Data Retention in the UK - are there any commerical ISPs which do not log?

Hi,

The data retention directive which came into force in April 2009 means that ISPs throughout the European Union must retain selected data.

However, Section 10(1) appears to mean that ISPs do not have to start logging data until they have been given a notice in writing.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2009/9780111473894/contents

I am sure that the large ISPs like BT and Virgin will have been given notice.

Assuming that, in fact, notice does have to be given, do any UK-based people know if there are any ISPs which will not retain data?

I am moving house soon and am eager to select an ISP which is not only fast and good value but also, ideally, one that will not log.

Many thanks.

 

Just assume that everyone always logs everything, and plan accordingly

 

Yeah. If I want to be more private, I run my VPN and fire up the Tor Browser Bundle. The ISP sees the VPN only. The VPN sees a connection to Tor but nothing else. And the only logging that could occur as far as I know would be from the exit node of Tor. So for any personal communications or transfer of documents, you could use end to end encryption.. or ..encrypt a file or message with axcypt and send it. You could send the other party the password through cryptocat or torchat. You can also use winrar to encrypt a message or file and select "encrypt file names" when you create a password.

But if you just want to surf the web and you're not going to give out any personal info, or log into any identifiable accounts, then just fire up the tor browser bundle and be done with it. Or maybe Ra's Fnoed. I have recently tried that and it's pretty cool. http://ra.fnord.at/

 

I don't know any UK ISP that does NOT have a clause in their terms and conditions that they do logging. Its needed for various support and maintenance activities. So at any point your connection COULD be logged as per the terms and conditions. That is in addition to the data retention regs.

The data retention act is about logging who has access what, it explicitly states the content of the data is not to be retained.

Cheers, Nick