German Courts Limit Data Retention Laws

[GhostShip]

This is good news for folks who believe in decent privacy rights

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080319/114146585.shtml

Data retention has been a contentious issue.
Various government organizations have pushed for laws that mandate that ISPs keep log data for many months after it's no longer needed, just in case some sort of crime was committed, and officials need to snoop on internet usage.

The EU moved forward with a data retention law a few years back -- though, it appears the German courts have been trying to adjust it to deal with some of the big privacy questions. In late 2006, a German court said that, if an individual requests it, an ISP should delete his or her log files. A new ruling from a German court finds that access to these log files should be limited so that investigators only get access in response to "serious crimes." Of course, that opens up questions about what qualifies as "serious" and also what investigators were using the log files for before? If the entire point of data retention laws was to deal with serious crimes, it's a bit disturbing that court now needs to reinforce that point.

Its pretty much obvious that abuse of the system has taken place and a warning shot is being fired across the bows of the miscreant by the courts, lets hope folks dont forget their right to have any logs deleted.

Privacy is one of those rights that if you dont guard will be stampeded into the dirt and left for dead.

[JazzGirlie17]

German Courts Limit Data Retention Law... A Little Bit. from the good-for-them dept. Data retention has been a contentious issue.

[GhostShip]

Welcome JazzGirlie, I,m sure anything the public can obtain from the courts in the way of satisfatory legal safeguards for their privacy is something to be applauded but as the original article states its a shame that a court has to be the entity that reinforces some protective aspects of the law and not the elected representatives.