EU sues Sweden, demands law requiring ISPs to retain data
Found on Ars Technica on Wednesday, 27 May 2009
The EU passed the Data Retention Directive years ago, a law that demands ISPs and search engines hold onto data long enough to help the cops (but not long enough to cause privacy problems). But Sweden never passed it into national law, and the European Commission has now sued the country to make sure a bill appears.
ISPs like Sweden's Bahnhof responded to IPRED by simply deleting all their data on a regular basis-a perfectly legal move. But when the Data Retention Directive goes into effect, that option will be taken off the table.
Data retention won't help in those cases the politicians use as examples to enforce it. Terrorists are smart enough to use encrypted communication, and so are pedophiles. The main reason to force ISPs to keep data is pushed by groups with private interests to fight against P2P. And once it is introduced it gets easier to abuse the once limited access to this data more and more.