In a move that may up-end EU laws mandating storage...

The high court upheld rules ordering service providers to collect and store assigned telecommunications numbers such as phone and mobile terminal numbers and associated subscriber personal information such as names and birth dates, he said. That means selling prepaid services and numbers for cellphones to end users who use them anonymously remains prohibited, he said. The court also upheld a section on eavesdropping and data collection by law enforcement agencies via interfaces and other automated means, he said. However, it criticized storage of Internet Protocol addresses, which contain more information and potential identifiers and must be treated with more legal care than “mere telephone numbers,” he said. But one section, which governs how telecom companies provide the information to law enforcement manually, by sifting through the records, was found unconstitutional, he said. In particular, making providers hand over any information on access security codes such as passwords or personal identification numbers was found to breach the right to informational self-determination enshrined in the national constitution, he said. But the rule will stay in place temporarily until June 30, 2013, at the latest as long as the safety codes are collected and used only under the conditions and to the extent explicitly foreseen by applicable law enforcement measures, he said. “This is an important decision” that will take time to digest, Spies told us. It will have an impact on the wider debate in Germany on to what extent telecom providers must store all traffic data for law enforcement purposes under the EU data retention directive, he said. Large portions of the country’s adaptation of the EU measure were voided in 2010, such as the requirement to hold traffic data for six months, and the government hasn’t been able to put new rules in place despite pressure from police bodies, he said. “My impression is that this new decision will make it difficult to fully implement the data retention directive in Germany,” he said. A “quick freeze” system to accommodate the needs of law enforcement agencies, akin to that in the U.S., has become more likely, he said. Asked how, if Germany is unable to fully adopt the EU measure, the European Commission can expect other European governments to do so, Spies said: “This is part of the struggle between national constitutional law and EU law.” The EC is expected to unveil plans to revamp the directive this year.