Czech Republic Requiring Operators to Retain Call Data Records

The Czech Republic's Chamber of Deputies has passed a controversial law which requires the local mobile operators to retain all call records for use by the security services. The bill, which the government says simply brings the country in line with existing EU legislation was opposed by the Social Democrats and Communists. It passed after the Green party changed their stance and decided to support it.

The new bill will however also require operators to log missed calls as well as their usual Call Detail Records (CDRs)

The Social Democrats shadow interior minister, Frantisek Bublan said the main failing of the new law was that the state would continue to pay the costs incurred by the operators for storing the records. In most countries, the storage costs are borne by the operators themselves as part of their operating license conditions.

"Citizens themselves are paying for spying on them," Helena Svatosova from Iuridicum Remedium that deals with cases of human rights restrictions told the Czech News Agency.

"We are concerned about security bodies' efforts to introduce the duty of the provision free of charge the information on our clients' calls and also by the pressure on the constant and unnecessary increasing the amount of this information," operator Vodafone spokesman Filip Hruby said in reaction to the bill.

The new law still has to be passed by the Senate and then signed by President Vaclav Klaus before it becomes effective.

Posted to the site on 24th April 2008