The German Federal Constitutional Court in the News

The German Federal Constitutional Court [website, in German] has been in the news lately ...

Two weeks ago, the Court (BVerfG, 1 BvR 370/07 vom 27.2.2008, Absatz-Nr. (1 - 333)) rendered a decision on so-called "online searches." [decision, in German] The court distinguished between open-access information on the web and information that can only be accessed through some kind of technical infiltration. Not surprisingly, the court allowed police to freely dispose of the former while indicating that access to the latter generally needed prior authorization by the courts. Most remarkably, however, the Court even went further and formulated a new fundamental right: the guaranteed confidentiality and integrity of IT-based systems (as part of the more general right of informational self-determination, art. 2.1 with art. 1.1 of the German Basic Law). This decision marks an important step to render the internet more tangible for legal purposes.

Today, the Court (BVerfG, 1 BvR 2074/05 vom 11.3.2008, Absatz-Nr. (1 - 185)) further emphasized the importance of the right of informational self-determination when it declared unconstitutional the police practice of automatically capturing license plates. [decision, in German]. According to the court, such usage of data violated the constitutional right of informational self-determination, unless such data collection served immediate investigation purposes. Thus, another important step towards privacy protection in the information age...