PS and PSD require retention of metadata upon request of the court, a decision on which is made within 72 hours.

PS and PSD changed the metadata text that will be voted on Friday to make the preservation of traffic and location data a condition of the request for judicial authorization, which must be decided within 72 hours.

The new version, which is being discussed between PS and PSD to circumvent the Constitutional Court’s (TC) claim of unconstitutionality, stipulates that “traffic and location data may only be retained with reasonable judicial authorization” for the purposes of “investigating, detecting and suppressing serious crimes by the competent authorities.”

“The request for judicial authorization to retain traffic and location data is urgent and must be resolved within a maximum period of 72 hours,” reads the new text, which changes the previous agreed version and tells Lusa that traffic data could not be removed “within two weeks from the date of completion of the message.”

This new version of the PS and PSD provides that “to ensure the usefulness of a request for judicial permission to preserve traffic and location data, the prosecutor’s office will immediately notify” telecom operators “of the filing of the request, the data cannot be subject to deletion until accepted the final decision on their preservation.”

Subject to judicial authorization, the text provides that “the establishment and extension of retention periods referred to in the preceding paragraphs shall be limited to what is strictly necessary to achieve the intended purpose” and shall “cease as soon as unnecessary preservation is confirmed,” without setting a time limit.

This judicial dispensation is responsible for “the formation of the criminal sections of the Supreme Court, consisting of the chairmen of the sections and a judge appointed by the Supreme Council of the Judiciary from among the oldest of these sections.” It belongs.

The 72-hour deadline was announced during a debate this Wednesday in plenary session by PS deputy Pedro Delgado Alves.

“Although the solution we proposed in the previously circulated version – non-destruction within 15 days – seemed balanced to us, what is certain is that when re-reading the resolution there was a risk that it might not pass the TS test,” he explained.

PSD deputy André Coelho Lima, who coordinated the metadata working group, pointed out that both sides chose the 72-hour deadline given the “extraordinary need” of this kind of criminal investigation, citing the example of kidnapping.

Coelho Lima said that during these 72 hours, the prosecutor’s office informs “the telecom operators that there are certain data that will be used,” noting that “it does not order their preservation because it cannot do so,” but indicates that it has requested the Supreme Court has judicial authorization and until that decision is made, the data cannot be destroyed.

“What is the goal? Ensure the security of the criminal investigation, ensure that when issuing a judicial permit, data that may be required to solve the commission of a crime is preserved and preserved,” he emphasized.

This was the way found by the PS and PSD to try to circumvent the Constitutional Court’s (CC) declaration of the unconstitutionality of the Assembly of the Republic’s ruling on this issue, which the judges considered to exceed the “limits of proportionality in limiting fundamental rights” when providing for the widespread preservation of metadata.

This text, also prepared by PS and PSD, provided for general retention of metadata for three months, with an extension of this period for a further three months unless there was explicit objection from clients.

Earlier, on April 12, 2022, the Labor Code declared the norms of the so-called Metadata Law unconstitutional. This 2008 law transposed into the national legal system the 2006 European Directive, which the Court of Justice of the European Union declared invalid in 2014.

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.