WHEREAS, the lawful investigation of Internet data and telephonic communications has historically proven to be one of the most valuable tools available to law enforcement in identifying both the perpetrators and victims of crimes; and

WHEREAS, the Internet is global in nature, and as such, poses challenges when conducting multi-agency international investigations, including delays imposed when obtaining local and international legal process; and

WHEREAS, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has previously noted in its 2005 Resolution “Support for Preservation of Access to Publicly Available Resources in Cyber Investigations,” (CT023.a05) that electronic forensic evidence is fleeting in nature, and law enforcement officials must obtain timely access to this information to fulfill law enforcement duties before the information is destroyed or otherwise becomes unavailable; and

WHEREAS, criminals use the anonymity and international nature of the Internet, and the fleeting nature of electronic evidence, to enhance their ability to victimize citizens and thwart law enforcement investigations; and

WHEREAS, publicly-available “whois” databases containing information involving the allocation of Internet resources, such as Internet Protocol address space and domain names, are a critical tool used by law enforcement, but may not remain publicly available, which would severely hamper or eliminate the ability for law enforcement agencies to conduct investigations in a timely manner; and

WHEREAS, the failure of the Internet access provider industry to retain subscriber information and source or destination information for any uniform, predictable, reasonable period has resulted in the absence of data, which has become a significant hindrance and even an obstacle in certain investigations, such as computer intrusion investigations and child obscenity and exploitation investigations, although law enforcement has generally acted expeditiously in processing lawful requests to Internet providers; and

WHEREAS, the migration in telephony from "toll service" to a nationwide or continental flat rate billing system has substantially eroded law enforcement’s ability to utilize lawful process to obtain telephone toll records historically critical to the identification, detection, and prevention of terrorism and the investigation of serious criminal conspiracies; and

WHEREAS, the effect of the lack of uniform retention periods of customer/subscriber records and communication source and destination data in various industries and amongst various providers in the same industry has been to undermine law enforcement’s ability to predictably prioritize investigations or strategically assign resources to those investigations which are largely dependent upon the existence of such data; and

WHEREAS, the European Union addressed this problem in March 2006 by passing a Directive on Data Retention (Directive 2006/24/EC) requiring Member States to adopt laws to combat serious crime and terrorism by mandating the retention of customer information and communication source and destination information for a uniform minimum period; now, therefore be it

RESOLVED that the IACP strongly urges national legislatures, the Internet administration and telephony communities, including regional Internet registries, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, domain-name registries, domain-name registrars, Internet access and service providers, and telecommunication providers, to develop an appropriate but uniform data retention mandate for both the aforementioned Internet administration community and telephony service providers requiring the retention of customer subscriber information and source and destination information for a minimum specified reasonable period of time so that it will be available to the law enforcement community, upon applicable legal process, to enhance public safety and prevent, deter, or detect terrorists and criminals through the ability to investigate offenses facilitate by use of the Internet and telephony; and be it

FURTHER RESOLVED that the IACP membership actively engage their respective governmental executive and legislative components, Internet administration, and telephony industry communities and coordinate their efforts to achieve the goal of providing consistent, equal, and uniform lawful access to the above-referenced resources for all of the law enforcement community.