The Irish Department of Justice has denied a report that
appeared in the Irish Times on Thursday which claimed that a new
bill being drafted sets a period of between two and four years for
retention of citizens' data collected from phone calls, faxes,
e-mail and internet use.
According to the report, the Telecommunications Retention of Data Traffic Bill, which the Irish government aims to implement by spring 2003, requires ISPs to store information about the destination of subscribers' e-mails and details of web sites visited over extended periods, and could also cover location data of mobile phone users.
Under Ireland's current laws, such data can only be retained for billing purposes, and must be deleted after six months. However, a spokesperson for the Department Justice told ElectricNews.net that, contrary to the Irish Times report, no decision has been made on how long the data must be retained. He added that all interested parties will be consulted before its publication.
No date for the publication of the bill has been set yet.
