THE Australian Securities and Investment Commission has called for phone call and internet data to be made available for its war on white-collar crime.

Not only does the authority want the powers to intercept the times, dates and details of telecommunications information, it also wants access to the contents of emails, social media chats and text messages.

Telcos say it would cost millions of dollars a month to keep as much data as the government is asking for. Credit:Bloomberg

This is more power than the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation have sought to investigate terrorism and suspected murderers.

But telcos say it would cost millions of dollars a month to keep as much data as the government is asking for, and may not even include what customers do on websites such as Gmail, YouTube and Skype.