CDT Data Retention Testimony to the Committee on Economic Revitalization and Business on HB2288

January 26, 2012
Speaker: Jim Dempsey

A data retention mandate would require companies in the Internet ecosystem to retain certain information about all their users so that it would be available when sought by the government in investigations. Data retention bills have been proposed in the U.S. Congress since 2006 but have never made it to a floor vote because of concerns about effectiveness, cost, and privacy.    
H.B. 2288 would impose a data retention mandate on any company that provides access to the Internet.  The exact scope of the data that would be required to be retained under H.B. 2288 is unclear: The bill states that "[t]he required data for the consumer records shall include each subscriber's information and internet destination history information." When data retention is discussed, "subscriber information" often is assumed to include the Internet Protocol ("IP") address associated with the communications of a subscriber.