Request for a preliminary ruling from the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Germany) lodged on 29 October 2019 — Federal Republic of Germany v SpaceNet AG

(Case C-793/19)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Bundesverwaltungsgericht

Parties to the main proceedings

Appellant in the appeal on a point of law: Federal Republic of Germany

Respondent in the appeal on a point of law: SpaceNet AG

Question referred

In the light of Articles 7, 8 and 11 and Article 52(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, on the one hand, and of Article 6 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union ¹ and Article 4 of the Treaty on European Union, on the other hand, is Article 15 of Directive 2002/58/EC ² to be interpreted as precluding national legislation which obliges providers of publicly available electronic communications services to retain traffic and location data of end users of those services where

–    that obligation does not require a specific reason in terms of location, time or region,

–    the following data are the subject of the storage obligation in the provision of publicly available telephone services — including the transmission of short messages, multimedia messages or similar messages and unanswered or unsuccessful calls:

–    the telephone number or other identifier of the calling and called parties as well as, in the case of call switching or forwarding, of every other line involved,

–    the date and time of the start and end of the call or — in the case of the transmission of a short message, multimedia message or similar message — the times of dispatch and receipt of the message, and an indication of the relevant time zone,

–    information regarding the service used, if different services can be used in the context of the telephone service,

–    and also, in the case of mobile telephone services

the International Mobile Subscriber Identity of the calling and called parties,

the international identifier of the calling and called terminal equipment,

in the case of pre-paid services, the date and time of the initial activation of the service, and an indication of the relevant time zone,

the designations of the cells that were used by the calling and called parties at the beginning of the call,

–    in the case of internet telephone services, the Internet Protocol addresses of the calling and the called parties and allocated user IDs,

–    the following data are the subject of the storage obligation in the provision of publicly available internet access services:

–    the Internet Protocol address allocated to the subscriber for internet use,

–    a unique identifier of the connection via which the internet use takes place, as well as an allocated user ID,

–    the date and time of the start and end of the internet use at the allocated Internet Protocol address, and an indication of the relevant time zone,

–    in the case of mobile use, the designation of the cell used at the start of the internet connection,

–    the following data must not be stored:

–    the content of the communication,

–    data regarding the internet pages accessed,

–    data from electronic mail services,

–    data underlying links to or from specific connections of persons, authorities and organisations in social or ecclesiastical spheres,

–    the retention period is four weeks for location data, that is to say, the designation of the cell used, and ten weeks for the other data,

–    effective protection of retained data against risks of misuse and against any unlawful access to that data is ensured, and

–    the retained data may be used only to prosecute particularly serious criminal offences and to prevent a specific threat to life and limb or a person’s freedom or to the continued existence of the Federal Republic or of a Federal Land, with the exception of the Internet Protocol address allocated to a subscriber for internet use, the use of which data is permissible in the context of the provision of inventory data information for the prosecution of any criminal offence, maintaining public order and security and carrying out the tasks of the intelligence services?

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¹ OJ 2000 C 364, p. 1.

² Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications) (OJ 2002 L 201, p. 37), last amended by Directive 2009/136/EC (OJ 2009 L 337, p. 11).