Germany's top court overturns EU data law

The Karlsruhe-based court decided that the data storage law was unconstitutional as it broke telecommunication secrecy, and called for all the information saved under the law to be deleted "without delay." The law, which came into force in 2008 following an EU ruling, meant that telephone, e-mail and internet usage data, as well as the location of mobile phones, were stored for six months. During this period, the information could be accessed for law enforcement purposes, or to prevent security threats.