New email rules not an extension of police powers, privacy lawyer argues
Privacy campaigners have ushered in the new year with warnings that new EU rules compelling ISPs to keep a record of email communications for a year are an infringement of civil liberties.
However, Alex Brown, a partner at Simmons & Simmons’ and data privacy expert believes that the new law, which comes in to effect in March as the result of an EU directive, simply formalises a process that is already taking place.
The EU directive extended laws which compel telecommunications companies to keep records of fixed and mobile calls to email logs, giving member countries the choice of setting the retention period between 6 to 24 months. The Government opted for 12 months in a regime that will begin in the middle of March.
Whilst Brown understands how it can seem very ‘Big Brother’ he does point out that it is formalising a process which already exists and for which legal safeguards are in place.
“I can see how people could be concerned about this but we already have laws in place which allow the police to get access to this kind of data,” he says.
“These new rules have been a long time in coming and occasionally they get whipped up in to a story but basically all they’re doing is formalising the process and setting a limit for how long they are kept.”
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (known as Ripa) allows the police to ask a telecommunications provider or ISP to hand over call and email details with a court order. This will continue to be the case, only now the police can expect ISPs to have records going back for a year.
“Ripa is now pretty well established and it does have the safeguard of a senior police officer having to sign the request and present the case to the court which then has to consider whether or not to grant the warrant,” Brown continues.
“I really can’t see the courts allowing the police to go on so-called ‘fishing’ expeditions against individuals. So, the law is basically the same. All that’s changed is the duration for how long a record of who has emailed who has been formally set.
“The content of the message is not involved, it’s more a case of the police being able to build up links between different people by showing that they must know them because they’ve been emailing or calling them.”
