Tapping and Data Retention in Ultrafast Communication Networks

Abstract

In the fight against crime and terrorism, many governments are gathering communication data in order to gain insight into methods and activities of suspects and potential suspects. Tapping, or wiretapping, has been used for a long time and nowadays most countries are extending this to data retention, i.e., large-scale storage of various kinds of data available on communications. At the same time, however, efforts are being made in the field of technology to develop a new generation of communication networks, based on ultrafast optical and wireless communication. This is likely to result in a significant increase in the speed and volume of information transfer on communication networks such as the Internet. These increasing amounts of information require increasing storage and analysis capacity, for which automated solutions are being developed. In this contribution, the way in which these technological developments influence the possibilities of tapping and data retention is discussed and some suggestions are made on how to deal with this.