Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The position is that under the 1993 Act a senior Garda officer can apply to a telecommunications company for access to its telecommunications data in pursuit of an investigation of a serious offence. Today as we speak, all of us are subject to the fact that our telephone transactions are recorded and accessible in that scenario. We do not all ask who is applying for access to our telephone data. In this regard, I do not see how bringing in new protections would change our attitude. The real issue is that since telecos, as they are called, are not obliged to hold data, they assemble the data to prepare their bills and manage their business appropriately and, presumably, to enable them to fend off cases that telephone conversations were never made.

If there was no retention of this type everybody could say they never made, say, 5,000 telephone calls during that month. The telecos have to be in a position to say that one did made the calls and these are the telephone transactions one made at a particular time. They have to amass the data even from a defensive point of view, otherwise every bill would be disputed. People would say their bill looked steep and that they did not use their phone often and challenge the telecos to prove the contrary. The telecos have to be in a position to say that one's telephone was used X number of times for international calls and X number of times for local locals and to show the times and dates.

The issue is first, whether that kind of material can be stored indefinitely and if there is an increased cost and, second, if the Data Protection Commissioner arrives at a view regarding, say, a six-month period but without a statutory authority, what would be the implications for the investigation of serious crime from my perspective? I must ask myself that question. The commissioner is entitled to his view but I have to take a different view into account. All in all, I believe that 36 months is an appropriate period. I do not believe there is much difference between six months and 36 months. If my privacy is in some way infringed by having the information on file or on a hard disk for six months, I do not regard it as a great reassurance to me to know that it is erased after six months rather than 36 months. It would not change my sense of wellbeing to know that an additional period of time had not elapsed before the data was destroyed.