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Vertaal:
              Het spioneren en het misbruik van gegevens
Zaterdag, 7 Juni, 2008
Duitsland heeft gehad, in het algemeen, een bewonderenswaardig systeem om privacy te beschermen. Het brokkelt af niet omdat zijn elite een paar fouten, maar wegens nieuwe economische en sociale druk heeft gemaakt die de ondernemingen in alle landen onder ogen zien. Welk TELEKOM deed komen in dribs te voorschijn en drabs. In Januari 2005? wanneer kai-Uwe Ricke, zijn president, was proberend recht het bedrijf? s financiën door 45.000 banen te snijden? het Duitse bedrijfstijdschriftKapitaal publiceerde een artikel dat op top-level documenten van TELEKOM wordt gebaseerd. M. Ricke en de voorzitter van de raad van toezicht, Klaus Zumwinkel, geloofden het lek uit de raad kwam. Zij beslisten het te stoppen. Een bedrijf genoemd werd Netwerk Deutschland ingehuurd. Het wordt beweerd om honderdduizenden telefoongesprekken in een inspanning gecontroleerd te hebben om de mol te vinden. Het kan individuen gevonden hebben? verblijfplaats met mobiele telefoongegevens en zelfs gehouden lusjes op Blackstone, de de investeringsgroep van de V.S., die een staak in het bedrijf in 2006 kocht. Vroeger op het jaar, Ralf K? hn, het hoofd van Netwerk Deutschland, 3pte telefax ver*sturen een rekening voor honderdduizenden euro voor teruggegeven de diensten. Hij bood aan? een gecontroleerde beëindiging van onze bedrijfsverhouding die tegen indiscretion wordt beschermd? , als Der Spiegel? de s- rekening zette het. De huidige leider van TELEKOM, Ren? Obermann, die uit M. Ricke in November 2006 overnam, contacteerde eisers. M. Ricke, M. Zumwinkel en zes anderen zijn nu in onderzoek. (M. Obermann is niet.) TELEKOM? s de vroegere veiligheidsleider heeft gezegd dat noch de president noch de voorzitter werd geïnformeerd over de middelen die worden gebruikt om de lekken te onderzoeken. De de computerreus van de V.S. Hewlett-Packard had een gelijkaardig schandaal dat in 2006 lekken van de raad en de privé onderzoekers impliceert die wordt ingehuurd om hen aan het licht te brengen. Waarom dit één een zenuw heeft geslagen? For one thing, German politics has lately been focused on data security. This year Germany came into compliance with European Union directives calling for phone records to be stored for at least six months. Wolfgang Sch?uble, the interior minister, has asked for broader powers to monitor telecommunications, the better to fight terrorism. Corporate leaders have very good reasons to treat boardroom leaks as emergencies. Responsibilities to shareholders can be compromised by the loss of business plans and trade secrets. There are moral responsibilities, too. Leaks can be a sign of insider trading. If they are not curbed, the likelihood that they will lead to some kind of market manipulation will grow. Against that, what is it to take a peek at a few phone calls? If you raise freedom of the press, a hard-headed executive can reply ? in good conscience ? that he is not against it; he is interested only in rooting underhanded conduct out of his boardroom. But here a line may have been crossed ? because it is alleged that Telekom monitored not just its employees but its customers, private citizens. It may have done so with the help of data the company collected on them in the course of ordinary business. If that is the case, then this was less a matter of fiduciary responsibility or ?quality control? than a privatised espionage operation. After these revelations, Financial Times Deutschland reported that in 2000 its own reporter, Tasso Enzweiler, had been tailed, filmed and investigated by Control Risks, a company hired by Telekom. At one point, according to a report filed by Control Risks and cited by FTD, two teams run by a second company called Desa were tailing Mr Enzweiler around the clock, tactics reminiscent of East Germany?s secret police, the Stasi. Desa, as it happens, was founded by former Stasi agents. That is what is unsettling. When we talk about the ?power? of corporations we usually mean they have money and influence. But the allegations against Telekom describe a company exercising the kind of power we associate with states. Of course, Telekom, in which the German government still owns a 32 per cent stake, is a hybrid company. But Telekom?s state-like power comes from its operation in telecommunications, its trade in data. The power that data offer is of a peculiar kind. Why has Facebook?s market been estimated at $15bn? Not because of any ?product? Facebook ?sells? to its members. The value comes from the window it offers on the consumer preferences of its millions of members. Personal data are to the new economy what oil reserves are to the old one ? the core commodity. Is it realistic to expect a company that controls a lot of data to feign ignorance of their political uses forever? Mr Sch?uble would like to establish some code of self-regulation for telecom companies. Renate K?nast, a prominent Green parliamentarian, does not think that is possible. She told the Frankfurter Rundschau that the only real way of protecting data is to keep as little as possible. Ms K?nast?s approach would do economic harm, because it would destroy a valuable commodity. But she has a point. Maybe personal data are a man-made equivalent of what economists call the ?resource curse?. Just as there is a correlation between oil wealth and autocracy, there appears to be some link ? hard to define but getting easier ? between the growth of our information wealth and a dwindling of our liberties. The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard Have Your Say: Spying and the abuse of data Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. 2 Responses to “Spying and the abuse of data”
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