Sweden Sued by EU for Lacking Data Retention Directive Legislation

It’s been two years since the EU passed the Data Retention Directive that forces ISPs and search engines to preserve data thus helping the police in their investigations. Now, because Sweden has failed to implement it, the European Commission has filled lawsuit against the country demanding the passing of the law.

EU:Obey or Pay

The Swedish government is working to enforce the new legislation very soon and aims at six-month period in which data will be stored, Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reports.

As of April 1, Sweden passed Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) which was pretty much a way of forcing ISPs to cooperate with the entertainment industry and hand over confidential information about their subscribers.

Last month we reported about the 'response' of some ISPs such as Sweden's Bahnhof which sent a clear message that they will protect their customers by erasing all the data about them frequently. However, once Data Retention Directive is introduced, the ISPs will no longer have the legal possibility to do that.

EU passed the Directive in 2006 compeling all EU member states to come up with a sort of data retention legislation applied to terms between six months and two years.