Whistleblower prompts review of German data protection laws
[Quote:]
Germany’s Interior Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, vowed today to tighten the laws governing how data on German consumers can be gathered, sold, and traded. Schäuble’s declaration comes after a call center whistleblower, Detlef Tiegel, handed a CD containing the banking details of some 17,000 German citizens over to the authorities. The information in question had been obtained (possibly purchased) by the unidentified company that employed Tiegel. The initial 17,000 records were only a fraction of the roughly 1.5 million records Tiegel claimed he could produce.
German officials took the man’s claims seriously enough to open their own investigation, and were dismayed when they were able to purchase 6 million records of personally identifiable information (PII) for a paltry €850 (~$1,220).
[..]
Schäuble blasted those who profit from mining customer data, and vowed to introduce “opt-in” legislation that would only allow companies to share the information of consumers who had specifically agreed to it. Current German law offers an opt-out solution, where companies may not share the data of those consumers who specifically object to it. Schäuble also mentioned the possibility of requiring German telephone sales callers to disclose exactly how and where they obtained a given person’s number.
Perhaps somebody should leak the BSN of all dutch parliament members…
September 7th, 2008 at 11:30
We have an opt-in system. You have to opt-in. Unfortunately, opting in is part of the contract, ie. you either opt-in and get a contract, or you don’t opt-in and don’t get a contract. Smart no?