People have never been more aware of incursions into their privacy than they are today. From the growth of CCTV cameras on Britain’s streets, to the numerous accounts of mislaid personal data or hacks into central databases, the security of our personal information is a growing concern.
EU rules obliging ISPs to store transaction data for two years could have significant cost and privacy implications, reports Manek Dubash.
Now there is a measure on the statute books that helps cement the government’s surveillance capabilities: the EU’s Data Retention Directive (DRD), which the government must implement.
The directive mandates ISPs to keep records for two years of every transaction that passes though their hands. The directive’s purpose is not to force ISPs to retain data — the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa) kick-started that process in 2000 — but to harmonise the retention period across the EU.
Note that ISPs must retain not content but connections: the fact you sent me an email, or I called you, for example, rather than the actual email or recording of a call.
No big deal?
So what does the directive mean for ISPs, and how much will cost them to comply — and does it mean your broadband bills will go up? We contacted a number of ISPs and, while all said their customers’ privacy was important, they confirmed they would be abiding by the law of the land. Most also said that the directive was no big deal, as much of this information is kept by ISPs anyway, for billing purposes.
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