Telecommunications data retention - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On 15 March 2006 the European Union formally adopted Directive 2006/24/EC, on "the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC".^[1][2] The Directive requires Member States to ensure that communications providers must retain, for a period of between 6 months and 2 years, necessary data as specified in the Directive

• to trace and identify the source of a communication;
• to trace and identify the destination of a communication;
• to identify the date, time and duration of a communication;
• to identify the type of communication;
• to identify the communication device;
• to identify the location of mobile communication equipment.

The data is required to be available to competent national authorities in specific cases, "for the purpose of the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime, as defined by each Member State in its national law".

The Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) committee of the European Parliament had recommended that data be retained for a maximum of only 12 months; that it be made available only with a judicial warrant, and only in connection with crimes serious enough to qualify for a European arrest warrant; and that communications providers be compensated for the cost of the data storage.^[3] But these recommendations were put aside after private representations were made, over the heads of the MEPs who had been specialising on the dossier, by the German government to the German leaders of the dominant Socialist and Christian Democrat blocs in the Parliament.

Where would we be if the governments could not check up on their citizens telephone conversations and how their phones travel through the days?

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