Data Retention in Europe and Beyond: Law and Policy in the Aftermath of an Invalidated Directive

In the aftermath of the invalidated Data Retention Directive, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) published extensive case law that shaped the rules, requirements, and safeguards on the retention of traffic and location data and their subsequent access for law enforcement purposes in accordance with EU law.

Against this backdrop, Data Retention in Europe and Beyond unites leading scholars and practitioners to offer a cutting-edge and multifaceted analysis of issues relating to data retention. The chapters in this book explore the development of the EU case law, the interaction with European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) jurisprudence, the interplay between data retention and mass surveillance, the proportionality principle in the CJEU jurisprudence rulings, and data retention in the proposed ePrivacy Regulation. The book offers eleven country-specific analyses of European Member States as well as chapters on the data protection regimes of India, Japan, and the US. Further chapters examine the role of the courts in the context of data retention and discuss epistemic (in)justice. The book also contains extensive contributions on automated analysis of retained data by means of algorithms, and retention as intrinsic facet of administrative and surveillance vulnerability.

Comprehensive and informative, this volume not only provides a critical assessment of legal and policy developments, but also will inform policymakers on the potential future for data retention regulation in the European Union and beyond.

Eleni Kosta, Professor of Technology Law and Human Rights, Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT Tilburg University),Irene Kamara, Assistant Professor of Cybercrime Law and Human Rights, Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT, Tilburg University)

Eleni Kosta is a Professor of Technology Law and Human Rights at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT, Tilburg University). In 2024, she co-edited a commentary on The EU Law Enforcement Directive (LED). In 2014, Professor Kosta was awarded a personal research grant for research on privacy and surveillance by the Dutch Research Organisation (VENI/NWO). She is a member of KYSATS, the Cyprus for the recognition of higher education qualifications. Eleni also collaborates as associate with the lawfirm timelex.


Irene Kamara is an Assistant Professor of Cybercrime Law and Human Rights at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT, Tilburg University) and an affiliated researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She has conducted research for the European Commission, the Dutch National Cyber Security Agency, the European Cybersecurity Agency among others. She is a member of the ENISA Experts List, the EDPB experts pool, and the CEN-CENELEC/BTWG 3 'STAIR' on STAndardization, Innovation and Research. Irene was the winner of the 2021 Standards+Innovation Individual Researcher award of the European Standardisation Organisations and is also a qualified attorney-at-law.