Law Drops EMail

CJ - Washington.   On March 2, 2006, the Constitutional Supreme Court in Karlsruhe announced its decision on a constitutional complaint of a judge from Heidelberg concerning the secrecy of telecommunication, a constitutional right embodied in Art. 10(1) of the German constitution, Grundgesetz, in the matter 2 BvR 2099/04. The justices held that the secrecy of telecommunication extends only to the transmission of a communication. Such protection expires with the termination of the transmission. The court decided that electronic data such as stored EMails which result from a completed transmission of data and are saved on the addressee's system are not protected by the secrecy principle governing telecommunications. For such data, the right of self-determination, Art. 2(1), Art. 1 (1) of the constitution, Grundgesetz, controls. In addition, the rule of secrecy does not protect any data--beyond EMail--archived by the recipient on a hard drive as a result of a transmission, for instance a data file downloaded from the internet. The court published a decision and a press release. German American Law Journal :: Washington USA