Information requests for traffic data
Background on the technical implementation of information requests and on the Federal Constitutional Court's judgment on data retention
Technical implementation of information requests
The provision of information as per section 110 of the Telecommunications Act (TKG) is not directly affected by the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court on data retention. Part B of the Technical Directive as per section 110(3) of the TKG, in which the technical details for implementing legal measures for the provision of information on traffic data are set out, can therefore continue to be consulted for the provision of information on traffic data collected and stored for operational reasons by companies under section 96 of the TKG. Likewise, customer data can be provided with this method in the manual information procedure as per section 113 of the TKG.
The Technical Directive is available on the download page.
Data retention
In a judgment of 2 March 2010, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled
Sections 113a and 113b of the Telecommunications Act as published in article 2 para 6 of the Telecommunications Interception and Other Undercover Investigation Measures Reform and Transposition of Dierective 2006/24/EC Act (Federal Law Gazette Part I page 3198) infringe article 10(1) of the Basic Law and are void.
- Section 100g(1) sentence 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure as published in article 1 para 11 of the Telecommunications Interception and Other Undercover Investigation Measures Reform and Transposition of Directive 2006/24/EC Act of 21 December 2007 (Federal Law Gazette Part 1 page 3198) infringes article 10(1) of the Basic Law and is void, insofar as it provides for the collection of traffic data under section 113a of the Telecommunications Act .
- Telecommunications traffic data collected pursuant to the interim order of 11 March 2008 in case 1 BvR 256/08 (Federal Law Gazette Part I page 659), repeated and expanded with the ruling of 28 October 2008 (Federal Law Gazette Part I page 2239), finally repeated with the ruling of 15 October 2009 (Federal Law Gazette Part I page 3704), by providers of publicly available telecommunications services in connection with information requests by an authority but not yet transmitted to the authority in question in accordance with section 113b first half of sentence 1 of the Telecommunications Act and instead stored are to be deleted without delay. The data may not be transmitted to the parties requesting it.
The judgment can be viewed on the website of the Federal Constitutional Court under Decisions.
As a result of sections 113a and 113b of the TKG being void, there is no longer any legal basis for the storage of traffic data in line with section 113a. All data stored solely under the provisions of section 113a of the TKG must therefore be deleted without delay. This also applies if the service is offered in Germany yet the data are stored abroad.
The judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court applies with immediate effect.