Recently, the Department of Justice provided testimony to Congress regarding the issue of Internet Service Provider data retention. The testimony emphasized the critical need to preserve digital data and highlighted several cases where investigations of serious crimes were inhibited due to the lack of data retention by the ISP.
Currently, there are no standard requirements for ISP data retention and practices vary widely among providers. Privacy advocates argue that data retention should be minimized in order to protect individual privacy and prevent misuse of data. They fear that a data retention mandate would create databases that could be used to track the internet activities of all users and could inhibit freedom of speech . Service providers argue that data retention requirements would pose a significant cost burden that would have to be passed on to the consumer . In balancing those concerns against the priority of public safety, it is important to consider the following:
1. Law enforcement's ability to obtain data is controlled through laws regarding subpoenas, court orders, search warrants and surveillance requests. A data retention mandate would not reduce the protections provided by those rules.
2. The consumer already bears a high cost for the damage inflicted by internet crime. Increasing the ability of law enforcement to investigate and prosecute internet criminals could reduce this cost burden.
Standardizing data retention rules for ISPs is an important step in improving the ability to fight internet crime and the DOJ should continue to work with the ISPs , Congress , and other interested parties to find the best solution.
Read the DOJ testimony here: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/Justice%20Data%20Retention%20Testimony.pdf
Read Time Warner Cable's data retention policies here: http://www.timewarnercable.com/corporate/subpoenacompliance.html