THERE will be no changes in the way that calling data – such as the time, duration and numbers called by all telephone users in Slovakia – are collected and archived. On November 6 the Slovak Parliament voted down an amendment to the law on electronic communications drafted by Miroslav Kadúc, an MP for Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO). The opposition MP had sought to remove what he called “the most significant shortcomings” from the current law. Kadúc opposes the so-called “flat [i.e. total] and preventive archiving” of data pertaining to telephone calls made by all citizens and considers this to be unconstitutional, the SITA newswire reported.
“Flat and preventive archiving of data without the existence of any previous suspicion of a threat or violation of laws leads to the conclusion that actually each person is a priori considered suspect, which is in conflict with one of the fundamental principles of the rule of law, the presumption of innocence,” Kadúc reasoned.
Moreover, in his opinion providers of telephone services archive data for much longer than is necessary. Kadúc proposed shortening the time period during which data are archived from 12 to six months. He also proposed measures mitigating the impact of the legislation on the private lives of citizens.
He pushed for clearer definition of the purpose of archiving selected data, along with specification of the serious criminal offences for which such data can be used to aid investigation and prosecution. He also wanted to ban any other processing of the archived data by providers of networks and services, in an effort to prevent potential abuse.
