Centre asks Telecom firms to keep call records for 2 years for security

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has amended the Unified Licensing Agreement and issued a major order to telecom and Internet service providers, as well as to all other telecom licensees. The department has ordered telecom companies to keep people's call recordings for two years. According to sources, the extra time has been extended at the request of several security agencies. Currently call record data is saved for 18 months. The Department of Telecommunications has issued a notification dated December 21 stating that all call detail records, exchange details records and network communication IP records should be saved for two years. This is appropriate from a security standpoint. Also, Internet service providers will be required to maintain "Internet telephony" details in addition to the usual IP details record for a period of two years, the notification said.

A senior telecom official said, "This is a procedural order. Many security agencies have indicated that they still need data after one year. Because most investigations take longer than that to complete. We met with all the service providers who agreed to keep the data for an extended period. ' Meanwhile, an official of the telecom company said that whenever such data is removed, both the office and the officer concerned are informed before the data is removed. Data is deleted after the next 45 days after the information is provided. At the same time, another telecom company official said that there would be no additional cost to keep this data for two years, as the data is stored in text form, so no more space is required. Most of this data contains information about who made the call and how long the call lasted.