The Federal Ministry of the Interior would like to oblige so-called number-independent telecommunications services such as messenger or e-mail to “To collect identification features, to verify them and, in individual cases, to make them available to the security authorities”.
This emerges from a list of demands compiled within the framework of the reform of the Telecommunications Act (TKG). The Ministry of the Interior is thus adopting the proposal made by the federal states of Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania a year ago to impose an obligation to identify users of social networks.
The Ministry justifies the far-reaching security policy measures by stating that the anonymity must be lifted in individual cases to investigate criminal offenses. Accordingly, the name, address and date of birth of the users should be collected. The regulation should primarily be applied to foreign services such as Whatsapp.
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The Email Provider Posting sharply criticizes the demands. The introduction of an identification requirement would fundamentally change the way people in Germany use online services. The users would always be forced to deposit their verified data with numerous companies scattered all over the world.
So far, no identity verification is usually necessary for free email services. For most messenger services, a valid phone number is sufficient. In addition to this point, the 15 points of the so-called formulation aid contain further, drastic requirements. For example, telecommunications providers will have to help install state Trojans in the future. The whole list is there here.
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