This Friday, Parliament approved in a final global vote the text agreed by PS and PSD, providing for the usual retention of metadata for up to six months. This change is intended to overcome claims that the previous law was unconstitutional.
The diploma was approved by the votes of PS, PSD and Chega, and by the votes against IL, PCP, BE and Livre. The only PAN MP did not attend the vote because he was attending a European political event abroad.
The PCP Diploma in Metadata was also voted on but failed: PS, PSD, BE and IL voted against, Chega e Livre abstained and only a supporter voted in favour.
The bill approved this Friday will now be sent to the Palacio de Belem and will then be sent to the Constitutional Court (TC), since the President of the Republic has already made it clear that he will request a preventive verification of the diploma, given that “there is no way to eat there” there is not a shadow of doubt” about its constitutionality.
This warning by Marcelo Rebelo de Souza came after the TC declared unconstitutional in April 2022 the provisions of the so-called metadata law, which regulated the access and retention period of this data for the purposes of criminal investigation.
The TC declared unconstitutional the statutory rule requiring general retention of metadata for one year. He also considered it unconstitutional that the law did not provide for notification of persons under attack and that metadata could be stored outside European territory.
As a way to break this impasse, the certificate approved today stipulates that traffic and location data will be stored in aggregate form for “three months from the date of termination of communication, which period shall be considered extended to six months, unless the owner opposed this extension.
In cases with “reasonable judicial authorization,” these data can be extended successively for periods of three months, “up to a maximum of one year.”
Outside of these storage periods are the so-called “basic data”, IP addresses or data related to the civil identification of subscribers, which, according to the text, will be stored for one year.
The text of the PS and PSD also stipulates that data subjects will be notified “within a maximum of 10 days” of access to their data.
However, this notification becomes invalid if the Office of the Prosecutor (PO) considers that it may “call into question the progress of the investigation, interfere with the establishment of the truth, or create a threat to the life, physical or mental integrity or freedom of the participants in the process.” victims of crime or other duly identified persons.”
In these cases, according to the text, the MP may request that the notice be delayed until the reason for the delay has passed or “within a maximum period of 10 days from the date of closure of the order” this procedural step is issued. .
The text also suggests storing data in “Portugal or in the territory of another Member State of the European Union.”
Metadata is contextual data that, without revealing the content of messages, allows us to determine, for example, who made the call, from which site, with which recipient and for how long.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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