The impact of the retention of traffic and location data on the internet user

Zusammenfassung

Die Autoren diskutieren die Vorratsdatenspeicherung kritisch vor dem Hintergrund der Auswirkungen auf die „durchschnittlichen“ Internet-User.

Summary

The data retention directive brings along both promise and peril, while it is not clear which will prevail. The wording of the directive allows for broad interpretation at several points during its implementation in the national legislations of the Member States. Upper goal of the directive was the fight against terrorism and organised crime and the collection of semi-permanent storage of data makes it definitely possible to capture some criminals, especially if their communication consists mainly in email traffic and the servers used are located within the European Union.

In this paper we have discussed possibilities and methods to achieve a similar high rate of identification with less privacy invading techniques, like it is the case in web surfing. In addition, we listed a number of threats that are imminent due to the amount and types of data collected, which can turn against every Internet user, by disclosing their private communication and social networks to the public. Finally we have shown that the circumvention of the effect of the directive is possible for technically educated people and technologically savvy criminals, thus rendering it practically ineffective against them.