Law Enforcement Directive (LED)
2 pending referralsReferral C-5/25 (Pilev, 7 Jan 2025) 
Referral C-371/24 (Comdribus, 24 May 2024)
6 preliminary rulings
Judgment of 20 Nov 2025, C-57/23 (Policejní prezidium)
Articles 8 and 10 of Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA must be interpreted as meaning that, as regards the collection, storage and erasure of biometric and genetic data, the concept of ‘Member State law’, within the meaning of those articles, must be understood as referring to a provision of general application laying down the minimum conditions for collection, storage and erasure of those data, as interpreted by the case-law of the national courts, in so far as that case-law is accessible and sufficiently foreseeable.
Article 6 and Article 4(1)(c) of Directive 2016/680, read in conjunction with Article 10 of that directive must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation which permits the indiscriminate collection of biometric and genetic data of any person accused or suspected of having committed an intentional criminal offence, in so far as, first, the purposes of that collection do not require a distinction to be made between those two categories of persons and, second, the controllers are required, in accordance with national law, including the case-law of the national courts, to comply with all of the principles and specific requirements laid down in Articles 4 and 10 of that directive.
Article 4(1)(e) of Directive 2016/680 must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which the need for the continued storage of biometric and genetic data is assessed by the police on the basis of internal rules, without that legislation laying down a maximum period for storage, in so far as that legislation sets appropriate time limits for a periodic review of the need to store those data and, at the time of that review, the strict necessity of extending their storage is assessed.
Judgment of 28 Nov 2024, C-80/23 (Ministerstvo na vatreshnite raboti)
Article 10 of Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA, read in conjunction with Article 4(1)(a) to (c) and Article 8(1) and (2) of that directive,
must be interpreted as meaning that where national legislation provides for the systematic collection of biometric and genetic data of any person accused of an intentional offence subject to public prosecution in order for them to be entered in a record, without laying down an obligation on the competent authority, within the meaning of Article 3(7) of that directive, to verify whether and demonstrate that their collection is strictly necessary, in accordance with Article 10 of that directive, compliance with such an obligation cannot be ensured by the court seised by that competent authority for the purpose of the enforcement of that collection, because it is for that competent authority to carry out the assessment required under Article 10.
Judgment of 4 Oct 2024, C-548/21 (Bezirkshauptmannschaft Landeck)
1. Articles 4(1)(c) of Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA, read in the light of Articles 7, 8 and Article 52(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted as not precluding national legal rules which afford the competent authorities the possibility to access data contained in a mobile telephone for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences in general, provided those rules: – define with sufficient precision the nature or categories of offences concerned, – ensure respect for the principle of proportionality, and – make reliance on that possibility, except in duly justified cases of urgency, subject to prior review by a judge or an independent administrative body.
Articles 13 and 54 of Directive 2016/680, read in the light of Article 47 and Article 52(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, must be interpreted as precluding national legal rules which authorise the competent authorities to attempt to access data contained in a mobile telephone without informing the data subject, within the framework of the applicable national procedural rules, of the grounds on which the authorisation to access such data, issued by a court or an independent administrative body, is based, once the communication of that information is no longer liable to jeopardise the tasks of those authorities under that directive.
Judgment of 30 Jan 2024, C-118/22 (Direktor na Glavna direktsia ‘Natsionalna politsia’ pri Ministerstvo na vatreshnite raboti – Sofia)
Article 4(1)(c) and (e) of Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA, read in conjunction with Articles 5 and 10, Article 13(2)(b) and Article 16(2) and (3) thereof, and in the light of Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which provides for the storage, by police authorities, for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, of personal data, including biometric and genetic data, concerning persons who have been convicted by final judgment of an intentional criminal offence subject to public prosecution, until the death of the data subject, even in the event of his or her legal rehabilitation, without imposing on the data controller the obligation to review periodically whether that storage is still necessary, nor granting that data subject the right to have those data erased, where their storage is no longer necessary for the purposes for which they are processed or, where appropriate, to have the processing of those data restricted.
Judgment of 16 Nov 2023, C-333/22 (Ligue des droits humains)
Article 17 of Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA, read in conjunction with Article 46(1)(g), Article 47(1) and (2) and Article 53(1) of that directive and with Article 8(3) and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted as meaning that where the rights of a data subject have been exercised, pursuant to Article 17 of that directive, through the competent supervisory authority and that authority informs that data subject of the result of the verifications carried out, that data subject must have an effective judicial remedy against the decision of that authority to close the verification process.
The examination of the second question has revealed nothing capable of affecting the validity of Article 17(3) of Directive 2016/680.
Judgment of 26 Jan 2023, C-205/21 (Ministerstvo na vatreshnite raboti)
Article 10(a) of Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA, read in the light of Article 52 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted as meaning that the processing of biometric and genetic data by the police authorities with a view to their investigative activities, for purposes of combating crime and maintaining law and order, is authorised by Member State law, within the meaning of Article 10(a) of Directive 2016/680, provided that the law of that Member State contains a sufficiently clear and precise legal basis to authorise that processing. The fact that the national legislative act containing such a legal basis refers, furthermore, to Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), and not to Directive 2016/680, is not capable, in itself, of calling the existence of such authorisation into question, provided that it is apparent, in a sufficiently clear, precise and unequivocal manner, from the interpretation of the set of applicable provisions of national law that the processing of biometric and genetic data at issue falls within the scope of that directive, and not of that regulation.
Article 6(a) of Directive 2016/680 and Articles 47 and 48 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation which provides that, if the person accused of an intentional offence subject to public prosecution refuses to cooperate voluntarily in the collection of the biometric and genetic data concerning him or her in order for them to be entered in a record, the criminal court having jurisdiction must authorise a measure enforcing their collection, without having the power to assess whether there are serious grounds for believing that the person concerned has committed the offence of which he or she is accused, provided that national law subsequently guarantees effective judicial review of the conditions for that accusation, from which the authorisation to collect those data arises.
Article 10 of Directive 2016/680, read in conjunction with Article 4(1)(a) to (c) and Article 8(1) and (2) thereof, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which provides for the systematic collection of biometric and genetic data of any person accused of an intentional offence subject to public prosecution in order for them to be entered in a record, without laying down an obligation on the competent authority to verify whether and demonstrate that, first, their collection is strictly necessary for achieving the specific objectives pursued and, second, those objectives cannot be achieved by measures constituting a less serious interference with the rights and freedoms of the person concerned.
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