Introduction: Data retention in the EU and beyond: an evolving landscape

The issue of regulation of data retention in the European Union has been part of the European policy agenda for more than 25 years. Following the CJEU decision in Digital Rights Ireland, which invalidated the EU Data Retention Directive, several actions were taken at EU Member State level, albeit not direct invalidations of the national data retention laws, transposing the annulled Data Retention Directive. Those actions eventually led to CJEU preliminary rulings and the resulting rich CJEU case-law on data retention, which lies at the core of this book. Chapter 1 provides the Introduction to the edited volume by offering the background to data retention in the EU an overview of the rationale, structure and the key findings of the chapters of the edited volume, as well as a comment on the recent developments in Ireland and Belgium, after the La Quadrature du Net ‘II’ judgment.