Germany's Data Protection Officer Calls for Stronger Restrictions on Phone Tapping
Germany's Data Protection Officer Peter Schaar has called for a revision in the plans for new regulations of telephone surveillance. As he put it in the German daily Berliner Zeitung, "there has to be a clearer distinction between the ban on collecting such data and using it. The law should stipulate when the police have to stop phone tapping and when information can be gathered but not used for investigations." Schaar complained that the current draft only prevents the collection of this data if the phone call only concerns a core area of privacy. "In practice, this means that phone tapping will always be allowed," he said. "This is going too far. I do not believe that these regulations comply with the stipulations that the Constitutional Court handed down."
Germany's data protection officer calls for improvements in telephone surveillance, Heise Online, January 2, 2006.
