EU to force ISPs and telcos to retain data for one year

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Jei <jei () cc hut fi>

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/26751.html

EU to force ISPs and telcos to retain data for one year
By John Leyden
Posted: 20/08/2002 at 11:56 GMT

European Union proposals on data retention would compel telecom firms
to keep customer email logs, details of internet usage and phone call
records for at least a year.

That's the gist of proposals leaked via civil liberties group
Statewatch, which says the plans increase law enforcement powers
without adequate civil liberties safeguards.

In the name of tackling "terrorism" the EU's Justice and Home Affairs
Minister decided last September that law enforcement agencies needed
to have access to all traffic data (phone-calls, mobile calls, emails,
faxes and internet usage) for the purpose of criminal investigations
in general. The data would not include the contents of messages - only
the timing, source and destination of communications.

A 1997 EC Directive on privacy in telecommunications, which said that
traffic data could only be retained for billing purposes prior to its
erasure, stood in the way of this ambition.

A deal agreed between the Council (the 15 governments) and the two
largest parties in the European Parliament (PPE, conservative and PSE,
Socialist groups) pulled the teeth from the 1997 directive on privacy.
The obligation to erase data was removed and this enabled governments
to adopt laws for data retention if national parliaments agreed.

However document leaked to Statewatch show EU governments always
intended to introduce a law to bind all member states to adopt data
retention.

This draft Framework Decision says that data should be retained for 12
to 24 months in order for law enforcement agencies to have access to
it. Records would only become available to law enforcement agencies
after judicial approval, though Statewatch expresses grave doubts
about this and argues that the proposals are the 'thin end of the
wedge'.

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, said that the framework furthers a
move from targeted police surveillance powers to "potentially
universal surveillance".

"The right to privacy in our communications - e-mails, phone-calls,
faxes and mobile phones - was a hard-won right which has now been
taken away. Under the guise of fighting "terrorism" everyone's
communications are to be placed under surveillance, he said.

"Gone too under the draft Framework Decision are basic rights of data
protection, proper rules of procedure, scrutiny by supervisory bodies
and judical review."

On August 14, the Danish Presidency put out to all EU governments a
"Questionnaire on traffic data retention" for completion and return
"preferably by e-mail" by Monday 9 September, which will form the
basis of further EU action. 



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