/. [UK Government Wins Villain of the Year]

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Sat Feb 25 09:41:17 PST 2006


(((Duration of data retention varies, it's 6 months in Germany (just
been passed as law), up to 2 years elsewhere (you forgot Poland?) --
approval status unknown)))

Link: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/24/2047203
Posted by: Zonk, on 2006-02-24 21:52:00

   Anonymous Cowpat writes "The BBC is reporting that the UK Government,
   or rather their six month presidency of the EU, has been awarded the
   [1]Internet Villain of the Year award by the [2]Internet Service
   Providers Association for being the driving force behind [3]the new EU
   data retention laws. These require that ISPs and other telecomms
   providers keep records of the time\date & recipient of every
   communication made by their subscribers."

References

   1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4744304.stm
   2. http://www.ispa.org.uk/
   3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4527840.stm

----- End forwarded message -----


EU approves data retention rules

Individual governments will decide exactly how long to keep data

The European Parliament has approved rules forcing telephone companies to
retain call and internet records for use in anti-terror investigations.

Records will be kept for up to two years under the new measures.

Police will have access to information about calls, text messages and internet
data, but not exact call content.

The UK, which pressed European member states to back the rules, said that data
was the "golden thread" in terrorist investigations.

The parliament voted by 378 to 197 to approve the bill, which had already been
agreed by the assembly's two largest groups, the European People's Party and
the Socialists.

Compromises

The measures were proposed by Britain after the bomb attacks in London in
July.

They still need to be formally approved by EU member states.

UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the approval showed the European
institutions - the Parliament, the Council, the Commission - standing firm
against terrorism and serious organised crime.

"This sends a powerful message that Europe is united against terrorism and
organised crime," he said.

"All three institutions have worked closely together and been willing to
compromise in order to reach agreement on this important measure."

The measures will require firms to store:

    * data that can trace fixed or mobile telephone calls
    * time and duration of calls
    * location of the mobile phone being called
    * details of connections made to the Internet
    * details, but not the content, of internet e-mail and internet telephony
services

Details of connected calls that are unanswered, which can be used as signals
to accomplices or used to detonate bombs, will also be archived where that
data exists.

Costs

But the telecommunications industry has raised some concerns about the
measures, which firms say could be expensive to implement.

Thierry Dieu, spokesman for European Telecommunications Networks Operators'
Association, said that because the proposed measures go much further than the
current practices, especially for the internet data, "it is clear that there
will be a lot of investment for the industry to make".

A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) said it
remained to be seen how the measures would affect providers once incorporated
into UK law.

He said there was already some voluntary co-operation with the authorities,
but mandatory data retention would result in significant costs. ISPs would
have to create ways of holding the data, managing it and providing access to
it for the authorities, he said.

"At the end of the day ISPs are not law enforcement agencies so they should
not have to pay for it all," he said.

--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820            http://www.ativel.com
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list