Germany's justice minister on Monday said Facebook should face "stricter" oversight and be more transparent with its users, as the tech giant struggles to contain the fallout from a huge data privacy scandal.
Germany is the latest country to demand answers from Facebook after it emerged data from 50 million users was used to inform targeted election campaigns. German Justice Minister Katharina Barley on Thursday called such methods "a danger to democracy."
The BND, Germany's version of the CIA, has been accused of massive breaches of the constitution in a leaked report by the government's representative for data protection.
Those who prefer their mobile phone to remain anonymous are in for a shock in Germany, as ministers agreed on Wednesday to require anyone buying a pay-as-you-go SIM card to present ID.
Justice Minister Heiko Maas said he will introduce a plan this month to take "tougher action" against terrorists, while civil rights activists warned against a knee-jerk response to the Paris attacks.
Thousands of secret planning documents for Berlin's catastrophic BER airport project were found dumped in skips on Monday night - kilometres away from the building site.
German data protection standards should form the basis for future EU-wide regulation, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told Die Welt newspaper on Monday.
Data protection officers in Germany are calling on the European Union to suspend its "Safe Harbor" data exchange programme with the US following allegations of widespread spying, it emerged on Wednesday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said "Germany is not a surveillance state" and insisted she only learnt of sweeping US online snooping through press reports, during a lengthy election-campaign press conference Friday.
The German government Wednesday denied a report claiming that the nation's military knew for years about the US surveillance programme PRISM revealed by fugitive former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden.
As the data surveillance scandal unravels further and evidence of new data-tapping arises daily, Germany's press is in overdrive discussing the implications. <b>The Local's Media Round-up</b> delves into some of the juicy bits.
British secret services are tapping a fibre-optic cable carrying data from Germany to the US, German media say, in the wake of bombshell revelations that the British are watching Europeans on a larger scale even than the Americans.
The German Justice Minister reacted with shock on Saturday to revelations that British as well as US spies intercept and collect European communications - yet a survey shows most Germans don't believe they have been in the spotlight.
The German government said Tuesday it planned to send a list of questions to the US administration over revelations that Washington is running a worldwide internet surveillance programme.
Job centres searching for photos of “ill” people at wild parties or statuses by “broke” people boasting about their new cars were warned on Friday it was illegal to use Facebook to spy on people suspected of abusing the benefits system.
Anonymous web surfing came a step closer to becoming a thing of the past in Germany on Friday when the upper house of parliament passed a law giving security officials wider access to information on the identity of internet users.
Police and security officials are relieved after Germany's highest court ruled on Wednesday that the nation's database of terrorism suspects is in line with the constitution, but needs to be tweaked to ensure greater security.
German authorities said Monday they had fined Google for illegally collecting massive amounts of personal data including emails, passwords and photos while setting up its disputed Street View service.
More and more people are opting to work on the go or from home using smart phones and tablets. But German experts and employers are warning that the practice is putting company information at risk from viral attacks.
A German data protection expert voiced concern on Wednesday after the owner of the O2 mobile phone company said it was preparing to sell information about customers’ locations and movements.
People hiring luxury cars from Europcar in Hamburg were being tracked as they drove around, in what data protection officials have called "a serious breach of the right to privacy." The firm has been fined more than €50,000.
The German government has disowned a law passed by its own parties in parliament in less than a minute which enables local authorities to sell people’s personal information even without their permission.
Germany’s biggest credit bureau Schufa has been planning to poke around in your Facebook profile to find out if you're creditworthy. Is this just part of its job, or an intolerable violation? <b>Have your say!</b>
A German company which studies drug prescription habits for the pharma industry is accused of selling raw data to drug companies, in what magazine <i>Der Spiegel</i> said on Monday could be a huge data protection scandal.
