Germany steps up the fight against online crime: IP address will be stored for three months…

“When it comes to child pornography, fraud or spreading hatred on the Internet, the perpetrators have so far too often escaped prosecution. We now want to change that,” said Federal Minister of Justice Stefanie Hubig.

The draft law presented today in Berlin requires telecommunication companies to store the user’s IP address for three months after using the Internet.

Longer-term storage of Internet users’ data could contribute to further elucidation of criminal offenses on the Internet.

Until now, the prosecution often had to be stopped because the companies did not store data such as the IP address through which the internet user can be identified.

Extending the storage period of IP addresses is only one of the measures that should contribute to increasing security on the Internet, which was foreseen by the coalition agreement of the government of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. The legislative package still needs to be approved by the Bundestag.

The Green parliamentary party, which until now has been the biggest opponent of data storage, has announced that it will vote against the new law.

“The CDU/CSU and the SPD are apparently planning massive internet surveillance without reason and without initial suspicion,” said Greens legal affairs spokesman Helge Limburg.

He pointed out that until now all attempts to legally regulate the monitoring of citizens’ data have without initial doubt been prevented by higher courts such as the German Constitutional Court or the Court of the European Union.