Yesterday’s opinion [1] by the European Court of Justice’s Advocate General states:
- Member states are not required by EC law to permit access by IPR
holders to communications data for purposes of civil litigation. - But they may, under EC law, do so on their own will.
- However, access may not be permitted in cases of minor infringements.
Also any data transfer needs to involve government authorities. - At any rate, data retained in accordance with the data retention
directive may not be made available to IPR holders. This should cover
all retained IP addresses as the Advocate General dismisses all other
provisions that could be read as permitting the retention of
communications data.