Political dialogue on digital civil liberties

“Freedom in reserve?” How much digital security does our country need, and how much freedom can it cost? These were the central questions of a hybrid press event that WORDUP PR organized and moderated in October at the Munich Press Club. These experts from politics and business debated the controversial government plans to introduce data retention:

Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, former Federal Minister of Justice
Dr. Michael Ruoff, State Chairman of the FDP Bavaria
Sebastian v. Bomhard, Founder and Chairman of The Board, of SpaceNet AG

Moderated by WORDUP Managing Director Achim von Michel

The renewed inclusion of this approach in the coalition agreement brings the issue back into full focus – even though the European Court of Justice (ECJ) declared the precautionary data collection unlawful in 2022 following SpaceNet’s lawsuit in 2016 (confirmed by the Federal Administrative Court in 2023). The positions taken by the press club were unanimous: Indiscriminate, blanket, and unlimited data retention is a “perpetual revenant” and poses massive risks to our digital civil liberties. Currently, the German regulation of indiscriminate, unprovoked, and general data retention is contrary to EU law.

However, with new political initiatives at the federal and European levels, data retention appears to be returning to the center of the political debate. Munich-based PR agency WORDUP has a strong mandate to continue highlighting the digital civil liberties of citizens in Germany and Europe and to critically examine and comment on such initiatives.

The full press event can be found in the stream on YouTube. Reports were provided by the Tagespiegel and the IT-Sicherheit portal, among others.