EU court adviser: data privacy laws should apply in national security cases

The European Court of Justice should uphold its 2016 decision that personal data cannot be seized and held indiscriminately by governments even on national security grounds, the court's advocate general said in an opinion on Wednesday.

Reacting to four cases in France, Belgium and Britain in which governments called for greater powers to override data privacy, the advocate general, Manuel Campos Sánchez-Bordona, argued that EU law applies.

That is despite individual governments' powers to force telecoms companies to make data available to the authorities.

France, Belgium and Britain have suffered major attacks by Islamist militants in recent years and argue that access to data can help prevent such events.

If the court followed the opinion, this would likely impact negotiations on EU privacy regulation and international agreements on cross-border access...