Telecom NZ & Vodafone NZ won’t be storing texts; crime issue
I picked up this story from TVNZ that states Vodafone NZ doesn’t bother archiving text messages transmitted by its customers — and that Telecom NZ is planning to do the same by the end of this year. The storing of text messages is an additional headache for operators. Let’s be clear, it’s certainly not rocket science — a few decent servers can handle an archive, no problem — but it’s just an arse for operators, especially when they’ve already been paid for and delivered the service.
But, text archives are becoming more and more useful for Police investigators. (That, and the cell location data from the towers too)
The TVNZ article points out that both NZ operators aren’t going to bother archiving text messages in future, unless legally mandated to do so.
So there’s a question. Should your operator store your text messages indefinitely?
I’m still waiting for the time when I can access my text messages online as well as on my mobile. To have a store of some of them would be *incredibly* useful. Or to have them forwarded via email so I can store them that way. I’ve heard O2 is doing something like this but I haven’t seen any other services like this. In fact, I would even pay a quid extra a month for this.
Although I can transfer messages across from my handset to my computer, it doesn’t transfer date/time of send or receive date. Instead it transfers the time/date you transferred it.
Posted by technokitten on March 10th, 2008 at 1:48 pm.o2’s service is called Bluebook. If you’ve got a Nokia N Series, you can use PC Suite to archive all your text messages.
Posted by Terence Eden on March 10th, 2008 at 2:30 pm.@terence eden
Posted by technokitten on March 10th, 2008 at 2:59 pm.I have Nokia N Series and the archive does not archive time/date sent or received.
The behaviour of the NZ networks seems very short-sighted. As SMS becomes increasingly legitimised, the demands for audit trails will be increasingly rigourous, Just look what happened to the Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
Posted by julian on March 10th, 2008 at 11:02 pm.