Government leads bid to widen EU surveillance

THE GOVERNMENT is leading a drive to enable unprecedented levels of surveillance on all forms of electronic communications throughout Europe.

If agreed by the EU Parliament, a draft proposal introduced by Ireland - along with France, Sweden and Britain - will see details of every telephone call and internet session logged and stored for between 12 and 36 months.

Under the proposal, telecom firms and internet providers will have to store details of all electronic communications to aid future police investigations.

And unlike previous proposals, which limited police access to records to specific investigations or prosecutions, the current plan would allow access for the “purpose of prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution” of any crime.

But controversially the system - which was first mooted at EU level in 2002 - will involve collecting vast amounts of data on the habits of the entire European population.

Outlining his concerns about the proposals in his 2002 annual report, Data Protection Commissioner Joe Meade said data stored from internet sessions would “encompass a record of every login session, every web page visited and read, every search term entered, every file downloaded, every purchase made”.

The addresses of all e-mail correspondence will also be captured while mobile phone logs - already stored for three years in Ireland - reveal the numbers dialled and locations of users.

Mr Meade last night expressed grave doubts over the legitimacy and legality of such broad measures.

“The systematic retention of all data for more than one year is not proportionate,” he said.

Data should only be kept longer if it is absolutely necessary in specific cases and for specific purposes, Mr Meade said.

That view will be echoed in a report by Europe’s Data Protection Commissioner’s report due next week.

The Commissioners have already emphasised that the proposed levels of retention constitutes an improper invasion of fundamental rights.

Malachy Murphy, Co-Chair of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) said not even the US Patriot Act went as far as the EU proposal.

“The nature of the data being retained and the time periods specified for that retention are disproportionate,” he said.

A spokesperson for Justice Minister Michael McDowell said work on a Communications Data Retention Bill, which would reflect the EU framework decision, was ongoing. Launching a consultation process for the Bill two years ago, Mr McDowell said: “No reasonable person is going to object to the principle of retaining information which can be vital in bringing perpetrators of serious crime to justice,” he said.