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Text Messages, Call Records To Be Stored For Two Years
Fri, November 4, 2011
Earlier this week at the Prime Minister's Press Conference - he testily refuted last week's headline story in The Reporter, which claimed that "all calls, voice mails and text messages would be intercepted and stored for a period of two years…voice calls would be recorded electronically, and the Police will have the task of managing the database."

Referring specifically to the recording of voice calls The PM called it "absolute nonsense" - pointing to the fact that the Government has not gotten the equipment to record phone calls and conceded that once the gang truce holds up - they may never get it.

But the Reporter made a kind of comeback today, publishing the letter sent to an un-named phone company - (there are only two) - which outlines what data is to be preserved by phone companies and for how long. The letter, sent in January from Minister of Telecommunications Elvin Penner to phone companies says, first, that the phone companies will be required to register phones. That process - as we've reported - is currently ongoing. And, once registered, the phone companies will be required to capture and store copious call details records for at least two years.

According to the letters, those details include: the cell number of the caller and receiver, the date, time and duration of the call, the result of the call, whether it was answered, unanswered or busy, the call type, whether voice or text, and the content of voice mail and text among other things.

We note, importantly, that it does not request that voice calls should be recorded or that the police would manage any such database. The letter states that all call details records should be stored by the phone company.

Still, the meaning is clear, your text messages - every single one of them is to be stored for a period of two years by the phone companies. Now, under the Interception of Telecommunications act of 2010 those and your call records can only be legally retrieved with a court order from the Supreme Court and a judge would have to be satisfied that the request is justified. It could be an immense volume of data as Telemedia moves about nine hundred thousand text messages monthly.

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