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Making the Internet a safer place for children is not an easy task, as shown by the latest attempts from two lawmakers. Rep. Lamar Smith and Sen. John Cornyn have introduced a bill that would require Internet Service Providers to lengthen the retention period for user data to two years.
Rep. Lamar Smith said in a statement:
Of the nearly 600,000 images of graphic child pornography found online and reported to law enforcement officials, only 2,100 of these children have been identified and rescued […] Investigators need the assistance of Internet Service Providers to identify users and distributers of online child pornography.
According to the bill, Internet content hosting providers or email service providers that knowingly engage in facilitating access to, or possessing, child pornography will be punished by up to 10 years in prison.
Furthermore, providers of electronic communications service or remote computing service will retain data -- records or other information regarding the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address) for at least two years.
The bill also demands increased penalties for sexual exploitation of children, increased penalties for activities relating to material involving the sexual exploitation of children, and increased penalties for activities relating to material constituting or containing child pornography.
In addition to that, it supports increased funding for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Innocent Images National Initiative $30,000,000 for each of the fiscal years 2010 to 2014.
The cause is noble, but the length of the data retention periods has already raised questions on the impact it will have on user privacy.
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