In Italy a new law has finally been approved for massive data retention. The law requires that all forms of telephone traffic and all forms of electronic communication and traffic be stored for 6 years. Not only that, but the law also introduces changes to how web monitoring works without prior judicial review.
The goal of the new 6 year law is to suppress serious crimes and prevent terrorism, but the law also aims to combat other less serious crimes like copyright infringement that takes place on websites, forums, and blogs.The current Italian law requires a data retention period of twenty-four months for telephone and internet traffic, and thirty days for data related to unsuccessful calls.
The new 6 year law was adopted already in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, and is now waiting before the Italian senate for approval. The new law draws concerns from organizations like the Italian Data Protection Authority–or the “Garante”. The president of said Garante has already expressed concerns that the law is too powerful and overreaching and that it might have drastic impacts on internet freedom, internet business, and privacy.
The real kicker is that the Italian internet service providers that have to comply with the law have no way of knowing which internet traffic may be relevant for law enforcement, which means that all forms of data from the guilty criminals to the innocent citizen will be collected resulting in huge costs for increased compliance as well as lost privacy for internet users. In this case of this law that aims to combat crime, the law makes “everyone guilty” before proven innocent, and takes the right of privacy away from both criminal and innocent internet users.
It doesn’t seem like Italy or even Sweden seems to mind passing these massive surveillance projects in direct opposition to preexisting data retention laws within the European Union. However, right now, it seems like ISPs will comply with Italian law to begin collecting data until the European Union gets involved at an unforeseen date.
If you want to protect your internet security in Italy and prevent ISPs from collecting a massive amount of data (and perhaps losing it or leaking it), then secure your internet with TorGuard VPN service.
