The government is not extending the rules on telephone and internet data retention. What happens now?

Il Sole 24 Ore, July 4. The government has not extended the rules on telephone and internet data retention that expired on June 30. What happens now?

 

With all due respect to investigations into more serious crimes, from terrorism to the Mafia, as mentioned, which the 2015 decree was intended to protect (see the other article on this page). On this point, the Ministry of Justice has toned down any alarmism and stated that the rules and deadlines are those currently in force, thus without a general obligation to retain data. Exceptions, they reiterate at Via Arenula, will be considered if necessary should alarms be raised by prosecutors, but, they emphasize, these have not yet been recorded.

The data systematically requested by investigators and judicial police is "an impressive harvest," explains Fulvio Sarzana, legal representative of Assoprovider: "To retain all this information," he emphasizes, "electronic communications service providers must spend considerable sums." It should also be remembered that many communications only appear to be telephone calls, but voice services like VoIP actually generate electronic traffic.

In any case, we will see how companies in the sector will behave and if and how the legislator intends to resolve the issue.

It's true that, despite European constraints (it's worth remembering that the Luxembourg judges rejected indiscriminate, i.e., unlimited, data retention), the wave of Islamic terrorism sweeping the Old Continent has forced member states to adopt emergency measures that, quite bluntly, derogate from the rules. France, for example, has largely exceeded the constraints of EU regulations with its new anti-terrorism legislation requiring the retention of all telephone and internet traffic data.

 

Now, with the June 30th deadline having passed without legislator intervention, the basic rules apply again, namely those set forth in the Privacy Code, which require telephone traffic data to be retained for 24 months from the date of communication and internet traffic data for 12 months. This means that, today, telephone operators must retain only information relating to communications made within the past two years (i.e., from July 3, 2015, to the present), while internet operators must retain data relating to accesses from the last year (i.e., from July 3, 2016, to the present). Consequently, all prior data can (must?) be destroyed by those holding it.

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