IP Democracy: European Nations Want to Know Who, Where You Are

The New York Times Victoria Shannon has this piece today that should spook citizens of Germany and The Netherlands. Both countries are seeking more expansive powers to track Internet and phone use, going beyond an already discomforting EU directive.

In Germany, under a proposed law, Internet users would not be allowed to create fictitious email accounts to bid in auctions or receive commercial email (there goes Yahoo!’s business in Germany). Aliases would be allowed but they would always have to be traceable back to the owner. Any email registrations would have to be verified by some kind of identity verification.

In The Netherlands, a draft law would require phone companies to save records of a caller’s precise location during an entire mobile phone conversation. One attorney suggests that this law might even make prepaid cellphones illegal.

The cause of the tightened monitoring is, of course, the rise in terrorist activity, which lead to the original EU directive regarding expanded and longer data storage requirements for telecommunications carriers. But, forcing people to give up their multiple email accounts — or making them feeling queasy when they talk on the phone — can hardly make anyone feel safer.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on February 20, 2007 2:51 PM to IP Democracy