IP Democracy: Feds Push on Mandatory Data Retention Rules

The feds are keeping up the pressure on ISPs and other Internet companies to adopt mandatory data retention policies that would store data on user activity for up to two years. CNET’s Declan McCullagh has been on this trail for sometime now and reports on a meeting held yesterday with 15 industry representatives at the Justice Department during which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller pressed the companies to agree to keep the data for law enforcement purposes.

AOL, Comcast, Google, Microsoft, Verizon Communications and trade associations had representatives at the meeting. What’s murky is exactly what the government wants the companies to retain. According to this report from The New York Times’ Saul Hansell and Eric Lichtblau nothing definitive is on the table although general parameters have been floated. (A read of these two articles leaves the impression that DOJ and the FBI are kind of flailing about, holding meetings with no specific agenda, and taking their time to arrive at actionable proposals).

While initial proposals were vague, executives from companies that attended the meeting said they gathered that the department was interested in records that would allow them to identify which individuals visited certain Web sites and possibly conducted searches using certain terms.

It also wants the Internet companies to retain records about whom their users exchange e-mail with, but not the contents of e-mail messages, the executives said. The executives spoke on the condition that they not be identified because they did not want to offend the Justice Department.

A number of mandatory data retention laws have been introduced that would expand the storage of personal online data. Yesterday, the Center for Democracy and Technology released this memo that highlights the dangers inherent in those proposals. Aside from the obvious risks these draft bills pose to personal privacy generally, the vast collection of data could serve as “honeypots” for trial lawyers in civil cases and are “not likely to be effective” given the “one-size-fits-all” specifications, which may not be specific enough in certain cases, the CDT says.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on June 3, 2006 9:06 AM to IP Democracy