Privacy Int'l v. Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs and La Quadrature du Net v. Premier ministre (C.J.E.U.)
In October 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), sitting as a Grand Chamber, handed down its preliminary rulings in Privacy International v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Privacy International) and in the joined cases of La Quadrature du Net v. Premier ministre and Ordre des barreaux francophones et germanophone v. Conseil des ministers (La Quadrature du Net). In Privacy International, the CJEU held that member states are precluded from enacting laws enabling bulk transmission of communications data from providers to the state. In La Quadrature du Net, it laid down requirements for various types of data processing, including bulk and targeted retention and automated analysis, and held for the first time that bulk retention of communications data could be justified on national security grounds. The judgments represent a significant development of the CJEU's jurisprudence on communications data processing and state surveillance, as the European Union (EU) continues to move towards a new digital privacy law.