Last week, Germany’s ruling parties – a coalition of SPD & CDU, with efforts in the digital area recently spearheaded by minister of interior Wolfgang Schäuble (pictured) – passed a bill for new data retention laws*.
With this law in place, people providing web/ phone services are now required to keep their website access logs, or their phone call logs, for half a year. This data can then be used by the authorities – police and secret services – if they suspect it may help in important criminal investigations, or when online crimes are committed. Self-proclaimed goal is to fight e.g. attacks against European cities, like the London or Madrid bombings. Some people now want to stop this law in Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, which can overrule what is deemed anti-constitutional.
Now, the data you are required to keep doesn’t by itself contain the contents of the transmitted data, e.g. the words spoken in a phone call. It is mostly restricted to such things as the IP address, date and time of when e.g. an email account is accessed, or data like the email address of sender and recipients, according to they say:
Law enforcement activities must be adapted to the dynamics of technological developments and the boundlessness of technology and networks. On the one hand, they must safeguard effective prevention and prosecution of new criminal offences, while on the otherhand [sic], utilize the electronic options available for law enforcement, without infringing upon citizens’ rights of freedom.
In other, related news, minister of interior Schäuble was pushing for a law to allow secret tools – trojans – to be installed on user’s computers for online supervision. Also, according to
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