The government plans to extend the law to require internet
service providers (ISPs) to keep records of the public's e-mail and
web use by March next year.
Under the government proposals, ISPs will be required to record
details such as the identity of the sender and recipient, the time
and location of the communication, and the type of message.
The details are part of a Home Office document that
calls for comment on the proposed legislation.
Many so-called communications services suppliers (CSPs) already
collect this information voluntarily. The proposed law would make
it mandatory.
The new law would make it easier for the government to feed its
proposed
centralised communications traffic database. It could more
easily ask questions such as "how many people who have one mobile
phone account also have another account with a different mobile
network?".
A spokesman for ISPA, the
ISPs' association, said the proposal did not come as a surprise,
but that that ISPA was studying them before commenting in detail.
The likely sticking points were the retention period, reimbursement
for costs incurred and precisely what data was to be collected, he
said.
The consultation is to fulfil the need to comply with European
Directive 2006/24/EC on data retention.
It requires telecommunications providers and internet service
providers to store the origination and destination details of all
fixed-wire and mobile calls, e-mails and voice over internet
protocol (VoIP) calls, among other data, for up to two years.
The European Commission has appointed an expert group to
finalise the definition of the data to be retained. It will meet in
November this year.
Ireland and another member state are challenging the directive
in the European Court of Justice on procedural grounds,
The UK had set a self-imposed deadline of 15 March 2009 to
extend the law to internet-based communications.
A spokesman for the Internet
Telephone Service Providers' Association said a lot of the
providers keep the required data as a matter of course. However,
ITSPA would respond in detail to the consultation document, he
said.