[Corp. Watch] Apple is watching you - and the Germans are watching them

[Corporation Watch]

Global Privacy Cop Germany to Investigate Apple's User Location Data

By Dawn Kawamoto

(Daily Finance, June 28) -- In its latest move to safeguard computer users' rights and burnish its reputation as a global privacy cop, Germany is seeking to dig deeper into Apple's collection of its customers' location-based data. 

	Germany has been particularly busy of late amid the high-profile privacy debacles and debates surrounding tech titans from Google to Facebook.

	That should come as no surprise, given the country is considered the birthplace of data privacy. In 1970, the German state of Hesse passed a Data Protection Act, which marked the first data protection legislation in the world.

	"It was the first law on data protection, and traditionally a lot of regulation over privacy comes out of Germany," says Christopher Kuner, a partner at Hunton & Williams who heads up the law firm's international privacy and information management practice. "It's one of the most influential [countries on privacy policy] in Europe."

	The Hesse Act laid out the general framework for privacy laws of today, Kuner said, giving people the right to access their data and have control over it.

	Last week, computermaker Apple updated its privacy policy, notifying customers that it would collect, use, and sell their real-time geographic location information gathered when they're using Apple devices such as iPads and iPhones.

	Germany's justice minister was quoted in the widely read German magazine Der Spiegel calling on Apple to "open its databases to German data-protection authorities" to clarify the data it is collecting and how it will be used.

Taking a Pro-Active, Pro-Consumer Approach

	German authorities also blew away Google's claims that its Street View cars were only gathering WiFi location-based data and no personal information. Google ate crow regarding its earlier statements about the Street View cars, acknowledging that it had discovered the snafu after German authorities asked to audit the WiFi data.

	Meanwhile amid concerns that social networking giant Facebook wasn't doing enough to safeguard its users' data, German Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner earlier this month announced she would be deleting her Facebook account.

	She further noted that she believed her country's data-protection agency would likely hit Facebook with fines over its privacy settings, despite changes the company made to appease angry users. Those compromise moves have been largely panned worldwide.

	Each country in Europe has its own enforcement agencies to levy fines and take action in privacy matters, and the cases are usually handled by a data protection or consumer protection authority. Usually, those agencies are the ones with teeth, while ministry officials can initiate legislative or policy changes, Kuner noted.

	For companies doing business in Germany, the privacy bar is actually rising. Last year Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, increased regulations on the way both new and previously collected data can processed, and tightened restrictions on sharing information with third-party marketing partners.

	With this move against Apple, the German authorities are sending a clear signal that they aren't going to relax their vigilance. Internet companies with a global footprint would be wise to brush up on their German.