[x-pubpol] Details of all internet traffic should be logged – MEP

[Joly MacFie]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/28/details_of_all_internet_traffic_should_be_logged_says_mep/

A member of the European Parliament wants users' "traffic data", rather
than the specific content of online communications, to be logged under
expanded EU laws on data storage. This is according to a statement from the
European People's Party (EPP) at the European Parliament.

Tiziano Motti, an Italian MEP, wants to extend the EU's Data Retention
Directive "to content providers (social networks etc) in order to identify
more easily those who commit crimes, including paedophilia through sexual
harassment on the net," the EPP said.

"This is a request which does not refer specifically the online content,
which falls under the Regulation of Wiretapping, but to the traffic data
developed by the person uploading material of any kind on the net:
comments, pictures, videos," it said.

The Data Retention Directive was established in 2006 to make it a
requirement for telecoms companies to retain personal data for a period –
determined by national governments – of between six months and two years.
The Commission decided to regulate following terrorist attacks in Madrid in
2004 and London in 2005.

Under the Directive, telecoms firms are required to retain identifying
details of phone calls and emails, such as the traffic and location, to
help the police detect and investigate serious crimes. The details exclude
the content of those communications.

Motti's proposals, developed with the help of Italian computer expert Fabio
Ghioni (author ofHacker Republic), would involve the data being stored in
an internet "black box" enabling the "truth of what happened on the web" to
be recorded, according to an automated translation of a report on Ghioni's
website (in Italian).

Ghioni's "Logbox" system would involve encrypting the traffic data and
giving the "key" to access it to the user, an "authority" and a lawyer,
according to an automated translation of areport (in Italian) by Italian
Christian magazine, Famiglia Cristiana.

Ghioni said his "precise mechanism" would need the "collaboration" of
operating system manufacturers such as Microsoft and Apple to log all
activities on their systems, according to the automated translation of the
report. That data would be "digitally signed in order to be traced to a
specific computer and its user", allowing paedophiles to be identified
"regardless of any trick [they may use] to anonymise any illegal activity",
and would be inexpensive to operate, Ghioni said, according to the
automated translation of the report.

Motti believes that establishing a system for storing "traffic data" would
make it possible to enforce suggestions he previously made regarding data
retention laws last year, according to the EPP.

In June 2010, the European Parliament backed proposals outlined in a
"written declaration" by Motti and fellow MEP Anna Záborská to set up a
system to act as an "early warning" system to identify paedophiles and
other sex offenders. A written declaration has no legislative effect on its
own, but is formally communicated by the Parliament to the European
Commission in a bid to influence its policy if adopted.

The adopted declaration also called for the scope of the Directive to cover
"data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly
available electronic communications services or of public communications
networks" and be extended "to search engines in order to tackle online
child pornography and sex offending rapidly and effectively".

In April this year, the European Commission said it would update the Data
Retention Directive after conceding that it does not always adequately
protect privacy or personal data.

The Commission was responding to a critical report that it had commissioned
to provide feedback on the impact the Directive was having on businesses
and consumers, and how it was being implemented in EU countries.

At the time the Commission said that it would consider strengthening
regulations of the storage, access to and use of retained data to improve
the protection of personal data.

In May, UK Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said that the Commission's plans to
revise the Directive should be viewed "with caution" after he listed
examples of how stored communications data had been used to thwart
terrorism and serious crime during a speech at the British Chamber of
Commerce in Brussels

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