as set out in the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, and as endorsed by the Irish courts, the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. Mr McIntyre said that should the challenge to the EU directive be successful this would undermine data retention laws in all EU member states, not just in Ireland.
He said several international organisations were supporting the Irish case, including Privacy International and privacy campaigning groups from Austria, Finland, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Belgium. He said: "These laws require telephone companies and internet service providers to spy on all customers, logging their movements, their telephone calls, their e-mails and their internet access, and to store that information for up to three years. This information can then be accessed without any court order or other adequate safeguard. We believe that this is a breach of fundamental rights."