Dutch court scraps telecommunications data retention law

The story has been corrected on the wire and the fifth paragraph now reads:

Despite that ruling though, the Dutch government decided in November last year to largely maintain its national data retention law on the grounds that it "is indispensable for the investigation and prosecution of serious criminal offenses." Only a few adjustments were proposed, which would tighten who had access to what data and under what circumstances.

The last paragraph now reads:

In Sweden, meanwhile, the government maintains that the national data retention law can still be applied. And in the U.K., a new data retention law was rushed through by the U.K. government in July, replacing the one that was based on the EU directive. That new law will be reviewed by the country's High Court though to determine if it violates human rights.