Concern for privacy laws over mobile phone records plan.

EUROPEAN Union ministers' plans to store details of every mobile phone call in Europe were subjected to a barrage of criticism from the industry yesterday.

Experts said they feared the details they are being asked to store for at least 12 months - so police can track terrorists and crime gangs - would breach existing European privacy laws.

Revealing for the first time their concerns about the implications of Home Secretary Charles Clarke's proposals, the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association (ETNO) said the costs would stretch to hundreds of millions of pounds.

Mr Clarke confirmed 70 EU ministers in Newcastle had failed to reach agreement on new pan-European rules governing how long companies would have to store the data. He stressed the importance mobile phone records had played in investigations into the London and Madrid bombings.

But ETNO director Michael Bartholomew said of the proposals: "We think it's a rather unsophisticated approach to a complex problem. Our plea to the ministers is to have more dialogue with the industry."

Mr Clarke is asking ministers from the 25 EU countries to force their mobile phone firms to store phone records for a year, includingp Which numbers were dialled; p The time and duration of calls; p The caller location; The location of the mobile phone being dialled.

Details of calls that connect but are unanswered will be also archived because these can be signals to accomplices or used to detonate bombs, a Home Office spokesman said.

Companies will also have to store similar records about text messages.

Internet service providers will be required to keep details of when and where an individual logs on and logs off the internet.

Mr Bartholomew said: "Storing the location of callers is currently outlawed under European data protection measures.

"The implications of this total package are very considerable and we're talking about hundreds of millions of euros on a pan-European basis."

The Home Office said that costs would not prove prohibitive 

CAPTION(S):

Charles Clarke