New e-mail Legislation applies from 15 March 2009 - 22-Jan-09
Blame the European Commission - but like it or not, all e-mails have to be recorded for posterity by ISP's from 15 March 2009. From that date, the information must be made available to any public body able to make a successful legal request.
I find it quite amusing that this expensive exercise will not only store every e-mail you send and every e-mail you receive (that's double counting for a start!) - but also record every piece of junk e-mail!
Conservative peer, the Earl of Northesk, said, "This degree of storage is equivalent to having access to every second, every minute, every hour of your life.... Under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, privacy is a fundamental right... it is important to protect the principle of privacy because once you've lost it it's very difficult to recover."
The Home Office has declared the information a vital tool in the fight on terrorism. But should we be worried? Telephone companies already hold similar depth of information as part of the billing process. Phone call detail can be viewed as critical management information by some commercial organisations.
And how long will the information be held? 12 months is the suggested period. Is the cost of such data storage justifiable? Lib. Dem. Home Affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, said the government "consistently misunderstood the need to balance security with liberty".
I suggest that as with most legislation, more clarification and some fine tuning will be required. Let's hope it's mixed in with a modicum of common sense.
How will "terrorism" be defined? Do campaigning groups planning disruptive action qualify as terrorists? "Smaller" ISP's (whatever they are) will be exempt from the new legislation, so if you are contemplating a little civil disobedience, choose a very small or newly created ISP for maximum effect!
Source: NFP Techno
|
|
|
|
