"Aigner plans to set up a censorship agency.": Internet entrepreneur Peter Debik about the minister’s plan to curtail data freedom.

Outline:
The operator of the city history and building photo community "time-o-rama.com" attacks the plans of consumer rights minister Ilse Aigner (CSU), stating that the arguments cited in her case for censoring the internet are fabricated.

Main Text:
Berlin, March 2, 2010. The federal consumer rights minister Ilse Aigner (CSU) is fighting Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. The building photo service Google Streetview is Aigner’s arch enemy. Streetview shows buildings and streets on the internet in the same way every person sees them. Aigner says: "These projects are nothing but a million-fold invasion of privacy." and views images of houses and streets as "personal data". Addressing the German press agency dpa in Berlin in early February, Aigner said: "Google offering citizens to appeal against the use of this data, is not sufficient…it is my view that if someone wants to make money with personal data, he must formally ask for prior consent."

Up to now, everyone may take and publish pictures of his environment, since the right of taking such photos is protected by law. Aigner wants to abolish this freedom despite the fact that it was confirmed by the Federal Constitutional Courts as a basic right in the “building database” verdict of 1999.

Aigner ignores what has been existing law for decades and invents unfounded arguments: “Banks could use such pictures to evaluate the credit-worthiness of their clients,” the minister said in an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung. Is she aware that banks judge the credit-worthiness of their clients not by pictures of their houses, but by their income?

In the same interview the minister fantasized: "The pictures could also be used to select homes as subjects for burglary." Despite the fact that electronic city guides, route planners, satellite images and building pictures have produced billions of views per year over the last decade, not a single case has come to light involving such data.

Aigner continues to fantasize about "black lists" purportedly compiled by data harvesting services during job search. The minister has yet to produce evidence for her claims and the question must be asked: what purpose could be served by scaring the citizens of her own country with such fabrications?

"If left up to Aigner, an agency determining what can or cannot be published would be established as soon as possible. We are headed for a new dictatorship, a dictatorship of data protection. The plan is to set up governmental censorship. On one hand the government demands the retention of data and thereby collects more information about its citizens than any social network on the net ever could. On the other hand Aigner wants to take away the citizens’ right to publish their own data and share them with others." says Peter Debik. On www.time-o-rama.com, the Berlin-based internet entrepreneur runs a platform showing pictures of streets and buildings.

However, just like Google StreetView, time-o-rama doesn’t show faces or license plates. It allows no connection to be made between people and their addresses. Aigner’s case of "personal data" and the purported "million-fold invasion of privacy" is completely fabricated.

Neither Google nor time-o-rama deny the importance of personal data remaining personal property. Both platforms do not publish images identifying people or vehicles. Therefore, both services are already performing above and beyond existing law, because "…it is permissible to show what every normal pedestrian can see. Anything beyond that is not permissible." says Thomas Dreier of the Center of Applied Jurisprudence in Karlsruhe. What pedestrians can see, however, also includes the faces of other people which are photographed accidentally, as well as vehicle license plates. Though not required to, Google and time-o-rama delete such data from their material. Moreover, time-o-rama doesn’t even produce all of its content, but offers a platform on which everyone can publish their own images; a service eagerly used by many people.

Says Debik: "A connection between a person and his or her address is not established by an image of a building, but through phone books and other address listings. We do not create a connection between an image and a person, but between an image and a place. You would have to ban phone books and directory assistance to prevent anyone from having the ability to connect people with their addresses. I wouldn’t put it past Ms. Aigner to attempt that, too."

August-Wilhelm Scheer, president of the inter-trade organization Bitkom, summarized Aigner’s intention to censor the internet by saying that Aigner acts as an "agitator against the internet". Even chancellor Merkel has trouble with Aigner’s effort: "We do not want to limit the freedom of the internet unnecessarily," said the chancellor in a video message broadcast via the net on the eve of Germany’s largest technology fair Cebit.

Debik sees light at the end of the tunnel: "The people of our country no longer accept unfounded statements of uninformed politicians as a pretense for absurd limitations of freedom. There are more and more data protection workers speaking out against such censorship plans. Data protection is important. Therefore, time-o-rama voluntarily blacks out faces and license plates. However, a rule requiring every citizen to ask for permission before publishing something on the internet, by far exceeds the goal and deprives our country’s citizens of a fundamental right."

About time-o-rama.com:
time-o-rama.com gathers stories and photos of then & now. Everyone can contribute her own experiences and photos of her life or chronicle to the collection and read about and see what happened in a certain house at a certain time. If other users have already uploaded photos with an address relating to an event a user is recording, she can use these photos to illustrate her time-o-rama or chronicle.

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D-14055 Berlin
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Phone +49 30 32701892
Fax +49 30 32701891
press@time-o-rama.com

This release was published on openPR.