Czech authorities in a dispute with telecomunication operators over costs of data retention, February, 9th 2006

Czech authorities are currently in a debate with telecomunication companies over exact amounts they will have to pay to reimburse the costs related to the new data retention legislative that came into force in the middle of the last year. New czech legislation already anticipated adoption of EU Directive on data retention. It stipulates the maximum period of data retention for 12 months. The minimum retention period were established by ordinance of Czech telecomunication autority ((CTÚ) for 3 to 6 months respectively for different types of data in the middle of December 2005. Special ordinance of ČTÚ also stipulated the price of each „service“ of transmitting data from the companies to Czech police and other the security agencies.
 
According to the report of Nova TV station owed Czech police some 300 million Czech Crowns (approx. 10 million Euro) to the operators for their services related to tapping and transmitting telecomunication data for the second half of the last year. In addition to that sum Pravo daily reported that the counterintelli­gence service (BIS) owed the operators for tapping the conversation in the same period some 18 million Crowns. Spokesmen of the Czech police and BIS refused to anwer what are the exact ammounts currently discussed with teleoperators. „It is not only about payments for services but also reimbursements of necessary nvestments are discussed,“ said Jan Šubert, spokesman of BIS. „BIS will probably pay some millions in the next few years for investments and the payments for services will not exceed hundreds of millions,“ predicted spokesman of BIS Jan Šubert. According to the statement of Jakub Hrabovský, spokesman of on of the biggest czech teleoperator Vodafone will negotiations be concluded by the end of March.