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Telcos may have to keep personal texts for a year. - Source: Close Up -
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Telecommunications companies may be asked to store customers' personal text messages for up to a year - allowing anyone to gain access to the information contained in the texts.
The move has been revealed through a push by the Office of the Ombudsman for text messages to be held for longer than the standard time, due to the growing number of Official Information Act requests for text messages that have been sent by government officials.
The move has prompted the Police Association to call for all private texts to be stored as well, for potential use in criminal investigations.
Under current law, telcos are not required to store personal messages, but most store texts in their systems for around a month.
The move to keep texts for 12 months would be a major change, a privacy expert from Auckland University told TV ONE's Breakfast this morning.
Gehan Gunasekara said there is a global trend towards storing such information.
"The same thing happened in the United States some time ago. President Obama had his Blackberry taken away because there was potential people could access that under the freedom of information law there," Gunasekara said.
"We have the same freedom of information law here so you can potentially ask to see the Prime Minister's texts or emails or whatever. But you need to be cautious because people need to have a private life as well. Government officials need to have their private space."
He said countries all over the world are storing more and more information, and that information is being mined and used for secondary purposes. He said there's a push to move the requirements to store texts, into the private domain.
"It will probably happen. Emails are already are kept. Many people still believe emails are private, but they are not. Your employer and a whole lot of people could access your email."
He said the technology to store and access texts is already available, but the cost to telcos may be an issue.
"Some telcos aren't happy about bearing that, but they may find there may be other uses they find for that information."
Gunasekara said many people don't understand that texts can already be accessed in the same way as emails can.
"At the moment texts are a fleeting thing and most of the companies delete them after about a month. I think 2 degrees keeps it for up to a year, and Telecom and Vodafone delete it after about a week or two."
He said many people treat a text message like a phone conversation and that people need to be more aware that this is not the case, that those messages can be stored and can be requested under the OIA.
"You hit the delete key and you think it's gone. But it will stay there."
He said the information could be used by people in any number of ways.
"For example, you apply for a job, you don't get the job, and the reasons that are used for not getting the job are a bit suspicious. You may think, for example, that the person who interviewed you has a wife who knew you in school. And they might have corresponded by text... and said 'don't give her the job'. You could ask for that under the privacy act, it's personal information relating to you. They would have to hand that over."
Gunasekara said accessing texts is already done in lawsuits, under a process called discovery. It's also used in divorce proceedings and employment disputes.
"You can ask for the records, if in fact they exist. If they've been deleted from the server of course, it's not an issue. But it will be an issue. It will be a change. It will be a ground change."
Gunasekara advised people to talk to each other rather than text, if the discussion is over anything too sensitive.
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