Hundreds of MEPs have called for search companies to be obliged to retain customer data for scrutiny by law enforcement bodies.
The declaration calls for search engines to be included in the the Data Retention Directive, which directs communications providers to keep logs of their users' search habits in a form that can be turned over to police. By Friday, 324 MEPs had signed the declaration, which will be adopted by the European Parliament should the total number of signatories reach 369.
"The internet... allows paedophiles and sex offenders to enjoy freedom of action, putting them on the same footing as honest citizens and making it difficult for the authorities to trace them," wrote MEPs Tiziano Motti and Anna Záborská, the authors of the declaration.
Some MEPs have opposed the declaration on the grounds that it would allow all searches to be monitored.
Swedish Pirate Party MEP Christian Engström said that MEPs had been misled into signing the declaration, writing in a blog post on Wednesday that written declaration 29 had been "marketed within the European Parliament using a very emotionally-loaded picture of a child".
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"It is understandable if many members of the European Parliament have been misled into signing the declaration, since the Data Retention Directive is never mentioned in any of the marketing material for the declaration, and is only referred to by its number 2006/24/EC in the declaration itself," wrote Engström.
The Data Rentention Directive outlines rules for "the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly-available electronic communications services or of public communications networks". For search engines, this could cover such data as search terms, IP addresses and other information on users.
The MEP urged the signatories to withdraw their signatures, saying that while the declaration's intent was to provide an "early warning system" about paedophiles, blanket search data retention would not achieve that aim.
The declaration, which was opened in April, comes at a time when the major search engines have been found to be inadequately anonymising data. Commission privacy advisory group the Article 29 Working Party said in May that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's methods of making users search data anonymous do not comply with European data law.
Talkback
Treat EVERYONE like Pedos to protect copyright?
"The internet... allows paedophiles and sex offenders to enjoy freedom of action, putting them on the same footing as honest citizens"
So basically two MEPs thinks that everyone should be treated like pedos to make everyone equal?
And having used the "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" game to get weak politicians to sign on to this, 324 of them have shown so little leadership that they have agreed to this?
Truely the EU is a dead end. A bunch of easily manipulated sheep.
I think this is a copyright manipulation. The copyright industry recently promoted kiddie prn as a way to get mass surveillance of the internet to protect their copyrights:
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/28/music-industry-spoke.html
What else do you expect from the " media-mafia ".
Decent behaviour ?
NOT any time soon. For a start they need to learn what that IS first.