Slashdot Mirror
German ISP Forced To Delete IP Logs
An anonymous reader writes "A German federal court decided today that T-Online, one of the largest ISPs in Germany, was obligated to delete all IP logs of a customer upon request to guarantee their privacy. From the article: 'The decision (German) does not mean that T-Online is now obliged to delete all their IP-logs, the customers first need to complain. But, if they ask T-Online to delete their IP-logs, the ISP has no other choice than to comply. A lawyer from Frankfurt already sketched a sample letter (German) to make this process easier.'"
UK does have laws protecting peoples privacy. Namely the Data Protection Act and Rights of Investigatory Powers Act. The first one controls disclosure as well as providing means for individuals to review the data kept about them. The second controls what a co. such as an ISP can do with the data (eg traffic logs) as well as what the authorities can do. The two together means that you have to be able to justify the data you keep and for how long you keep it. The network that I work for does not keep data for longer than 3 months, unless it relevent to some network issue/investigation, then its kept for 2 years; but never indefinately. Lastly there is also the Freedom of Information Act, which allows citizen access to all sorts of government and civil service information and documentation. So you can double check their procedures for example.