The European Union voted this week to accept measures meaning all data from phone, SMS and internet usage now has to be collected by providers for local governments - all in name of the War on Terror. J.J. King reports on the view from the blogosphere.

Deputized To Spy

Following the acceptance of controversial proposals on communications surveillance, Europe's internet, SMS and phone data now has to be collected by telecommunication companies, to be used by governments in their fight against 'crime and terrorism'.

Telcos will now have to keep data such as the location of all mobile phones, the time of each fixed and cell phone call made in Europe; whether a call is answered or not; the duration of the call; and other details that can help trace the caller. On the Internet side, they'll be required to record the times people connect to the Internet, IP (Internet Protocol) addresses -- although the actual content of the communications will not, according to the proposals, be retained.

Proposal in full (PDF):
europa.eu.int
Europe Passes Tough New Detention Laws:
news.com.com ----

'No Consideration'

The Digital Rights Ireland blog has posted a detailed entry on the developments, explaining that although similar provisions have been around in Ireland since 2002 (when they were apparently deployed in secret), the new EU legislation goes far further. The blog criticises what it calls a 'rush job', 'the fastest ever to be adopted by the European Parliament - moving from initial European Commission draft to final vote in less than three months, as opposed to the usual period of over a year. The rush was attributable to the UK Presidency’s need to have the matter dealt with during their term of office.'

Irish MEP Gay Mitchell, who voted against the measure said the rush meant little time for discussion, and no consideration for its technological or economic impacts. Calculations on technology site Slashdot seemed to bear this out, showing the amount of data it is now necessary to capture to be beyond current technical capacity. 'A couple of years', reckoned one poster, though 'with the rate traffic is increasing, they may never catch up.'

Digital Rights Ireland:
digitalrights.ie
Slashdot on EU Privacy:
ask.slashdot.org
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Roll Your Own Privacy

Blogger Johnny Chaddha is amongst those wondering how to keep their information secure in the aftermath of the EU decision. Like many others, he has his suspicions that governments will be monitoring more than the legislation let on. Chaddha recommends GNU Privacy Guard in conjunction with Enigmail and Mozilla Thunderbird for email; for telephony, he wonders if Skype, which uses the AES cipher, could be more secure than a landline. The jury is out on that one.

Others have high hopes for Tor, an anonymous internet-based communication system which, paradoxically, has been part funded by the US Office of Naval Research and the Defense's Department's DARPA, for use in securing government communications.

Tor's technology, now sponsored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was designed precisely to provide Internet users with protection against the sort of 'traffic analysis' that EU communications providers will now be attempting to implement. The EFF calls this 'a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.'

With clients for Windows, OS X and Linux, it's at least worth giving it a go. What was designed to protect the government's privacy may now have a second life protecting ours.

Johnny Chaddha's Blog:
johnny.chaddha.se
Tor:
tor.eff.org