Swedish police have requested direct access to tools currently only accessible to Internet Service Providers (ISP) that allow tracking data on customers such as « who, when and where two people communicated using, for example email or text messages ». Although the Security Service argued that this « would decrease the risk for potential errors that could occur when the process is done manually » not all ISPs are on board. « Our primary task is to protect the privacy of our customers and we feel we can’t do that with an automated process, » said Iréne Krohn, senior media relations manager at TeliaSonera.
Moreover, a spokesperson from the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority questioned whether automating would even be legal as ISP are required to « check […] the decision behind the request, » said Staffan Lindmark, a lawyer at PTS.
« On a European level, the implementation of the data retention directive is out of control, according to Joe McNamee, executive director at European digital rights group EDRi. « The problem we have is that the European Commission is quite happy to take action against member states if they haven’t implemented the directive, but any amount of over-implementation and lack of safe guards present no problem at all for the commission, » he said.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/tech-industry/3490254/swedish-police-service-providers-on-collision-course-over-direct-access-to-user-data