NEW EU PROPOSAL TO STORE TELECOM DATA 450 MILLION CITIZENS

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

NEW EU PROPOSAL TO STORE TELECOM DATA 450 MILLION CITIZENS

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France, Ireland, the UK and Sweden have made a joint
proposal to the Council of the European Union to store the
telecommunication data of all 450 million EU citizens for a
period of 12 to 36 months, for law enforcement purposes.

If the ministers of the member states accept the proposal
for a framework decision, all traces of telephony of
internet usage of all EU citizens will be stored for a long
time. These so-called traffic data reveal who has been
calling and e-mailing whom, which websites they have
visited, and even where people were with their mobile phones.

The draft framework decision addresses providers of
telephony and internet, both networks and services. They
will have to store the traffic data of all their users, not
just those of suspects. Since there are only few people in
Europe without a telephone, gsm or internet, in the newly
enlarged Europe this decision would affect the privacy and
freedom of expression of 450 million citizens.

The traffic data will be accessible for law enforcement
authorities and intelligence services, not just nationally,
but across all EU-borders. The member states decide
themselves on the powers they grant to obtain access
nationally.

Privacy and civil rights groups reject mandatory data
retention of all citizens. By storing everybody's
communication data, the principle is violated of being
considered innocent until proven guilty. Companies are
forced to store large amounts of highly sensitive personal
data, even if there is not a single valid business purpose.
Market parties thus become an extended arm of the law. With
this proposal, Europe sets out a fundamental new course in
law enforcement; from specific investigations to general
surveillance of all citizens.

The alternative, specific preservation of data about
suspects, is brushed off in the draft decision. "In
investigations, it may not be possible to identify the data
required or the individual involved until many months or
years after the original communication." No further
motivation is given concerning the necessity and efficiency
of the proposed measure.

The proposal comes less than a month after the EU heads of
state accepted a new list of measures against terrorism,
including a new high priority to introduce mandatory data
retention on 1 June 2005, described in EDRI-gram
2.6. Many experts believe the proposal was written a long
time before the attacks on Madrid on 11 March 2004,
following an earlier initiative by the Danish presidency of
the EU to make an inventory of existing data retention
schemes and seek a compromise. Currently, there is no legal
obligation to store telecom traffic data for law enforcement
purposes in Austria, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and
Sweden. In the UK providers were invited to find a
self-regulatory solution to retain data, but government had
an apparent lack of success in convincing the
ISPs that this was in their best interest and is now working
on a legal obligation. Both in Finland and in the
Netherlands proposals for mandatory data retention are
underway as well. The situation in the newly acceded
EU-countries is not clear yet.

Draft framework on data retention (28.04.2004)
http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/04/st08/st08958.en04.pdf

EDRI-gram 2.6 (24.03.2004)
http://www.edri.org/?id=000100000143

Answers to EU questionnaire on data retention (16.09.2002)
http://www.bof.nl/docs/data_retention_answers.pdf

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Nou, daar gaan we weer!!!!

450 mlj. kunnen weer opdraven voor de zwakkzinnige gedachte
van een paar malloten. Enige garantie dat die opslag zelf
niet misbruikt kan gaan worden laten we voorlopig maar weer
even buiten beschouwing?

Henk Elegeert

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