The Bumpy Ways of European Security: Failures, Fiascos and Lives of the Data Retention Directive

The European Union (EU) Data Retention Directive provides for the compulsory retention of metadata by telecommunication operators around Europe, and the making available of such data to law enforcement authorities. The development of this far-reaching security measure follows a bumpy road. The Data Retention Directive has failed repeatedly: at legal, technical and political level. In 2014, the EU Court of Justice declared the Directive invalid. And yet, the Data Retention Directive is very much alive: a wealth of metadata has been and is still stored and potentially processed for security purposes. Its provisions have integrated several national legal orders, and they are not to be suspended until the adoption of a revised EU legislation. Rather than de-activating the measure, its subsequent failures have contributed to morph and sharpen it. This contribution aims to take advantage of the epistemic potential of failures. Starting the analysis from failure permits to apprehend security practices in their continuous adjustment. From a more theoretical perspective, this invites to make explicit and discuss some of the silent assumptions of critical security studies (e.g. the self-evident consistency of security measures), and to explore the possible contribution of the reflections on ‘modes of existence’ (Latour) and ‘justification’ (Boltanski)