Data retention bill to be law by Christmas

The UK government has published its Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill and aims to make it law by Christmas.

Civil rights organisations are alarmed that the bill will exempt the UK government from sections of the Human Rights Act, allowing it to detain terrorist suspects indefinitely.

The contentious part of the bill for the IT industry is a section on data retention that will lead to a code of practice to guide internet service providers (ISPs) on how long they will have to retain email traffic data.

The government is still consulting the industry on how the code of practice will work, and what type of data will be stored that could be of value to law enforcement agencies.

UK-based ISPs are concerned that these powers, in conjunction with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act, will give police unrestricted access to email and web traffic data.

Steve Rawlinson, managing director at ClaraNet, said UK ISPs would be forced to locate vital infrastructure abroad to protect confidential customer information.