Operators face 'onerous burden' of EU data retention laws

Communications players are in the midst of readying themselves for the arduous task of getting their systems in shape for new data retention laws designed to prevent, investigate and solve serious crimes.

But no-one in the industry can rest of their laurels as the new EU Directive on Data

Retention is far reaching and will affect those working in the internet telephony, e-mail and messaging arenas in addition to traditional mobile and fixed operators, warns analyst Frost & Sullivan.

EU member states have until September this year to convert the directive into national laws governing the retention of traffic and location data for certain minimum and maximum periods.

During this time, advises the analyst, it is imperative that service providers and other organisations work with regulatory agencies and governments to ensure that any issues unresolved by the European legislation are dealt with during the national conversion.

Call detail record (CDR) systems will be affected by the changes in order to cope with increased data storage and management requirements, according to the analyst.

The new directive will also have an impact on affected operators' pockets, as they will need to invest time and money to assess and adapt current systems to ensure compliance. This will hit those not previously obligated to retain data particularly hard.

"Implementing solutions compliant with the EU Directive on Data Retention will result in an onerous burden on communications service providers and operators," said Frost's senior industry analyst Fernando Elizalde.

"The EU Directive introduces the idea of 'without undue delay' as a criterion to measure service providers' responsiveness to requests from law enforcement agencies. However, it is not clear how long the delay can be- interpretations of this criterion vary from minutes to a few hours."

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