Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP: No justification for data retention

On her website, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP worries that there has been no serious cost-benefit analysis of the UK’s data retention proposalsfor Europe, and calls on other MEPs to question the necessity for such ‘sloppy’ legislation:

“[S]torage of everyone’s phone, email and website use is costly as well as a massive invasion of privacy and increase in state surveillance, so the threshold for justification is a high one.” “I am still worried by the absence of a serious cost-benefit analysis. Assertions are made about the need to keep records for a considerable time, but the evidence is thin. No decent rebuttal has been delivered of the case for a short retention time plus specific ‘freezing orders’ for communications records of suspects.” “Since we will have the leverage to do so now, MEPs must probe the real necessity for invasive measures. Whilst EU-wide cooperation is crucial to stop terrorism and organised crime, Member States should first end cross-border turf wars and actually implement cooperative arrangements they’ve signed up to.”

data retention, Baroness Sarah Ludford, MEP, Europe, Open Rights Group, ORG