ISPs and telcos have to retain data

Net4Nowt :: News Story

The law will mean ISPs will have to retain logs of who sent an Email where at what time (though the content of the Email doesn't need to be stored) and telcos will have to log call information. The logs will have to be retained for 12 to 36 months.

There is already criticism saying that criminals will just use public phones, pay as you go mobile and Email accounts outside Europe, however it's now law.

This will put a big burden on ISPs who will have to find ways to log the data (which increases loading on mail systems) and of course where to store it all. Since 70%+ of mail is SPAM, that could lead to a very watefull log of SPAM messages.

Telcos are in a less difficult position as they already log call data for billing, and generally billing data has to be retained for seven years anyway.