(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

On 8 November 2006, the German Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries presented a draft law aimed at transposing the EU directive on data retention. The law would override the recent jurisprudence on IP logging by mandating the retention of traffic data for a period of six months.

Retention requirements are also to apply to anonymization services, making them practically superfluous. Furthermore anonymous e-mail accounts are to be banned. Access to traffic data shall be permissible for the investigation of "substantial" offences, but also for the investigation of any offence committed by use of telecommunications networks (including sharing of copyrighted content). The law is to enter into force on 15 September 2007. Until 15 March 2009 data retention is to be optional for providers of internet access, Internet telephony and e-mail services.

The draft law was sharply criticised by the activist Working Group on Data Retention (Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung) for being unconstitutional. The German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) has repeatedly ruled in the past that human rights permit the collection of personal data only where they are needed for a specific purpose. The Working Group called for the transposition process to be aborted or, at least, suspended until the ECJ has ruled on Ireland's action for annulment of the directive on data retention. The Working Group also criticized the German draft law for going beyond EU requirements in relation to anonymization services, e-mail services and access to retained data. The EU directive applies to the investigation of "serious" offences only and does not ban anonymous or anonymization services.

The activist group presented a class action to be submitted to the Federal Constitutional Court in case the proposed law is adopted. The Court is to be asked to provisionally suspend data retention in Germany while examining its constitutionality. According to the draft application published on the Internet, the EU directive on data retention is void for violating human rights and for lacking a legal basis. The planned class action is supported by several German jurists and is open for all German citizens to join.

Draft law on data retention in Germany (in German only, 8.11.2006)
http://www.humanistische-union.de/fileadmin/hu_upload/doku/vorratsdate...

Website of the Working Group on Data Retention including information on the class action against data retention (in German only)
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/

(Contribution by Patrick Breyer - Working Group on Data Retention - Germany)