Telecommunications Data Retention No More
by Sebastian
The German Constitutional Court declared the German telecommunication data retention (“Vorratsdatenspeicherung”) unlawful this morning. All laws are null and void, saved data has to be deleted.
They didn’t challenge the concept or the EU guideline in general, but found that the German legal framework needs more judiciary oversight, clear definitions of when to use it, and safer data storage.
They also iterated that the data is only to be used for crimes of a certain severity.
Once again my trust in the Constitutional Court is affirmed. They save our butts against bad or incomplete laws every time.
As much as I welcome this verdict, I do feel for the police. Even though it doesn’t seem like the now obsolete laws saw much use (yet), I understand that it’s hard to properly prosecute criminals if the laws are so uncertain.
Comments
Laws are made to be interpreted/upheld by the courts. I suspect politicians will craft new laws to bypass that very verdict just like they always do in the U.S… But then again, using American examples is probably a flawed practice since the state of affairs here nowadays is, well, messed up…
I agree, government will try to come up with new laws. The result will be a compromise. In Germany, however, we have quite strong basic rights regarding informational freedom. So whatever the result will be, it will be in accordance with our quite modern constitution.