Home Office ponies up to see operators' data

The Home Office is looking to compensate mobile phone companies for retaining their call records.

The move follows a deal with mobile operator O2 to keep all data for at least 12 months for which the government will pay £875,000, according to an FT report today.

The Home Office is said to have a budget of £6m to entice companies to retain data.

Although having won a number of undisclosed smaller deals for retaining data, the government has yet to win deals with other major operators, it said.

A spokesman for the Home Office declined to reveal the mobile operator it had signed a deal with but later admitted it was 02.

He said: "We have an agreement with one of the main operators. We are not naming but the FT is. I don't know whether it was 02 coming out and saying it. We are still negotiating with other operators."

UK ministers are currently lobbying European policy makers to make it compulsory for communications service providers to retain mobile phone and internet data as part of tougher anti-terrorist legislation.

Earlier this year, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) warned that proposed legislation, which demands details pertaining to emails, phone and VoIP calls be retained, may infringe on civil liberties.