This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Deutschland: Vorratsdatenspeicherung ist unverhältnismäßig

Macedonian: Германија: Задржувањето на податоци е ...

The German Working Group on Data Retention (AK Vorrat) announced that the Administrative Court of Wiesbaden found the blanket recording of the entire population's traffic data on telephone, mobile phone, e-mail and Internet usage is disproportionate.

The decision of the court is "that data retention violates the fundamental right to privacy. It is not necessary in a democratic society. The individual does not provoke the interference but can be intimidated by the risks of abuse and the feeling of being under surveillance (...) The directive (on data retention) does not respect the principle of proportionality guaranteed in Article 8 ECHR, which is why it is invalid."

AK Vorrat, that has also initiated the Constitutional complaint against the German Data retention law, used this opportunity to address another digital civil rights fear: a government project to allow Internet service providers to record everybody's Internet surfing habits. The project was debated on 19 March by the German Bundestag in the first reading.

Started as a project to better protect the computer networks against any cyber-attacks, the new draft has been criticized by the Privacy Commissioner of the Federal Government, Peter Schaar, who considered that the draft needed to be revised and several law provisions needed to be clarified.

The draft also contains an amendment to the Telemedia Act, which allows service providers, using data they are allowed to store and process for legal purposes, to use the information for identifying surfing habits. The amendemnt is justified by the necessity of the protection against malicious software and other similar threats.

"We call on all citizens to contact their MPs now in order to protest against the proposed retention of web surfing habits," says Werner Hülsmann, member of the board of the forum of computer scientists for peace and social responsibility, actively working in the Working Group on Data Retention.

"The recent criticism by Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) of the Constitutional Court's preliminary decision on data retention proves that his surveillance mania is limitless", criticizes Patrick Breyer of the Working Group on Data Retention. "It is not 'a matter for the legislature' to keep eroding our constitutional guarantees protecting us from errors and abuses by the authorities. We urgently need to establish a Fundamental Rights Agency to have all existing powers and programs of the security authorities systematically and scientifically reviewed as to their effectiveness, cost, adverse effects, alternatives and compatibility with our fundamental rights."

Despite all the different European attempts to stop data retention, the day of 15 March 2009, imposed by the EU data retention directive, marks the starting point for ISPs to collect and store traffic data in several European countries.

Administrative Court: Data retention is "invalid" (16.03.2009)
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/301/1/lang,en/

Video: Bundestag debates draft law (only in German, 25.03.2009)
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/302/1/lang,de/

Protection against hackers, surveillance fears (only in German, 19.03.2009)
http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/ueberwachung/bsigesetz100.html