The European Parliament is today expected to back new rules which could force ISPs and mobile companies to keep hold of customer data, and to share that data with authorities investigating copyright violations.
As previously reported, the entertainments industry has been lobbying for the reach of the European Union's new Data Retention Directive to be extended to assist pan-European efforts to combat online piracy. Those moves have been criticised by some consumer rights groups who claim that the content owners are hijacking legislation initially aimed at assisting authorities investigating suspected terrorist groups. Nevertheless, the European Parliament is expected to pass the more broad interpretation of the Directive later today.
This whole thing does have the potential to be a lot more interesting than just another spat between content owners and consumer rights groups. Depending on how far the Directive goes, it could be argued that the holding and sharing of customer data in this way violates the privacy rights extended to individuals by the European Convention On Human Rights. That convention, of course, is separate from the European Union and is protected by its own courts. Therefore there is the potential that the courts of the European Union in Luxembourg and the European Human Rights courts in Strasbourg could clash - and constitutionally, it's not entirely clear which court's opinion should prevail.