Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 27, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
In addition, a new fundamental right was defined for the first time since 1983 – when the fundamental right to informational self-determination was introduced: the “fundamental right to the guarantee of the confidentiality and integrity of information technology systems”.
The trigger for the proceedings was a class action against the law governing the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia: this permits the installation of spyware on the computers of suspected serious criminals and terrorists. Because this software would be capable of intercepting passwords, reading hard-drive contents, intercepting encrypted conversations and transmitting all of this over the Internet to the investigating authorities, the term “online search” became established.
How the ruling will affect practice remains to be seen. The North Rhine-Westphalian law governing the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, at least – this much is already clear – will have to be revised. The discussions concerning the “federal Trojan”, by contrast, will continue.
Magnus Kalkuhl, Virus Analyst, Kaspersky Lab: “This will have no influence on our work as an antivirus company. As stated several times in the past, the following continues to apply: ultimately, a state-funded Trojan would have to work using the same methods as spyware from malware authors – and would therefore in all probability be reported as potentially dangerous by our proactive protective measures (code heuristics, behaviour-based heuristics, etc.). A classification by name as a ‘federal Trojan’, by contrast, would of course not be possible, since ultimately only the behaviour, but not the author, of a Trojan can be determined – and it is unlikely that the authorities would voluntarily supply an AV company with samples of their tools.”
Further information:
- Kaspersky Lab
Federal Constitutional Court
