Posted: 11th Jan, 2006 By: MarkJ
Home Office Minister Hazel Blears has used an online blog site to help communicate why the government feels adoption of EU data retention laws to be both "necessary and proportionate":
A key part of Europe's strategy for tackling terrorism and organised crime was put in place last month when members of the European Parliament voted in favour of measures to ensure phone and internet records can be retained for up to two years for use in terrorist and criminal investigations.
The agreement, which had been a key goal of the UK's Presidency of the EU, places a vital tool in the hands of law enforcement agencies across Europe. It means phone and internet records - but crucially not the content of communications - are available to tackle terrorism and serious organised crime such as drugs or people trafficking.
The directive will require firms to store:
data that can trace fixed or mobile telephone calls;
the time and duration of telephone calls;
details of connections made to the Internet; and
details, but not the content, of internet e-mail and internet telephony services.
It's certainly a new and interesting way for government to communicate with the public, although in another sense it's little more than a press release.
Unfortunately it's now too late to make any major changes to the adopted policy, thus we just have to cross our fingers and hope that it doesn't get abused as other measures introduced under the anti-terrorism guise have been.