Europe’s Plan to Track Phone and Net Use

EUROPE'S PLAN TO TRACK PHONE AND NET USE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Victoria Shannon]
European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people’s Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive. Even now, Internet service providers in Europe divulge customer information -- which they normally keep on hand for about three months, for billing purposes -- to police officials with legally valid orders on a routine basis, said Peter Fleischer, the Paris-based European privacy counsel for Google. The data concerns how the communication was sent and by whom but not its content. But law enforcement officials argued after the terrorist bombings in Spain and Britain that they needed better and longer data storage from companies handling Europe’s communications networks. European Union countries have until 2009 to put the Data Retention Directive into law, so the proposals seen now are early interpretations. But some people involved in the issue are concerned about a shift in policy in Europe, which has long been a defender of individuals’ privacy rights.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/business/worldbusiness/20privacy.html
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