By Jo Best, 22 October 2004 16:40
NEWS The EU has removed time limits on how long ISPs and telcos will be obliged to keep information on their customers for.
The European Union, which is in the process of creating new electronic data retention legislation, previously stipulated that data on users' phone calls and emails could only be held for 36 months in order to investigate and solve crime.
The revised text says that individual governments can now set their own limit on the data storage. The minimum time data must be stored remains unchanged at 12 months, or 12 months from the end of a subscriber's contract with their provider.
That could mean that governments will demand ISPs and telcos keep the data for decades. In the recent wrangling between the EU and the US over the retention of data on transatlantic air travellers, the US government initially demanded that the passengers' details must be stored for 50 years.
The data that the EU will oblige telcos or ISPs to keep will include the time and date of a phone call, the duration of the call and who it was to as well as email logs and customers' billing details. No content of emails or phone calls will be recorded.
The legislation covers SMS, MMS, VoIP, transfer protocols, email and mobile calls.
The EU's draft regulations state that the legislation is necessary to "trace the source of illegal content such as child pornography and racist and xenophobic material; the source of attacks against information systems; and to identify those involved in using electronic communications networks for the purpose of organised crime and terrorism".
The law is likely to come into effect in June 2007, although the UK has already passed similar legislation - the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act.
The RIP Act came into force in November 2003 and now obliges ISPs and telcos to record data on their customers.
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Companies will keep the content even is Telco/ISP don't
Getting to look like it's not so much your big brother, as the Big Brothers of all the neighbourhood will be videoing you, with surround sound pickup.
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And don't you dare shut the door, pull the curtains, or turn your back to them - don't you know that's illegal.
2. Fred Bloggs
I know you are only a journalist, but would you consider reading documents before writing articles about them?
The previous version of this proposal said 36 months but gave Member States the opportunity to go past this if they wanted. The current text removes this artificial and meaningless "limit" - however, the EU Treaties and the European Convention on Human Rights do insist on such measures being "proportionate" and, consequently, EU Member States DO NOT have the right to unlimited data retention.
3. Ruprecht
Fred, can't say I know much about this one but you obviously do. How about you take a leaf out of Jen's book - (http://software.silicon.com/malware/talkback.htm?PROCESS=show&ID=20034510&AT=39125245-3800003100t-40000041c)
- and inform the rest of us (useful reading etc.) rather than just giving the journo a bashing.
To be honest I'm getting sick of comments being about how crap the Silicon editorial is rather than providing constructive comment and debate on the topics.
R
;o(