Originally published 16th September 2005
Recent terrorist attacks have further raised the profile of the EU proposed legislation for data retention by ISP’s and telecommunication companies. The draft directive will require each of the member countries to impose legislation upon ISP’s and telecommunication companies requiring them to save information about the use of their services by members of the public for periods of at least twelve months. Its purpose is the prevention, investigation (and hopefully prosecution) of criminal and terrorist activity by harmonising national rules on retention matters including data security, time periods for retention and who will be allowed access to the retained data. How effective this will be is to some extent in doubt as the draft directive will not extend to those ISP’s outside the European Union with the obvious get outs that this will bring to would be criminals and terrorists.
The draft directive will cover all means of electronic communications such as text messaging services, internet protocols such as e-mail and voice over internet protocols. ISP and telecommunication companies will have to store information relating to the date, time and location of the communication; however they will not be storing the content of the information communicated.
Naturally, mobile telephone companies and ISP’s have declared that the proposed legislation will create expensive storage headaches and could be potentially intrusive, breach data protection laws and be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Those pressing for its introduction claim little financial impact on ISP’s and the telecommunications sector. However this is not echoed by those working in these business sectors and indeed the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association have recently stated that cost to business will be in the region of £100 million. Responses to the European Parliament earlier this year highlighted that large sums of investment monies would be necessary to meet the new obligations with the possibility of small and medium sized businesses going to the wall.
While Home Secretary Charles Clarke recently failed in his attempt to speed up the whole process, the European Commission’s proposals are expected to be out at the end of September - watch this space!
Disclaimer
The material contained in this e-update is of the nature of general comment only and does not give advice on any particular matter. Recipients should not act on the basis of the information in this e-update without taking appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances.
© MacRoberts 2005
