German Constitutional Court repealed the Law on Accumulative Storage of Telecommunications Connection Data
Probably, it is difficult to understand from the outside all the hype that the German media raised yesterday about the decision of the Constitutional Court. Although, on the other hand, all of George Orwell's fans should be just happy - their fears were heard and taken seriously.
It was about the so-called "Law on the cumulative data storage." The essence of this law is that all telecommunication operators are obliged to keep all information about the connections that have occurred for each subscriber. It sounds a bit clumsy, but in fact, any call, any internet connection is logged and stored for at least six months. For any person you can make a complete picture of who, when and for how long he spoke, to whom he sent soap, under what IP he logged in to the network and maybe even with what IP he spoke on Skype. Let me remind you that in Germany, when buying a mobile phone (or rather a SIM Card), a person must show his passport, and the seller must provide this information to the mobile operator. Therefore, all these rules could apply to mobile phones.
The need for this law arose in connection with the adoption of the relevant regulatory act in the European Union. Although the European Union does not interfere in national legislation, it issues prescriptions that are binding on all EU members. The Germans, as a rule, are exemplary subordinates and their law in many places was cooler and tougher than it was required in the EU prescription. At the time of entry into force, in early 2008, the law caused a mass of protests. In the end, it reached the point that more than 35 thousand citizens felt themselves deprived of their rights and filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court. Yesterday morning I listened to several interviews with experts who did not even expect that the court decision would be so radical - many agreed that the court would issue instructions on who and when can get access to the stored data, how these can be used data and all that stuff. But it turned out quite differently. The court ordered to immediately stop recording data and destroy all the accumulated data to date.
At the same time, recommendations were made for legislators to create a new law, which includes several points, including the mention that subscribers should be notified that the data of their connections will be stored. And it is absolutely unacceptable that the data is stored even when the subscriber is not suspected of anything concrete.
The most interesting thing is that all expenses related to the storage of information were obliged to be borne by the operators themselves. The largest of them - German Telecom said yesterday that they have already begun to destroy the accumulated data.
I firmly believe that the new law will not be long in coming, but nevertheless I am very grateful to the peasants in red capes. They, for the umpteenth time, have shown that the laws cannot serve as a reason for the arbitrariness of the officials.
It was about the so-called "Law on the cumulative data storage." The essence of this law is that all telecommunication operators are obliged to keep all information about the connections that have occurred for each subscriber. It sounds a bit clumsy, but in fact, any call, any internet connection is logged and stored for at least six months. For any person you can make a complete picture of who, when and for how long he spoke, to whom he sent soap, under what IP he logged in to the network and maybe even with what IP he spoke on Skype. Let me remind you that in Germany, when buying a mobile phone (or rather a SIM Card), a person must show his passport, and the seller must provide this information to the mobile operator. Therefore, all these rules could apply to mobile phones.
The need for this law arose in connection with the adoption of the relevant regulatory act in the European Union. Although the European Union does not interfere in national legislation, it issues prescriptions that are binding on all EU members. The Germans, as a rule, are exemplary subordinates and their law in many places was cooler and tougher than it was required in the EU prescription. At the time of entry into force, in early 2008, the law caused a mass of protests. In the end, it reached the point that more than 35 thousand citizens felt themselves deprived of their rights and filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court. Yesterday morning I listened to several interviews with experts who did not even expect that the court decision would be so radical - many agreed that the court would issue instructions on who and when can get access to the stored data, how these can be used data and all that stuff. But it turned out quite differently. The court ordered to immediately stop recording data and destroy all the accumulated data to date.
At the same time, recommendations were made for legislators to create a new law, which includes several points, including the mention that subscribers should be notified that the data of their connections will be stored. And it is absolutely unacceptable that the data is stored even when the subscriber is not suspected of anything concrete.
The most interesting thing is that all expenses related to the storage of information were obliged to be borne by the operators themselves. The largest of them - German Telecom said yesterday that they have already begun to destroy the accumulated data.
I firmly believe that the new law will not be long in coming, but nevertheless I am very grateful to the peasants in red capes. They, for the umpteenth time, have shown that the laws cannot serve as a reason for the arbitrariness of the officials.
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/86237/
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