Members of the European Parliament's civil
liberties committee have voted to limit to 12 months the maximum
period for which telephone companies and ISPs should store call
data logs.
The new rules are designed to help law enforcement
agencies track terrorist suspects, but could put the committee at
odds with European Union governments, who have been pushing for the
data to be kept for up to two years for telephone calls and up to
six months for internet data.
The draft legislation will now go back to the
Council of Ministers, made up of representatives from the EU
governments, for them to make further changes, with a compromise on
the final legislation the most likely outcome.
The committee also wants data retention requirements
to apply only to cases of serious crime rather than all crimes, as
EU governments had wanted, and wants national governments to
reimburse telephone and internet companies for the costs of storing
the data and making it available to law enforcement
agencies.