Data In Telecommunications

Types of Telco Data

The main data domains in a Telco include:

Network data - inventory, CDR
Customer data - account, support, product contracts
Product data - pricing, distribution, marketing, sales, configuration
Operational performance data - process performance, hr performance
Transaction data - sales, returns, orders, billing
Financial data - corporate performance and regulatory

Data Retention

In telecommunications, data retention generally refers to the storage of:

Call detail records [CDRs] - telephony and internet traffic
Transaction data [IPDRs] - by governments and commercial organisations.

Government Data Retention

Governments require data on telephone calls made and received, emails sent and received and web sites visited. Location data is also collected. The is used for traffic analysis and mass surveillance to help identify the locations of individuals, an individual's associates and the members of a group such as political opponents.

Commercial Data Retention

Data retained for commercial purposes is generally limited to only transactions and web sites visited.

Data retention also covers data collected by other means [e.g. by automatic numberplate recognition systems] and held by government and commercial organisations.

Privacy Issues on Data Retention

Telcos are not the only organisations retaining large volumes of data on individual activities. Large online stores such as Amazon retain extensive data on customer transactions. Google is also known to retain data on searches, and other transactions. Offline, supermarkets and large national chain stores gather information through credit cards and loyalty schemes.

If a company is based in the USA the FBI can obtain access to such information by means of a National Security Letter [NSL] - without subpoena.

In spite of argumanets that data retention was necessary to combat terrorism, many individuals and groups are protesting at this so-called invasion of privacy, further claiming that it is possible for terrorists to avoid monitoring by using peer to peer technologies, internet cafes, anonymous proxies or several other methods.

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