EU Data Retention Law Approved

A new law that will mandate European ISPs and telecommunications companies to keep details of the communications of their customers for up to two years was given the go-ahead by the EU Wednesday. Although the content is not recorded, details of the time, destination of the call and length would be stored.

Member countries of the European Union would have until August 2007 to comply. The new legislation has its critics, among them human rights and privacy groups that say the law is a threat to civil liberties. Supporters of the law dismiss such a notion, arguing the data is essential in the fight against terrorism and citing the Madrid train bombings as an example of how such surveillance could have prevented the attack.