Netnod responds to EU Commission Call for Evidence on Metadata Retention

On 21 May 2025, the EU Commission opened a consultation on the Call for Evidence on Metadata Retention for Criminal Proceedings.

Netnod has previously responded to similar requests for comments here and here, and we have also recently published a blog on the topic.

Our response to the most recent consultation (which you can read in full in the PDF below), focuses on two primary concerns:

• The call for evidence is based on the notion that it is beneficial to harmonise the legal frameworks for number dependent services with number independent services.
  There is no reason to assume that services built and maintained in such different ways should be harmonised. Indeed, this has already been established in the travaux préparatoires for the Swedish and EU electronic communication codes.
   
• It is not possible to provide the clear text communication of end-to-end encrypted communications services to a third party without also introducing vulnerabilities and backdoors which can be used by competent fourth parties for malicious purposes.
  Clear text adaptability requirements cannot be part of the legal framework.

Harmonising and binding the new to the old is not the way forward. As the commission has noted before, “today’s procedural framework needs to be better adapted to the internet age”, not that legacy era solutions should be applied to the Internet age.

You can read Netnod’s full response in the PDF-document.