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Internet users have been warned that details about their surfing and e-mail habits could be held for up to a year and beyond by telcos and service providers.
According to the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), a proposed EU directive on telecommunications privacy, which is to be voted on by MEPs next week, could lead to a "gross infringement on the right to privacy and would effectively mean that every movement in telecommunications networks could be tracked."
The EU directive says that members states can require telecoms and Internet companies, such as Eircom and Esat, to keep records on traffic data generated by their subscribers for one year in order to "safeguard national security, defence, public security and the prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences." The directive was proposed by law enforcement agencies in the UK, France, Belgium and Sweden in order to improve crime investigation.
Although the content of telephone calls, e-mails and faxes is not covered by the directive, it does potentially allow authorities to view numbers dialled, the date, time and duration of phone calls, the destination of e-mails, and the details of Web sites and newsgroups visited. According to the ICCL, it may also include location data on mobile phone users. However, these details could not be accessed by authorities without a warrant.
The ICCL also said that even if the Irish Government did not require telcos to retain the data, data could still be kept by such companies because of the tendency of multinationals to standardise systems across their networks. It added that it was concerned that such organisations could inadvertently end up storing the information for longer than a year.
The ICCL said in a letter to Ireland's 15 MEPs that in its present state, the directive allows the "blanket retention" of data and this raises concerns about the right to privacy. "It is important that the European Parliament support measures to protect privacy at a European level," wrote the organisation's co-chair, Malachy Murphy.
"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," Murphy told ElectricNews.Net.
In the letter, the ICCL urged the country's MEPs to support amendments to the directive. Amendments have been tabled prohibiting "any form of wide-scale or general or exploratory surveillance" and demanding data access be granted only in "entirely exceptional" circumstances.
"If the directive is passed in its current form, then all telecommunication users run the risk that details of every call, e-mail, fax or surfing session they carry out will be stored," commented Murphy.
He added that the ICCL had no problem with law enforcement agencies seeking warrants to then track data transmission by potential criminals, but said the directive allowed them to collect information on all citizens "by default."
The Irish Data Protection Commissioner, Joe Meade, told The Irish Times that the introduction of blanket surveillance could be seen as disproportionate. However, he added that he would be required to implement any changes agreed by member-states.
The ICCL is at http://www.iccl.ie.
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