On April 7, 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) issued its judgment in the Digital Rights Ireland case, declaring invalid the Data Retention Directive (a 2006 Directive, which requires communications providers to retain traffic, location and identification data so that it is available in the fight against serious crime, including terrorism). According to the press release, the Court found that the retention and access to communications data permitted by the Directive “interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data.” The Court reasoned that, whilst this interference pursues an “objective of general interest”—namely “the fight against serious crime and, ultimately, public security”—it does not comply with the principle of proportionality. In relation to temporal effect, the press release notes, “the declaration of invalidity takes effect from the date on which the directive entered into force.”