Telecom companies to store call details for two years

Tags: National News

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) under the Ministry of Communication has directed the telecom communication (telcos) to store data of  international calls, satellite phone calls, conference calls and messages over normal networks and on the Internet for a period of at least two years.

• This follows the DoT amendment in the unified telecom licence in December which mandated the storage of call data as well as internet log data to 2 years from the previous one year.
• The latest directive includes voicemail, audiotex and unified messaging service.
• The telecom companies which hold unified licenses in India are Vodafone-Idea, Reliance Jio, Airtel and BSNL. They have been ordered by the government to keep the record for two years and after that they can destroy the data.
• But they will have to keep the data for a longer period if the government orders them to do so in the name of national security.

 Union Telecommunication Minister: Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw