Funny You Should Mention...

Becky Hogge, in a column in OpenDemocracy.net, writes about legal action taken by Digital Rights Ireland against their own government, challenging the EU Data Retention Directive.

The Eu directive calls for telephone companies and internet service providers to keep records of communications traffic data for each one of their customers for a period of up to three years. Communications traffic data is a log of who you have called or emailed, when, and - in the case of mobile telephones - where you were at the time. The very thought of it is astounding. Although the content of your emails and telephone calls would remain private, the data stored would be more than enough to create a detailed picture of your colleagues, friends and lovers, your lifestyle, your movements, even your sleeping patterns.

What's more, the directive comes clearly marked with that familiar health warning "anti-terrorism legislation" (it was first proposed after the Madrid train bombings of 11 March 2004), and as such is worryingly equivocal on who will have access to this data. Indeed, sloppy wording means it could well be searched for clues in civil as well as criminal investigations. Tellingly, during negotiations, some lobbyists for the music industry expressed interest in using the data in their fight against peer-to-peer file sharing.