By Patrick Van Eecke and Didier Wallaert

Belgium has enacted new data retention legislation on 30 July 2013. Telecom operators must now store communications traffic data, location data, data identifying the end-user, data on the communication service used and on the terminal equipment used (i.e. so-called metadata). The data retention period is one year. The new data retention legislation does not apply to the content of the communications (such as call recording), which requires a court order according to existing Belgian law.Continue Reading Belgium: New Belgian data retention legislation for telecom operators