Mobile phone and internet companies yesterday warned EU ministers that counter-terrorism plans for the compulsory storage of billions of phone and internet records would prove expensive and intrusive, with far-reaching implications for every citizen.

Industry experts also claimed that the demands for extra data to be stored on the location of mobile phone callers breached existing European privacy laws. The data will have to be stored for a minimum of 12 months and will be accessible to police and security services investigating terrorism and serious crime.