Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

EU Still Looking at Mandatory Data Retention

Posted by michael on from the look-but-dont-touch dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Following up on a previous Slashdot article, European civil rights advocacy group Statewatch is detecting more rumbles of a possible weakening of privacy rights in the EU. The European council has been testing the waters for a new policy mandating retention of communications "traffic data" by all member states. The previous policy (adopted May 30) merely allowed an exception to EU privacy law for member states who wished to retain such data. Under the leaked draft proposal, law enforcement is to be allowed access to "traffic data" (identifying source, destination, time, etc.), which is similar to current US law. However, much worse is the requirement that telco providers retain such data for 12-24 months. Text of the draft framework decision is available. Also analysis by Statewatch. Backup link (in case of Slashdot effect)."

4 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Bad for the echonomy by oliverthered · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's no way this will get through (he says!)

    It will cost too much and with have an impact of inflation which no one in the EU wants to see at the moment. There will be bandwidth implications because of the storage and processing overheads and investment and development in new infrastructure and technologies will be hit.

    And who gains, well if the police can actually filter the data and find out what you up to then maybe a few people who have had criminals take away there liberties will feel better.

    Who looses, everyone else.

    --
    thank God the internet isn't a human right.
  2. Re:How? by JCCyC · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Gee, officer, our server just had a fatal crash last week."

    Or:

    "Gee, officer, the warehouse where we hold our pile of DVD-Rs with traffic logs just caught fire!"

    Or:

    "What the...? Someone seems to have demagnetized our entire pile of backup HDs! I'm shocked, just shocked!"

    What now? Mandatory data reliability? Or will you just have to hand your logs to the Gestapo every Tuesday?

  3. Who is responsible for this logging? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If I SSH in to a development machine at an ISP that I don't use for dial-up, and E-Mail somebody from it with a question - who is responsible for logging that E-Mail?

    This really is a concern, because small co-location facilities, etc, really don't have the facilities to do this. It's OK for large ISPs, but a nightmare for smaller ones.

  4. Re:Prices? by Tackhead · · Score: 3, Insightful
    > Would the governments subsidize it, or would the costs be dumped on the consumer, increasing the cost of net access in Europe even higher then it already is?

    Where, pray tell, do you think governments get the money they then distribute for "subsidies"?