IT&Telecom companies comment on Parliament's decision on the Data Retention Directive

Yesterday, Parliament decided that the government's proposal on how Sweden should implement the EU's so-called Data Retention Directive should be put on hold for a year. The directive concerns the storage of traffic data for law enforcement purposes.

According to the Constitution, a minority consisting of more than 1/6 of the voting members can push through a one-year postponement of a proposal concerning people's rights and freedoms. 62 members voted in favor of a postponement while 281 members voted to adopt the proposal. 6 members were absent.

IT&Telecom companies have not been opposed to the purpose of the bill to enable law enforcement authorities to access traffic data, but have been critical of the fact that the costs will be borne by the industry, that the requirements for what is to be stored have not been clear and that the introduction time has been unrealistically short.

- The postponement puts the industry back in a waiting mode. Whether this will make the timetables more realistic remains to be seen. But the criticism of the costs remains," says Nils Weidstam, business policy expert, IT&Telecom companies within Almega.

- For the past month, IT&Telekomföretagen has been leading a working group to develop an interface to be used when disclosing traffic data to the police. Participants in the group are all major operators, PTS and the Swedish Security Service. How this work will proceed will be discussed with the participants in the near future," concludes Nils Weidstam.

In a report, IT&Telekomföretagen has estimated the costs of introducing the Data Retention Directive at around SEK 1 billion. The proposal has stated that the costs for adaptations are in the order of SEK 200 million and that the annual cost is approximately SEK 20 million. Read the report here