The Government yesterday announced that it would be adopting data retention requirements for ISPs where ISP’s providing you with your internet connection will be obligated to retain your data including the your session data and duration. Internet companies do keep records of user behavior but not for long. Jason Weinstein of the Department of Justice today in a statement said, “data retention is fundamental to the Department’s work in investigating and prosecuting almost every type of crime.”
The US Government would adopt the European laws where ISPs must hang onto logs for at least six months and no more than two years. These logs contain huge databases that grow exponentially based on the internet access being used by an ISP’s customers.
Privacy advocates have already started to question this as an intent to get a criminal will require ISP’s to monitor websites being visited by its customers which the ISP’s would not like to do. A unnamed Justice Department official said that his many pedophiles were out there who could be identified in an early stage when they are caught browsing or visiting such sites. However many argue that this is still a breach of privacy.
Would you be okay with this?