# How long do Mobile Providers store messages?



## AKA pseudonym (Apr 30, 2012)

How long do mobile phone providers store info... ie: texts? or what are the laws...
with particular relevance to O2...

btw nothing dodgy


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## Supine (Apr 30, 2012)

Dunno, but presume for ever


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## Mr Smin (May 2, 2012)

It's not forever, and keep in mind that there is a difference between recording that a text has been sent (so they can bill you) versus storing the content of the text after it is sent to your phone (which has no value for the company but might be required under never-mind-the-liberty laws).


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## grit (May 6, 2012)

forever, well in Ireland anyway cant see why the UK would be any different.


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## Sunray (May 7, 2012)

Pretty easy to store them all forever.

10  billion a month would be 1.6Tb a month if we all used the 160 byte allowance. In the age of Exabyte data centres (1 million terabytes) gonna take a while before all the texts filled that up.


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## grit (May 7, 2012)

Sunray said:


> Pretty easy to store them all forever.
> 
> 10 billion a month would be 1.6Tb a month if we all used the 160 byte allowance. In the age of Exabyte data centres (1 million terabytes) gonna take a while before all the texts filled that up.


 
Exactly, the space required is trivial considering the existing infrastructure in place. I know they keep them forever (or a very very long time) as mates who have been busted by the cops have had many years of messages entered as evidence into cases.


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## Pickman's model (May 7, 2012)

i'm aware of one court case where the prosecution produced two or three years of texts


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