Germans Speak Up to Defend European Union Privacy Laws

The White House is battling the European Union over privacy laws, but President Clinton just might secretly sympathize with his opponents: If Linda Tripp had clandestinely taped conversations with Monica S. Lewinsky in Germany, she would have been charged immediately with criminal violation of her colleague’s privacy.

Recording any conversation without participants’ permission is illegal here, and the ban is strictly enforced. Privacy laws also obstruct unsolicited marketing phone calls, prohibit any record on telephone bills of citizen contacts with counseling services and forbid the sharing of client profiles via the Internet.

Germany has some of the strongest privacy-protection laws in the world, and they served as the model for the EU standards that the U.S. government contends unfairly restrict U.S. companies seeking information about consumers or even prevent them from getting records from European partners. But the privacy watchdogs with the grass-roots Data Security Assn. based in this Baltic Sea port insist that they occupy the moral high ground.

Because of the Nazi history of misusing personal records to identify “undesirables,” Germans are more wary than Americans of assaults on their privacy. The specter of what Germans call “the glass man,” exposed to the prying eyes of government and commerce, scares those on this densely populated continent into clinging to the shields that U.S. officials contend constrict free markets.

“For many years, the fear was that Big Brother could be watching our behavior too closely, but now people have to be more worried about misuse of their data by private entities, like businesses,” says Thilo Weichert, a Kiel resident who heads the Data Security Assn., which works with German agencies to propose privacy legislation.

At issue between the United States and Europe is an EU ban on electronic transmission of personal data to countries--including the U.S.--with less stringent controls on use of that information. Credit-card records and other indicators of buying habits may be fair game for marketing agencies in the U.S., but Germans are empowered by law to shield their profiles and billing details from third parties.

The EU ban on such Internet transmissions is the subject of ongoing negotiations between Washington and the Brussels-based trade bloc. The German architects of the EU policy, however, doubt that a compromise is near, because of the fundamental conflict in views: Europeans prefer laws while Americans favor self-regulation.

Germany’s extensive protections have often stemmed from cases of abuse. A law prohibiting retention or disclosure of rental records was enacted after a judge was exposed for patronizing a video pornography shop. In another incident, a Hanover-area firm has been barred from selling a CD-ROM street map that displays the facades of homes, with apparent intention of spotlighting the affluent.

In EU nations, according to the privacy code adopted last fall, a business must inform clients of any secondary use of their personal information and allow them the option of refusing. Europeans can also vet computer files on their credit ratings, personal history and health records. As Deutsche Telekom privacy trouble-shooter Thomas Koenigshofen notes, the telephone company’s billing computers are programmed to omit records of calls to abortion counselors, sexual-assault hotlines and AIDS testing services, to prevent even a client’s family from learning personal information.

Some political activists argue that the protections can be excessive, thwarting police in tracking down crime suspects through phone records or preventing medical practitioners from learning vital aspects of a patient’s history.

Still, German and EU officials insist that their approach to privacy is superior, especially in enforcement. State privacy watchdogs intervene to resolve at least 80% of complaints about official or commercial abuses, sparing citizens protracted and costly lawsuits, says Helmut Baeumler, chief of the privacy protection office in Kiel.

Weichert acknowledges that compromise is in order to resolve the trade conflict. And although he believes that the European approach to privacy protection is more effective, he worries about the prevailing political winds.

“My fear is that protection of economic rights is of so much concern now that our civil rights will fall victim to the American view,” the activist says.

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Carol J. Williams is chief of The Times’ Berlin Bureau.