The European Court of Justice today ruled that the German regulations on blanket data retention are not compatible with EU law. The eco Association welcomes this judgement and calls for an urgent repeal of the current regulations.

The European Commission has presented the proposal for the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) regulation. Prof. Norbert Pohlmann, eco Board Member for IT Security, believes it is understandable that the EU wants to make digital systems even more secure and resilient in the future. However, he does not see an automatic improvement in security in the planned rules.

In the legal dispute between SpaceNet AG and the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will decide on 20 September whether the German regulations on data retention are compatible with EU law. eco has supported the lawsuit of SpaceNet AG from the beginning. According to the Association’s assessment, the general and unconditional storage of traffic data, with around 2.35 billion data records per day (IP addresses and telephony), affects almost all German users and costs the industry more than 600 million Euros.

According to the eco survey, 81.6 per cent of all parents surveyed restrict the circle of recipients when they share photos via messenger services. Only 8.8 per cent use smileys to cover their child’s face.

On 11 May 2022, the EU Commission adopted and published the proposal for a regulation on preventing and combating child abuse content. After a first analysis, eco would like to point out the following points in particular.

More and more services are shifting from the analogue to the digital world. In order for users to be able to use online services with confidence, regardless of whether they are provided by public or private providers, a secure and Europe-wide standardised solution for authentication is needed,

The Digital Ministers of the G7 countries are now meeting in Dusseldorf, with the protection of digital infrastructure and cybersecurity being key focal points due to the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine. In a guidelines paper, eco defines how these topics can be strengthened in a sustainable manner.

As another Covid year draws to a close, let’s take the opportunity to review the digital policy highlights of this year! To begin with the brightest news of the year: In these Covid times, digital infrastructures, digital technologies and digital applications have kept things up and running, thereby contributing to combatting the pandemic by switching physical contacts to the virtual.

eco is sharply critical of the fact that companies may be legally obliged to make their telecommunications equipment available for the imperceptible installation of government spying software and the redirection of data.

Regarding the Log4J vulnerability, Prof. Norbert Pohlmann, Board Member for IT Security at eco, sees the threat from cyber attacks as having hit a frightening new level. The German federal government must now do everything they can to quickly shut down the existing IT vulnerabilities.