Following the constitutional request lodged by the Information Commissioner, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia ruled the data retention provisions of the Slovene Electronic Communications Act (ZEKom-1) to be a disproportionate act, and has ordered operators to delete all data retained pursuant to these provisions.
The Court holds data retention as disproportionate for the following reasons:
- unselective retention of data in its major part constitutes a breach into the rights of a large proportion of population that did not provide any reason for such breaches ; blanket data retention does not provide for anonymous use of communication which is particularly important in cases where untraceable use is necessary to reach certain purposes (e.g. calling for help in mental distress);
- arguments for selected retention periods (8 months for internet related and 14 months for telephony related data) were not provided nor elaborated in the legislative materials;
- the use of retained data was not limited to serious crime.
