EU-level coordination and oversight should ensure that interception requirements do not create artificial barriers to the single market in communications services. Requirements should be proportionate and subject to strict laws and legal scrutiny. Efforts to align legal intercept requirements across the EU would help address potential barriers and additional costs to CSPs as a result of requirements, procedures and technical arrangements. The EU data protection directives make a valuable contribution to the security of communications networks and increase users confidence in modern communications networks. Where communication data is processed and stored, current legal provisions require CSPs to delete customer records once they are no longer needed for billing purposes.
LEAs can request access to stored data in the course of an investigation in line with national law.
This framework is changing as traffic migrates to new types of data networks. Customers are billed according to usage rather than per communication and customer logs are used primarily as a technical means of maintaining the integrity of a network rather than for billing purposes. Current EC law provides for an exemption from data protection regulations for law enforcement purposes but it is invoked differently in each jurisdiction which can create legal uncertainty for CSPs and barriers to the free movement of services. The communications industry should be actively involved in this debate at all stages. In all cases, new requirements must be limited to what is necessary and proportionate, and clearly beneficial to criminal investigations.