The UK government has announced plans for new ‘emergency’ laws to allow telephone and internet data to be retained.
It follows a ruling in April by the European Court of Justice that said Europe’s Data Retention Directive was invalid because it didn’t contain enough safeguards. The directive allowed EU governments to force communication service providers to retain certain communications data that could then be used by the police and other government agencies. Although this information didn’t include the content of voice calls or text messages, it contained details about when calls were made and what numbers were dialled.
According to the UK government, failing to introduce new laws could result in companies deleting this data in order to comply with the law.
It says the new data retention and investigation powers bill - which will be subject to review in 2016 - will remove any doubt about the legal basis of UK data requests.
[Speech by Rt Hon Theresa May MP; BBC News; The Guardian]