MEPs reject Charles Clarke version of EU data storage law

5.05.45pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 27th Sep 2005

The European Parliament has kicked firmly into the long grass a proposal put forward by 4 EU Member States including the UK for retention for up to 4 years of data on everyone's phone calls, emails and internet use. This measure was strongly pushed by the British Home Secretary Charles Clarke.

MEPs will now examine last week's alternative and better proposal from the European Commission which has to be agreed through 'co-decision' of the European Parliament and EU governments, thus requiring the approval of MEPs.

The Liberal Democrats' European justice spokeswoman Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP said:

"Charles Clarke backed the wrong horse in trying to push through a poorly drafted measure which excluded both national and Euro-MPs from real scrutiny. As a result, he has lost time in getting legitimate and targeted data-retention laws agreed before the British EU presidency ends in December."

"The Commission's draft is more reasonable, but the proposed 1-year storage period is still too long, the type of data for retention too extensive, and the protection against misuse of data by police too weak. We are told that EU law cannot constrain access by national intelligence services, but this would torpedo any privacy guarantees."

"The evidence provided of the need to keep records for a long time is thin. No decent rebuttal has been delivered of the case for a short retention time plus specific 'freezing orders' for communications records of suspects."

Note: The Commission proposal would require phone companies and ISPs to store information on customers' phone and mobile use for one year, and internet use for 6 months. It restricts the use of the data by law enforcement agencies to investigation of serious criminal offences, such as terrorism and organised crime. This law would be linked to a separate one due to be proposed on Wednesday next week (Oct 5th), on data protection rules for police use of information.