Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has proposed limiting the rights of data protection authorities to investigate breaches of people's medical and legal records, Deutsche Welle (DW) reported November 25.
The draft law is supposed to implement stricter privacy rules the EU has set, which will take effect in 2018. But in fact, it could have the opposite effect and curtail EU law and privacy rights.
The law drew fire from several officials, including current DVD board member Thilo Weichert, who scrapped Maiziere's plan as a "massive" erosion of privacy in Germany.
"The limitation of data protection controls in the medical field, which was a focal point of the [data protection] authorities up until now, is simply a disaster," Weichert said in a statement.
The DVD acknowledged that the draft has been improved after its previous presentation by the Interior Ministry. "And yet the draft […] contains old and in some cases new European-law-breaching and unconstitutional and unacceptable regulations," the organization said in its statement.
The DVD called the rights of citizens to know about access to their data the "Magna Carta of data protection."
The law also drew criticism from the Federal Data Protection Commissioner's Office (BfDI), whose commissioner, Andrea Vosshoff, said the plan would make "control by the BfDI in many sensitive areas, for instance health insurance companies, job centers, or other social service operators, almost impossible, and is not acceptable."
Germany, up to now very protective of its citizens' privacy, seems to be taking a step back.
