Today it was announced that the Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet) and the Conservative Party (Høyre) partnered in getting the legislation concerning the EUs Data Retention Directive passed in Norwegian parliament (Stortinget).
Translated URL from a big newspaper here:
In this context “DLD” means “data retention directive”. “Ap” is the Labour Party. “PST” means the Secret State Police in Norway. “ICT” is an organization for telecom operators.
Some highlights:
Erna Solberg do not think it's a letdown when the Conservatives for once was able to pass on a suggestion from the Labour Party, they would rather go into partnership with them.
- No, this is a huge victory for the Conservatives, and we have
received approval for a lot. Moreover, the data will be stored securely so that it will not be possible to hackers in the data, said the Conservative leader.
Some concrete facts:
- The general rule is that there should be a minimum four year sentence for using the data, but five years for location data. But there are some exceptions, including for drug crimes. It means that in theory the sale of cannabis lead to use of stored traffic data.
Anne Marie Bjørnflaten of Labor states that it should be "necessity and proportionality" that the court may disclose the data.
- PST will still be able to get data in preventive work, without anything concrete.
Also:
There need be no suspicion against a specific person to collect your telecommunications and internet data. It holds that you are near. This meant the police have been important, for example, investigate the murder cases without a suspect.
Private could theoretically gain access on strict criteria to use in a civil trial.
19.000 people had signed the petition against the directive (a sizable number of people considering our country's size). This was however not enough to convince politicians to stop the directive. Government partner parties of the Labour Party; the Socialistic Left Party and Centre Party disagrees and will vote against the implementation of the EU directive (that is, for a veto), but the Labour and Conservative Parties have the majority combined. This is, indeed, a very odd constellation.
This is a sad day for privacy in Norway. When it is implemented, I would recommend using encryption and routing when using the internet in Norway.