Bereits im Sommer hat der UNO-Menschenrechtskommissar einen deutlichen Bericht zu The Right to Privacy in the Digital Age veröffentlicht. Heute hat der Menschenrechtskommissar des Europarats einen noch weiter gefassten Bericht zur Rechtsstaatlichkeit in der digitalen Welt veröffentlicht. Darin wird unter vielem auch auf die Vorratsdatenspeicherung eingegangen – und dabei das Urteil vom Europäischen Gerichtshof gestützt. Der Bericht kommt zum Schluss:
In sum, compulsory retention of communications data is fundamentally contrary to the rule of law, incompatible with core data-protection principles and also ineffective. The EC Data Retention Directive and all national data-retention laws should be repealed and replaced by data-preservation [quick-freeze of data] laws.
Dies ist insofern auch spannend, da die Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention EMRK vom Europarat ausgearbeitet wurde – und die Beschwerde gegen die Vorratsdatenspeicherung in der Schweiz zum zugehörigen Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte führen wird.
Weitere Forderungen sind (unter vielen anderen):
Member states should ensure that any restrictions on access to Internet content affecting users under their jurisdiction are based on a strict and predictable legal framework regulating the scope of any such restrictions and affording the guarantee of judicial oversight to prevent possible abuses. In addition, domestic courts must examine whether any blocking measure is necessary, effective and proportionate, and in particular whether it is targeted enough so as to impact only on the specific content that requires blocking.
Member states should bring the activities of national security and intelligence agencies within an overarching legal framework. Until there is increased transparency on the rules under which these services operate – domestically, extraterritorially and/or in co-operation with each other – their activities cannot be assumed to be in accordance with the rule of law.
No states (and none of their agencies, including their law enforcement and national security and intelligence agencies), European or otherwise, should access data stored in another country – or passing through the Internet and e-communications “backbone” cables running between countries – without the express consent of the other country or countries involved unless there is a clear, explicit and sufficiently circumscribed legal basis in international law for such access and provided that such access is fully compatible with international data protection and other human rights standards.
Damit wäre die Zulässigkeit der Kabelaufklärung in Bezug zur Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention wohl auch schon geklärt.