Systematic Government Access to Private-Sector Data in Germany

This chapter covers German law as it applies to government access to private-sector data. German law has long been strongly committed to informational privacy. Its protections are found at the constitutional and statutory levels. At the same time, legislation over the last two decades has expanded the ability of the government, including police and intelligence agencies, to process, store, and share personal information. The resulting databanks create elements of systematic access to personal data in Germany. At the same time, German unease with systematic data access is shown by the ongoing controversies with data retention and the abandoned ELENA process. Complex questions have also been raised by private sector attempts to create a Germany-only “cloud” as well as the significant and ongoing collaboration between German and US intelligence agencies.