The issue of data retention in Europe has been raising its ugly head with increasing frequency over the last 12 months.
Since 9/11 the US government has been applying pressure on foreign governments, including ours, to take firmer action against terrorists (though they still haven’t provided a clear definition of what makes a terrorist).
The Irish government is more than happy to play in the sand with its American friends and who could blame them? US investment in Ireland is at a level where the very idea of the US getting upset would send shivers down the spine of any Irish politician.
What has this to do with data retention?
Unfortunately quite a lot.
The Declaration on Combating Terrorism adopted by the European Council on 25 March 2004 instructed the Council to examine measures for establishing rules on the retention of communications traffic data by service providers with a view to adoption by June 2005.
Will it make a difference?
Probably not.
Like so much legislation surrounding “terrorism” since 9/11 there is more emotive language than logical reasoning in any of these texts.
If you read over sections of them from a non-industry point of view you may almost be duped into believing that it will actually do something, but why is there so much emotive language in a piece of legislation? Even that theory doesn’t hold water.
Do we really want a situation developing in Ireland where the Indymedia fiasco:”FBI only needed logs from Indymedia servers, but Rackspace handed over the disks”:http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-5815946.html is a daily occurence?
Of course Indymedia are a relatively easy target, as they could be viewed as being on the fringe.
What about the rest of us? Will we be affected by data retention legislation?
I wish I could give a clear answer. All I see is badly worded legalese which will cause confusion and is open to misinterpretation on more than one side.
What disturbs me more than anything is the total apathy about it.
Data retention laws will put a severe strain on service providers
Data retention laws will restrict and damage civil liberties
Data retention laws will not help stop terrorism
Want to know more?
Have a look here
I’m not so sure about the issue of Data Retention. A lot of the stuff I’ve seen in the press about it has been downright speculative if not completely wrong.
The legislation that was passed in Ireland earlier this year had to do with call records rather than the content of the calls. Unsurprisingly, telcos do retain such data for market analysis and projections.
Proponents of Data Retention have some successes to point to.
It is all very well for the press to bleat about Data Retention as a tool of Big Brother but what alternatives do they offer? And besides, do they really know how pervasive data profiling is? Business has always been ahead of the law and many of these ideas seem geared towards creating legal frameworks for the state accessing the data collected by business intelligence methods.
John
Forcing ISPs and hosting company to retain data for up to 2 years (or more) is hard to justify