Do you have a mobile phone? Then your communications metadata has been unlawfully retained for the past 12 years!
Every time we make a phone call, external details about our communications are recorded: who communicated with whom, when, for how long, and from which area. This information is retained for 12 months. Such data can reveal a great deal about a person’s life, habits, and social interactions.
Since 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that the indiscriminate retention of communications metadata is unlawful. Member States whose national laws permit such practices are in breach of EU law!
In Greece, the Ministry of Justice established a Committee to review Greek Law 3917/2011. In 2019, Homo Digitalis revealed that the Committee had never completed its work. Since then, it has also suspended all its activities.
In August 2026, Homo Digitalis filed a complaint with the European Commission. In our complaint, we set out all the legal actions we have taken and analyse the provisions of Greek law that violate EU law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
When unlawful practices, such as the surveillance revealed by the PREDATOR scandal, become normalised in public discourse, the indiscriminate retention of communications metadata may appear almost harmless to the general public. But it is not. On the contrary, it undermines the rule of law and democracy.