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Google may be abiding by the EU’s data retention laws, but I wonder how long Google can maintain its users’ trust regarding privacy issues. The EU and the United States need stronger privacy laws for search engines and ISPs. The most effective privacy law would place limits on data collection.

My organization the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC) recently explored the privacy and security concerns associated with data retention mandates in its online newsletter. The newsletter shares the views of Hance Haney, a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and Peter Swire, a professor of law at the Ohio State University and a fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Here are the key points that they make:

Haney concluded that collecting users’ IP addresses would not stop criminals from connecting to public Wi-Fi access points as anonymous users. Even if these public hotspots required users to register, Haney explained that criminals would use residential wireless networks that are “frequently unsecured.”

Swire concluded that the US should continue to use the current data preservation law and not adopt a nationwide data retention mandate. Swire, however, said that the data preservation system must be improved to ensure that any sensitive government data collected by ISPs would not end up in the wrong hands and threaten our national security.