UK wants firms to retain communications data
Summary: European countries are pushing for tougher data retention regulations that would force firms to keep records of phone calls and Web surfing for a year
Five European countries are pushing the EU to adopt regulations that would force companies to store telephone and Internet data for a year, in a bid to help authorities fight terrorism.
Companies would have to retain information on the Web sites their employees visited and the phone numbers they dial — although not a record of the conversation itself — according to plans set out by German interior minister Otto Schily.
The UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy are urging other member states to join the initiative, according to the Financial Times.
Paul Talbut, chairman of the Storage Networking Industry Association Europe, said the move could have an impact on civil liberties and also on phone companies.
"It throws up issues about common standards on data retention, integrity and security policies," he said. "It does reveal phone companies have not only got to have systems to retrieve [data], but also keep [its] integrity."
The five countries have also agreed to share criminal and DNA data.
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
We all want to 'combat terrorism' etc but forcing EU companies to shoulder a burden of storing vast amounts of meaningless data for years is not the best way to go about it.