The Federal Constitutional Court sees the need for changes to the Federal Criminal Police Office Act. The court in Karlsruhe ruled that some of the BKA’s legal powers to collect and store data were unconstitutional. They are not compatible with the fundamental right to informed self-determination. Among other things, the court criticized the secret monitoring of suspects’ contacts.
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The Society for Freedom Rights (GFF) filed a constitutional complaint with the Supreme Court of Karlsruhe against several provisions of the BKA law, which was reformed in 2017. The non-profit association had called for solid constitutional standards for collection and storage of data.
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The complainants also include members of the organized football world. The rules they are attacking infringe upon the fundamental right to informed self-determination, A message from Karlsruhe saysIf it does, it must serve the general interest and be proportionate in the narrow sense.
This “principle of proportionality in the narrow sense” gives rise to special requirements for the Court. This refers to separately regulated data collection as well as the storage of personal data and its further use. Reusing data already collected beyond the original reason is a new encroachment on fundamental rights and must be specifically justified under constitutional law.
The judges criticize that there is not enough storage limit. Harbarth said that having a defendant alone does not allow reliable conclusions to be drawn about the substantial likelihood of a relevant connection to future crimes. There is also a lack of sufficiently differentiated regulation regarding storage period.
particularly difficult process
Court President Stephan Harbarth said the secret surveillance represented a particularly serious intrusion. If such measures are directed only against contact persons, there must be “specific, personal proximity of those affected by the identified threat”. The corresponding regulation in the BKA law does not meet these requirements.
The GFF celebrated the verdict as a “success for civil liberties”. This decision strengthens the right to determine one’s own data and also urges federal and state legislators to formulate new surveillance powers in a sufficiently specific and precise manner.
The Federal Constitutional Court had already ruled on the sweeping powers of security authorities in 2016 – and declared some of them unconstitutional. Therefore the BKA law had to be reformed. The new version is effective from May 2018.
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