This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Deutschland: Kriminalstatistik entlarvt Vorratsdatenspeicherung als ü...

The national crime statistics recently published by Germany's Federal Crime Agency reveal that after the policy of blanket telecommunications data retention was discontinued in Germany due to a Constitutional Court ruling on 3 March 2010, registered crime continued to decline and the crime clearance rate was the highest ever recorded (56,0%). Indiscriminate and blanket telecommunications data retention had no statistically relevant effect on crime or crime clearance trends. These findings confirm the position of more than 100 organisations in Europe that are opposing the EU policy of mass retention of telecommunications data, calling it unnecessary and disproportionate.

The statistics refute the myth spread by certain politicians and police representatives that the Internet is "a lawless space" in the absence of mass retention of telecommunications data of non-suspects. Even without such a policy of blanket data retention, the German police achieved a clearance rate of nearly three out of four Internet offences (71%) in 2010, exceeding by far the average clearance rate for crimes committed without any use of the Internet (55%).

Regarding other European countries, the Scientific Services of the German Parliament have recently analysed "the practical effects of data retention on crime clearance rates in EU Member States" and have come to the following conclusion: "In most States crime clearance rates have not changed significantly between 2005 and 2010. Only in Latvia did the crime clearance rate rise significantly in 2007. However, this is related to a new Criminal Procedure Law and is not reported to be connected to the transposition of the EU Data Retention Directive."

"Since crime clearance trends are completely unaffected by the retention of communications data of non-suspects, there is no justification for the EU's "big brother" policy of collecting telecommunications data on all 500 million EU citizens", explains Florian Altherr, member of the German Working Group on Data Retention. "Ninety-eight percent of citizens are never suspected of any wrongdoing. The right of protection of their personal data from unjustified suspicion, data abuse and data loss due to data retention policies must prevail. The EU must respect its Charter of Fundamental Rights and give up its failed experiment of total data retention immediately."

"In light of these new crime statistics, the irresponsible campaign of fear and continued scaremongering by some politicians after the annulment of the German data retention law finds no justification in reality", says Michael Ebeling of the German Working Group on Data Retention. "The truth is that with targeted investigations of suspects we live just as safely as we would with a policy of indiscriminate retention of all communications data. The endless exaggeration and emotionally charged descriptions of isolated cases combined with a massive media campaign is both misleading and unethical. In my view this is nothing less than a populist defence of the most privacy invasive and unpopular surveillance measure ever adopted by the EU."

German police statistics prove telecommunications data retention superfluous (6.06.2011)
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/455/79/lang,en/

EDRi-gram: German study finds the data retention ineffective (9.02.2011)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.3/telecom-data-retention-ineffect...

(Thanks to AK Vorrat - Germany)