90 organisations support PI / EDRI statement against data retention

By EDRi · September 15, 2004

Privacy International (PI) and European Digital Rights (EDRI) have published their
joint answer to the consultation on mandatory data retention. The Directorate Generals on Information Society and on Justice and Home Affairs from the European Commission asked for public comments on a proposed retention regime across Europe between 12 and 36 months for all traffic data generated by using fixed and mobile telephony and Internet.

90 civil rights organisations across Europe, the United States and other countries around the world have responded rapidly in showing their concern about this trend of increasing surveillance in such a disproportionate way. Also 89 companies (mostly specialised in IT) have endorsed the statement.

The response can be found at
http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/terrorism/rpt/responsetoretention.html

The EU plans the wide-spread retention of personal data resulting from communications, or so-called traffic data. We argue that any such retention is necessarily a hazardously invasive act. With the progress of technology, this data is well beyond being simple logs of who we’ve called and when we called them. Traffic data can now be used to create a map of human associations and more importantly, a map of human activity and intention.

As technologies become more invasive, and as laws are increasingly reluctant to protect individual rights, the European Union should be fulfilling its role to uphold the rights of individuals. Data retention is an invasive and illegal practice with illusory benefits.

!!General background information
* http://www.privacyinternational.org/retention
*quintessenz EU Data Retention Doqubase

!AUTHORS

!ENDORSING ORGANISATIONS
International organisations

National organisations

!ENDORSING COMPANIES