In particular, mobile operators will have to retain for six months to two years the numbers of the caller and the person called, as well as the time of the conversation and information about the location of both participants. The same applies to SMS messages sent and received in Europe. Internet providers will be obliged to register and retain for up to two years information about the date and time of their clients' logins and logouts from the network.
"This is a great achievement in the fight against terrorism and organized crime," said British Home Secretary Charles Clarke. "Information about contacts via mobile and Internet communications often becomes a crucial link in the chain of investigation of such crimes as international drug trafficking or human trafficking." The British Home Secretary also recalled the serious role played by the tracking of telephone and Internet contacts in the investigation of the terrorist attacks in London this summer and in Madrid in March 2005.
However, the new bill also has opponents. A representative of the European Parliament's civil rights commission has already stated that the new rules "raise serious doubts as to their compliance with the legislation in force in the European Union in the area of human rights and freedoms, in particular the freedom to receive, disseminate and exchange information." In addition, purely technical difficulties may arise in the implementation of this bill.
Firstly, the project is extremely costly for mobile operators: they will need to set up new databases to store information accumulating over such a long period. In the UK alone, according to the influential newspaper The Times, mobile operators will need more than 6 million pounds for new equipment. This could lead to a sharp increase in the cost of mobile services. The EU Council of Justice Ministers has already proposed that the European Association of Telecommunications Networks, which includes, in particular, companies such as Deutsche Telekom, BT Group and TDC A/S, calculate the amount of expected costs across Europe.
Secondly, the new rules for registering incoming and outgoing information on the Internet threaten a sharp slowdown in network traffic. According to estimates by some experts, if Internet providers' databases store all information about users' contacts for two years, then processing the simplest request would take on average between 50 and 100 years, which naturally would lead to the collapse of the Internet as a means of communication and information exchange.