A European Union parliament committee has approved an amended version of the controversial data retention rules, which will see telephone calls and Internet use logged for six months to a year.

The European Parliament's civil liberties committee voted by 33 to eight in favour of the new rules, with five abstentions. The full Parliament will vote on the measures in December, and member state approval will also be needed before the rules become law.

In Thursday's vote, the committee also voted that member states should reimburse telecoms firms for the additional costs of complying with the new rules.

The lawmakers also voted in favour of inserting a new provision in the bill to ensure "effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties" for infringements of the rules.

The committee also agreed that only a judge could authorise access to telephone and Internet traffic, a condition absent in the Commission proposal.

This is at least a lot better than the original UK draft. For those interested, ISP's will be required to log the IP address of the computer, telephone number of connection to Internet, name and address of the subscriber and the date and time of logging in and off.