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A ruling of the German Constitutional Court brings into question EU initiatives on data retention – PGP comment

March 2010 by PGP Corporation

On Tuesday March 2nd, Germany’s Constitutional Court ruled that a key data-retention law arising from an EU directive seen as central to the fight against terrorism contravened Germany’s constitution*

The 2008 law, which required telecommunications companies to retain all citizens’ telephone and internet data for six months, caused outrage among German citizens with a record 35,000 bringing complaints, concerned about potential privacy and civil liberty abuse. The original EU law provides for member states storing telephone and Internet data for up to 24 months

The court ruled that the law failed to impose sufficient restrictions on access to the data and more importantly, did not ensure sufficient data encryption should the information be stolen.

Jamie Cowper, marketing manager EMEA for PGP Corporation, an expert in enterprise data protection, has made the following comments on the decision:

“The ruling of the German Constitutional Court highlights the very valid concerns both European government institutions and citizens have about the security of their personal information and access to it. The number of high profile data breaches and data frauds in Europe and in the US bear witness to the fact that securing information with a simple password, for example, is no longer good enough. Sensitive and confidential data needs to be encrypted to guarantee that even if it is lost or stolen, only authorized personnel can access it.

This particular case also draws our attention to the difficulties in implementing a European-wide legislation due to the often conflicting policies and attitudes in EU member countries. If the EU has any hope of applying pan-European regulations in the area of data retention, it needs to take the public’s fears seriously and gain their trust by ensuring that the strongest possible measures are taken to safeguard their privacy.”


*http://euobserver.com/9/29595


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