Expansion retention seems likely

A leaked EU document suggests the extension of the retention requirements. The number of cases in which data may be obtained may be extended and if the investigation is, we need more data to be stored.

In the internal document says the European Commission back on the hold, which requires that internet and telecom providers, data about internet and phone calls for six months to a year, to keep. The piece is secret, but is by an Austrian privacy-organisation to the outside world. The authenticity of the piece has not been confirmed.

The hold is intended for law enforcement and security services in cases of terrorism and serious crime, but in the piece of writing the European Commission that the solving of other crimes also can benefit from the telecomdata. More hacking would be only with the help of data retention can be solved, it is in the document.

Also, ‘urgent’ cases of people who have themselves suffered damage, missing or other emergency are not subject to the retention obligation, the commission writes, thus probably suggesting that the hold should be extended. Also sound, according to the European Commission calls for the data retention in the fight against copyright infringement.

Investigation and security services, according to the commission indicated that the litigation hold ‘technology neutral’ should be, making it no longer matter which service someone uses. In all cases, information about the communication, such as who with whom communicates, must be retained. If the desire of the officers of the law to it, are also web forums, instant messaging services and social media under the retention requirements.

In the piece repeats the European Commission, the claim that data retention helps in the solving of crimes. In april last year, the commission said in a review already established that the litigation hold was effective. The onbrak, however, to substantiate that assertion. It is not tracked how useful the data retention is and there is no agreement on what really serious crime. Also, the majority of the EU member states, little or no statistics transferred; also the Netherlands and Belgium yielded little data. According to the Dutch secretary of state Fred Teeven of Security and Justice, the effectiveness afterwards ‘difficult to determine’.

In the new document, draws the commission that there is more evidence for the effectiveness of data retention and that EU member states, it must cooperate. Very uninhibited it seems the European Commission is thus not to be; there is not prompted to enter data that allows the effectiveness of data retention can be investigated, but data that can be substantiated. However, the European Commission admitted that there privacygebied the one and the other, in the hold, falls to brands.

According to the Dutch privacy organization Bits of Freedom, can the European Commission do not prove that data retention is useful and this huge infringement on our privacy justifies’. The privacy organization will have long to the storage of data for the data retention. Although the content of communications is not stored, the investigation and security services see, those who had contact. The obligation does not however apply to foreign providers, and is so easy to work around.