US ISPs To Retain Data

2nd June, 2006: The 'War on Terror' provides yet more scope for storage as US Federal Communications Commission seeks to force Internet Service Providers to store data for two years.

The FCC is apparently asking that the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) be extended so that ISPs hold onto all data that passes through their systems in the same way that records are currently held by Telcos. Currently, US ISPs are mandated to hold records for 90-days.

This follows the European Union's decision to enforce similar rules on earlier this year which require both minimum (six months) and maximum (two years) retention periods for telecommunications companies and ISPs; the legislation is due to take effect in 2008 but does not relate to the content of communications.

This is obviously raising concerns about privacy - and has already faced a rocky road to passing. Earlier this month, the representative from Wisconsin, F. James Sensenbrenner, who is also chairman of the House Judiciary Committee withdrew an early draft of legislation to achieve this new retention schedule.

The draft was far reaching and covered the content of Web pages, electronic mail, documents, images, audio and video files, online discussion boards, and Web logs. ISPs were to have to be able to present, 'at a minimum… records, such as the name and address of the subscriber or registered user (and what) user identification or telephone number was assigned'.

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