German ban ISPs on holding data upheld
Found on The Inquirer on Thursday, 26 January 2006
A first-instance district court of Darmstadt, Germany, confirmed yesterday that Internet service providers may not store any customer data other than that required for invoicing purposes.
To abide by the ruling, ISPs are obliged to delete whatever information they garner from their customers, including ISP addresses, which would allow the ISP to track whatever web sites a customer visits.
T-Online customer Holger Voss argued that his service provider had overstepped the mark by storing data above and beyond that which it needed for invoicing purposes. The court agreed with him.
In Germany, ISPs are also obliged to hand over whatever data they may have on customers to the customer, on request.
And exactly that's how it should be everywhere. Privacy is more important than some weird ideas of politicians about data storage. I don't like the idea of having all my online activities logged. In the worst case, people would have to switch to projects like TOR to stay anonymous.