Germany, March 02: Germany’s top court ordered the deletion of months of telephone and internet records today that were amassed to prevent terrorism and fight crime.
In Germany’s biggest class action lawsuit to date with over 34,000 plaintiffs, the federal constitutional court ruled that the procedure, at least in its current form, marked a “particularly serious infringement of privacy in telecommunications.”
To comply with a European Union (EU) directive, German telecom firms were obliged since 2008 to keep a record of every email sent, every phone call made, mobile or otherwise, every text message, every fax and all internet usage.
Authorities are not supposed to record or listen to the calls or read the emails.
All that is kept is who emailed or phoned whom and which websites were visited.
The logs are kept for six months for police to be able to consult.
Critics said that the potential for errors and abuse was huge, and that it formed part of growing “Big Brother” use of surveillance, sparking strong emotions in Germany with its communist and Nazi past.
The court ruled that data retention was in principle constitutional and useful to the authorities in fighting crime but stricter criteria must be applied.
Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger found herself in the unusual position of appearing both as plaintiff and defendant, having joined the action as a member of the opposition before becoming minister last year.
She told reporters the German government would now work with the EU to recalibrate its policy in light of the court’s decision.
“It’s a happy day,” she said.
The industry group BITKOM, which represents the information technology, telecommunications and internet sectors, welcomed the ruling.
“We must not endanger the trust of users when it comes to the protection of the private sphere,” the organization’s president, August-Wilhelm Scheer, said.
The Data Retention Working Group (Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung), a German pressure group, called after the ruling for an immediate end to what it called “blanket surveillance” in Europe.
“The gathering of confidential data on communications and movements of the entire population without suspicion must be stopped as soon as possible,” Florian Altherr of the organisation said in a statement.
“The German government could count on the support of many countries such as Austria, Sweden and Romania which have refused to implement data retention.”
—Agencies