DOJ Seeks Mandatory Data Retention Requirement for ISPs

January 26th, 2011

Via: Computerworld:

The U.S. Department of Justice and an organization representing police chiefs from around the country renewed calls on Tuesday for legislation mandating Internet Service Providers (ISP) to retain certain customer usage data for up to two years.

The calls, which are stoking long standing privacy fears, were made at a hearing convened on Tuesday by a House subcommittee that is chaired by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin. Four years ago, Sensenbrenner proposed, and then quickly withdrew, legislation calling for mandatory data retention for ISPs.

In prepared testimony for today’s hearing, Jason Weinstein, deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, said that data retention was crucial to fighting Internet crimes (PDF document), especially online child pornography.

Current policies that only require ISPs to preserve usage data at the specific request of law enforcement authorities are just not sufficient, Weinstein said. Increasingly, law enforcement authorities are coming up empty-handed in their efforts to go after online predators and other criminals because of the unavailability of data relating to their online activities, Weinstein said.

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