Quote from: britishone99 on November 15, 2012, 04:12 pmHi,Seems wise, however I have a very old beat up Nokia that doesn't store call logs/texts older than a few weeks (and I don't ever save numbers or texts, ever) as I have to clear it often so even though that sounds like the best option it may be impossible unless I want to alienate a lot of my customer base :P What your phone stores (or not) is not what you should be worrying about. Rather, what you should be worrying about is what the carrier stores, as required by law. See: http://www.ashurst.com/publication-item.aspx?id_Content=4167QuoteForthcoming changes to data retention regime set to increase ISP costs but government may foot bill (Communications newsletter, January 2009)Internet service providers have expressed concerns over the proposed implementation of the remaining part of the Directive on data retention (2006/24/EC), relating to internet data.The EU data retention regimeUnder the 2004 EC Declaration on Combating Terrorism, member states are required to ensure that public communications providers retain "communications data" for a period of at least six months to at most two years, and the Data Retention Directive was adopted by the EU on 15 March 2006 to formalise this requirement.Specifically, the term "communications data" embraces the "who", "when" and "where" of a communication but not the content, nor what was said or written. It includes the manner in which, and the method by which, a person or machine communicates with another person or machine. This data must be made available to competent national authorities for the purpose of "investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime". The parameters of such crimes are defined by each Member State in its national laws.The Directive covers the retention of data relatingto: fixed telephony; mobile telephony; internet access; internet email; and internet telephony.Member States were required to transpose it into national law no later than September 2007 in respect of fixed and mobile telephony. However, many Member States, including the UK, took advantage of the right to postpone the application of the Directive to internet access, internet email and internet telephony for a further 18 months after this date to 15 March 2009.The UK approach to implementationThe retention of communications data in the UK has been recognised as a valuable and important measure for a number of years. Systematic data retention has been UK policy since 2001 under part 11 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 and has been in practice since 2003, following publication of the code of practice on voluntary retention of communications data.The Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2007 (SI 2007/2199) implemented the Directive in relation to fixed and mobile telephony data with effect from1 October 2007. The 2007 Regulations require telecommunication companies to store communications data for fixed and mobile telephones for 12 months. The proposed new Regulations which will extend the current scope to internet data, proposes the same timeframe for retention.The retention of communications data relating to the internet is a complex issue involving much larger volumes of data and a considerably broader set of stakeholders. The hardware and software required to store the data is extremely costly. Moreover, it has been argued that the retention period is excessive and disproportionate, undermining an individual's right to privacy under Article 8 of the ECHR.The new Regulations, which are due to replace the 2007 Regulations, are expected to come into force before March 2009 in line with the 18-month extension period referred to above. The Home Office is currently consulting on a draft of these new Regulations; the submission deadline for comments to the Home Office ended on 31 October 2008, but the results are yet to be published. Views were invited on the ability of internet service providers (ISPs) to apply the new regulations and in particular whether the new regulations provide a framework suitable for the internet aspects of the Directive. Quote from: britishone99 on November 15, 2012, 04:12 pmWould it really pose a problem holding onto the phone/SIM for the next few months while I do gradual transfer (i.e. are the police able to track your location and use with just a pay as you go anonymous number?) I wouldn't text out/call outbound ever. Only receive unanswered/dead texts as mentioned before (and then call them back on new untraceable number soon after) the idea is to basically migrate slowly and then dispose of the phone when I decide it's no longer of valuable use.Also I forgot to mention, said incident was probably ~3 weeks ago. I've had nothing until I was informed this had all happened very recently!Thx :)Don't forget most phones these days have built-in GPS transceivers, so the owner of the phone can be tracked down to within a few metres. I don't know about the UK, but location information is routinely stored and retrievable upon demand by American police. Nightcrawler