Germany: Student goes to law over World Cup data collection
01 March 2006
Civil liberties groups and data protection officers have been following the World Cup preparations from a different perspective than most fans. Data protection infringements, through the uncontrolled extension and use of EU police databases on supporters, and widespread surveillance mechanisms implemented with regard to the competition, from buying tickets to watching matches at public screenings, have alarmed civil rights observers. Now a student from Dresden has decided to take action as he does not want the serial number of his ID card to be kept in a database, simply because he bought a ticket for a football match.
Supported by the German Association for the Promotion of Mobile and Immobile Public Data Traffic (FoeBuD e.V. -
Verein zur Förderung des öffentlichen bewegten und unbewegten Datenverkehrs e.V.), Stefan Hohensee lodged a complaint against the German Football Association (DFB -
Deutscher Fußball-Bund) after his demand that his ID serial number be deleted from the DFB database remained unanswered. On 28 March, the administrative court in Frankfurt heard the case, but judge Volker Horn rejected the application for a temporary injunction arguing that due to the threat of terrorism, the collection of personal ID numbers was necessary to ensure a peaceful and safe visit to the World Cup. He adopted the argument of the DFB defence lawyers, that the data was necessary to ensure safety at the games because security personnel would have to check at the gates who was entering the stadia. This was only possible with the help of a serial number because the names of foreign guests, according to the DFB, often had numerous spellings.
However, not only the FoeBuD, but also the regional data protection officer, Thilo Weichert, points out that paragraph 4(2) of the German Identity Card Law lays down that the serial number cannot be used in a way that allows for "personal data [to be] extracted from a database or [in a way] that other data is linked to it". In collecting the number and making it searchable the DFB is clearly violating this data protection principle says the FoeBuD. The plaintiff has appealed against this first instance decision.
At a data protection congress on 16 March in Ulm, which discussed CCTV surveillance during the World Cup, experts warned about the abuse of new surveillance technologies: "The authorities' threshold to access sensitive data is disappearing", Hansjürgen Garstka from the European Academy for Information Security and Data Protection, and regional data protection officer for Berlin, said. Citizens and data protection officers should always ask themselves, he urged, what could happen to personal data and who has potential access to it once collected.
FoeBuD e.V.: http://www.foebud.org/rfid/illegal-legal; Background article: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/71384