The German government on Wednesday proposed new guidelines on data retention aimed at balancing privacy protection with the needs of law enforcement in setting strict time limits on how long telecommunications providers store data.

Under the proposal by the German Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, telecommunications and Internet data has to be stored for up to 10 weeks and deleted thereafter, while data on location may be stored up to four weeks. Telecoms providers violating those time limits can be fined.

The German initiative comes as data privacy is riding high on Europe’s policy-making agenda, with the EU putting finishing touches on a bill that would dramatically change the way big Internet companies that operate in Europe handle consumer data. European policy makers frequently refer to Apple, Amazon.com AMZN +14.45%, Facebook FB -0.15%, and Google GOOGL +3.16% when discussing the power of these companies. The EU measure would replace an existing patchwork of national data privacy laws.

In the case of the new German guidelines, which apply to telecom operators, email traffic and the content of communications will not be retained at all, according to the proposal, nor will data regarding which websites a person has accessed. Law-enforcement agencies can only get access to the data when investigating a serious offence and after approval by a court. The data must be stored in Germany.

Read the Full Article: Source – Wall Street Journal
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/04/15/berlin-strikes-compromise-on-privacy-security-with-new-data-guidelines/

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