Stop-gap legislation that allowed the British government to continue ordering telecom and Internet companies to retain communications data for 12 months is unlawful, the U.K.’s high court ruled on Friday.

The ruling sets an example for other European Union countries looking to introduce new data retention laws following a European court ruling last year.

Many E.U. member states scrapped laws based on the E.U. Data Retention Directive demanding the storage of telecom and Internet metadata after an April 2014 ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) found that the directive violated fundamental privacy rights. Since then, though, many governments have moved to introduce new data retention laws that would provide law enforcers with continued access to communications data without, they say, violating fundamental rights.

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