|
Cormac Callanan, chairman of the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland, has warned that such a change in the law will eventually lead to ISPs here being forced to either increase their prices or charge law enforcement agencies for inquiries about the data they are holding.
On Monday, Statewatch, a UK-based privacy advocacy organisation, said that it had received a leaked document which showed that the EU is planning to force European telephone companies, mobile operators and ISPs to store details of all their customers' activities for between 12 to 24 months.
Statewatch said it has seen a copy of a binding "framework decision" that is currently being worked on by some EU governments. The framework decision, which could be voted into law next month, would enable governments and law enforcement bodies in EU member states to potentially view numbers dialled by a person, the date, time and duration of their phone calls, the destination of their e-mails, and the details of the Web sites they visited.
Callanan told ElectricNews.Net that the ratifying of such a proposal would cause considerable problems for ISPs. "This is a concern for ISPs because it will eat into their resources if there is a high volume of requests from law enforcement agencies for access to the data they are holding. In the UK, several ISPs charge the police for every question they have to answer and it is possible that something similar could be introduced by Irish ISPs," he said.
The EU's plan also has possible civil liberty implications. When this law was first touted a year ago, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) said that the proposal, which at that stage was for the retention of data for 12 months, could lead to a "gross infringement on the right to privacy and would effectively mean that every movement in telecommunications networks could be tracked."
"Can you imagine the outcry if the government announced that the destination of every letter you sent would be tracked? Well, this is the telecoms equivalent," the ICCL's co-chair, Malachy Murphy, told ElectricNews.Net at the time. A spokesperson for the ICCL was not available to comment on these latest developments.
Frank Bannister, senior lecturer in information systems in Trinity College, Dublin, said on Thursday that he too was concerned by the EU's strategy.
"We don't know all the details, but I think that blanket weapons like this tend to be more harmful than helpful," remarked Bannister. "The danger is that once security services and police forces get their hands on this information that it may be used by corrupt elements within such bodies in an illegal manner.
"If introduced, it will undoubtedly help in bringing some criminals to justice, but I am not sure that the downsides will be worth it. I don't believe in nannying people out of existence," he added.
Although details about the exact nature of the final framework decision are largely unknown, for instance how it defines "traffic data," it is thought that bodies looking for such data will have to gain a court order before they can access it.
|
