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.'"

Comments

The way it should be.

[rolyatknarf]

There's not a chance in hell that anything like this would ever happen in the United States. I hope it works for the Germans. This is the way privacy should be treated. The people have rights.

Requests to delete server logs

[Neoncow]

Requests to delete server logs, however, will be logged.

But no privacy in the land of the free

[Salvance]

I wonder why the average American (or Brit) doesn't demand the same level of privacy that many of the mainland Europeans now have? While some other freedoms (e.g. speech,press) are more limited in countries like Germany, there appears to be a strong right-to-privacy movement backed up by the government.

Sure, our media and government pay lip service to privacy issues, but the reality is that our government wants to increase monitoring in the name of fighting terror. Compare this story of Germany forcing the ISP to delete logs for a customer to this one outlining yet another argument by US officials to require ISPs to maintain even more user data.

I'd hate to see us to become a 'surveillance society' like Britain has. Unfortunately, we seem to be quickly heading down that path, particularly since our citizens haven't yet raised up to demand greater freedom.

Re:But no privacy in the land of the free

[foobsr]

some other freedoms (e.g. speech,press) are more limited in countries like Germany

Any source? Just curious, as I am living in Germany and did not really realize.

Also:

Press Freedom Index 2006

CC.

Re:But no privacy in the land of the free

[Trevelyan]

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.

Australia..

[swordfishBob]

It should work in Australia. Privacy laws here state that:
- If I ask a company operating in Australia what information they have about me, they are obliged to tell me
- If I ask where they got this information, again they must answer
- If I ask the same company to remove such records, AFAIK they must, though there are reasonable exceptions to this one. (e.g. if i've done business with them, they have to keep financial records. if it's my bank, they might have to cancel the mortgage to comply..)
- Companies operating here are not supposed to pass on private information without consent, which is why so many competitions and things have clauses in tiny writing to get your consent.