On 15 March 2006, the European Union formally adopted Directive 2006/24/EC, on “the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks”.
The Directive requires Member States to ensure that communications providers retain, necessary data as specified in the Directive for a period between 6 months and 2 years. The data is required to be available to national authorities in specific cases, for the purpose of the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime, as defines by each Member State in its national law.
The Directive has a major impact on the entire broadband industry in Europe, as all the providers of communication nets, will have to implement a data retention solution somewhere between September 15th 2007 and March 15th 2009 at the latest. The actual date depends on the national legislation.
Legal documents:
DIRECTIVE 2006/24/EC UK (click here to download)
DIRECTIVE 2006/24/EC SE (click here to download)
DIRECTIVE 2006/24/EC DE (click here to download)
DIRECTIVE 2006/24/EC DK (click here to download)
Logging of IP data
The challenges for the providers will be to to build a reliable and inexpensive solution which allows fast and auditable data storage as well as automatic and secure destruction of the data at the end of retention period. Furthermore to have the connection data available without undue delay for secure delivery and/or access of the authorities. And last but not least, to handle the vast amounts of data necessary to retain, and identify for the authorities.
Several international providers have pointed out both severe technical problems with handling this, as well as considerable costs. – but now Panther Applications is providing a cost-effective Anti Terror Log solution, in compliance with the EU directive and specific national data retention regulations.
Panther ATS® is a complete ready-to-go Data Retention Solution for the Broadband industry, ISP's, Telco's and Service Providers. Choosing this solution for your communications services, you will satisfy the requirements of the law concerning logging of internet traffic.
You can also choose a hosted solution, where Panther Applications takes care of the data retention as well as the administrative handling and requests from the authorities and you can focus on developing your business instead.
Panther Applications AS can provide the complete platform for logging the IP data part of the law, either by selling the software to a service provider. Another option is to use Panther Application as service provider, where Panther Applications handles everything from collecting the information in the network to servicing the government in each case it might be necessary.
Extension: Lawfull interception
The solution can be extended to support lawfull interception. Lawfull interception are done using 3rd party probe systems from Endace http://www.endace.com/. Contact us for offers on Endace equipment.
The Platform:
1) Product description (click for information)
2) Product description in pdf (download here)
3) Hosted solutions (click for information)