France requires personal data retention for one year

A decree published in the French official gazette on 1 March requires ISPs, video-sharing platforms, blogs and other websites to keep personal data on anyone who contributes to the creation of content put online for one year after they close their account. This information must be provided to courts or police authorities investigating a crime. Decree 2011-219 states that information provided upon contract subscription or account creation, such as the name of the contributor, postal addresses, pseudonyms, e-mail address, phone numbers and passwords must be kept. Websites will also have to keep for one year after any content is published the user name, type of protocol used, nature, date and time of the operation.