Retention period for phone data to be cut

THE amount of time for which people’s telephone records are retained will be reduced from three years to two under new legislation to be published today.

People’s internet records, meanwhile, will be retained for a year under the Communications (Retention of Data) Bill 2009, which will be announced by Justice Minister Dermot Ahern.

The issue of data retention has caused much controversy in recent years, and brought the Government into conflict with the Data Protection Commissioner.

The Government introduced an act in 2005 which required telecommunications companies to retain data for three years in case it was needed by the authorities to prevent or detect crime or uphold the security of the State.

This was despite the objections of the Data Protection Commissioner, who argued the three-year retention period was too long, and did “not strike the correct balance”.

In 2006, the European Union introduced a new directive which sought to harmonise data retention obligations across the member states.

Under the directive, member states must ensure data is retained for a minimum of six months and not more than two years.

Today’s bill will transpose that directive into Irish law, and as a result, the data retention period for phone records will fall from three to two years.

Internet data will be held for 12 months.

In an attempt to allay fears about the invasion of privacy, Mr Ahern will today stress that the data being retained will not include the content of telephone calls or emails or similar.

Instead, it will simply provide information about the “who, where and when” of a communication.

In the case of a phone call, for example, this would mean the retention of data to identify the caller and recipient, the time and duration of the call, and the locations involved.

The EU directive states clearly that content cannot be retained: “No data revealing the content of the communication may be retained pursuant to this directive.”

The bill will provide that a member of the Garda not below the rank of chief superintendent may request a service provider to disclose data if needed for the prevention or investigation of a crime.

It will also allow an officer of the Defence Forces, not below the rank of colonel, to request data in the interests of safeguarding the security of the State and an officer of the Revenue Commissioners not below the rank of principal officer to request data for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of specified revenue offences.