Slashdot Mirror
German Court Rules That Websites Can't Retain Logged IPs
tmk writes "The local court of the Berlin district of Mitte has barred the Federal Ministry of Justice from logging IP adresses of the visitors of its website. German law prohibits storing personal data for a longer time — if not needed for accounting. German privacy activists have started a campaign Wir speichern nicht, ("we don't log your data!") which provides manuals how to turn off the IP logging on your server."
Yes, but by the time you've told me that's your policy, you've already logged me.
There has been a movement to INCREASE the amount of logging going and to force ISP's to maintain detailed records for long periods of their users actions. That is WAY more intrusive then a website logging your ip. You do NOT have to go to a website, you are bound to use an ISP.
Before all the privacy loonies wake up, remember that it is perfectly normal for ALL your phone calls to be logged and it is standard practive for the police to check them, with court order, if they suspect something.
The most common example of this is a bomb threath. The police will have a record of where the call was made from.
This ruling makes this impossible to do the same with a bomb threath send over the internet. Wouldn't this ruling make even the most basic web policing, the blocking of ip adresses, impossible?
This seems like an overly broad ruling that leaves a lot of web admins in trouble because they can no longer effectively manage their servers.
Yes it is a nice counter to the european wide move to log EVERYTHING but there is such a thing as balance. Logging everything is wrong, but not being able to log anything can lead to just as much trouble.
For all the slashdot privacy nutters I ask you this. How often have you sniggered when some scumbag was traced by online activists and had his private information published on slashdot?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Who's there?
Denial Of Service Attack
Denial Of Service Attack Who?
We dont know.. we dont log that stuff..
As I understand this law is that my private server in Germany is now open for brute force attackers because I can't ban their ip address after 3 login failures? Heck I can't even break that law since everyone can easily tell that I'm using a ban list and just call the police.
I think someone in the German government should google brute force attacks and why ban lists are good.
The context is that the http://www.bmj.bund.de/ ( german version of the DOJ )
.. and so shall not be logged at all.
..')
started to log ip-addresses of people who had accessed public information dealing with
a terrorist group called "millitante Gruppe".
(
"Militante Gruppe" / ('militant group')
- german leftist/communist/(anarchist?)
- anti-global
terror group
till now no human causalties were recorded, terrorist actions mostly targeted unmanned police cars, or cars of right winged politicans in the city of Hamburg, using molotow cocktails,
The BKA ( german version of the FBI ) is investigating the incidents since 2001,
and they lack in information.
)
The information was placed intended to inform the public about the signs of identification the
group has been used in the past, to engage whistleblowers who may have recognized suspicious things helping the police to identify the persons behind this terrorist group.
But in contrast the visitors ip's were logged and further investigation was done by the 'BKA',
this includes identify the persons which accessed the page using their ip addresses,
with no further evidence such as visiting a governmental public information site,
such actions probably are illegal.
From the judgement were some non-offical guidancelines derived,
I will try to translate them as properly as I can.
The judgement deals not with IPs in detail, there is a term
"Internet-Nutzungsdaten" this can also be a profile of use,
and the german privacy laws try to protect the people from
being tracked, and so profiled.
GER Leitsätze (nicht amtlich):
ENG guidancelines ( non offical ):
a.)
GER Anbieter von Telemedien im Internet dürfen nicht systematisch die Kennungen (IP-Adressen) GER der Nutzer ihrer Dienste protokollieren.
ENG Provider of internet content and service shall not log signs of identification (ip-addresses)
ENG of users systematically.
b.)
GER Zur Entscheidung von Streitigkeiten über die Verarbeitung von Internet-Nutzungsdaten durch GER eine öffentliche Stelle ist die ordentliche Gerichtsbarkeit berufen.
ENG Anytime an offical judge must decide in disputes concerning the processing of
ENG ?InternetUserProfilingData? through a governmental organisation
c.)
GER Kann zwar nicht die speichernde Stelle, aber ein Dritter eine Angabe der Person des
GER Betroffenen zuordnen, so ist das Datum personenbezogen.
ENG If the Content Provider (logger) is not able to resolve the person of interest through the IP
ENG but a third person (ISP) is able to do so, the date is also to be recognized as personal data
NONTRANSLATIONJUSTMYSAYING
GER Die von einem Internet-Zugangsanbieter temporär zugewiesene Internetkennung (dynamische IP-GER Adresse) stellt nicht nur für den Internet-Zugangsanbieter, sondern auch für Anbieter von GER Telemedien im Internet ein personenbezogenes Datum dar.
ENG The dynamic IP address assigned by the ISP, is to be treated as personal data,
ENG for both the ISP and the content provider,
????? it can be seen as a personalised private date/datum.
From my point of view - I'm not a lawyer - but I understand a.) as if you recognize
missuse you are allowed to log the data of the missusing parties,
it's just not allowed to log and store every access over the
period of use ('.. dürfen nicht systematisch
It has to be noted that this decision does not necessariliy affect anyone apart from the parties involved in that particular case. German courts are not bound to decisions other courts made; there is no such thing as 'case law' in the german legal system. I'm pretty confident that 'regular' logging will continue to be alright; the analysis of user behavior is the critical fact here, at least that's how I read it. Still, every single law concerning the internet seems to be utter nonsense as of late; however, since noone in the government seems to understand how that whole computer-thingy works, that's hardly surprising. And on a sidenote: The Grundgesetz (*) states in article ten that "The privacy of correspondance, posts, and telecommunication shall be unviolable" - so far so good, however that does only affect the relationship between people and the state, not purely private relationships. I'm in law school, and I recently learned that the "Article 10 is not that important anymore since the Dt. Post and Dt. Telekom became private corperations and are not directly controlled by the state anymore." * http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/parliament/function/legal/germanbasiclaw.pdf
It is a bit complicated. In principle the law states you are not allowed to store privacy related data without a clear cause. Just storing because you can store is not enough. Every citizen has the right to ask what data you store about him and can even ask you to delete it. Failure to do so can result in a law suite and if you store information you don't need for the agreed upon cause you will loose. That has happened to the Ministry of Justice. As German law is not based on precedent it doesn't mean anything for anybody else directly. But it can mean, you are next on the list and will face a similar law suite.
One of the problems is, I don't see, how the IP address is a privacy related data, as a normal webmaster will not be able to connect an IP of an anonymous user with the users identity. This also is only the lowest instance of the court system, but the Ministry has not appealed (for whatever reasons).
I am personally undecided about it, in principle it is correct, why does a website I once visit have to store my IP forever? Also the next target of the group which started the Ministry of Justice case is now going after the BKA (federal police), they put up an information page about an extremist group not much is known about called mg (for "militante gruppe"). Everyone who visits that page is logged and they try to connect your IP with the data they have to identify you. It seems they try to somehow find the "terrorists" that way. Don't laugh, they seem to actually believe that could work.