New EU anti-terror legislation will force the telecoms industry to increase costs for the UK's 4m small firms, a leading law firm has said.
According to Mace & Jones corporate lawyer Ian Hodgkinson, the Data Protection Directive, which was produced following the Madrid bombings and 7/7 attacks on the London transport system, small businesses will carry the added costs met by telecoms firms forced to save call data.
Storing data is a costly exercise, with one particular internet service provider in the UK already spending £26m on implementing the changes, with a further £9m needed to maintain the new system, Hodgkinson said.
Under the new directive, communications service providers will have to standardise the amount, type and length of time they store details about their customers' phone calls, emails, faxes, text messages, web based instant messages and other electronic communications, including location details of mobile phone calls.
Although the data won't include the content of any communication, it will ensure that law enforcement agencies can identify the sender and recipient and, for mobile phone calls, the location of the caller.
The deadline for member states to comply with the legislation is 15 September 2007.
Commenting on the directive, Ian Hodgkinson said: “Whilst small businesses would not want to jeopardise the nation's security, it has to be doubtful if these new regulations will deter or catch the clever and dangerous terrorists capable of committing the sort of atrocity the regulations were designed to stop. They are likely to move on and find new or different ways of communicating and leave innocent businesses with an extra cost burden in their wake.”
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2006
