Germany lobbies for UN online privacy charter
Source: Associated Press
BERLIN (AP) — Senior German officials are seeking European support for a new global charter safeguarding personal privacy online, as the country's data protection watchdogs called Wednesday for the suspension of a key agreement with the United States over revelations about U.S. intelligence-gathering on the Internet.
The moves reflect concerns in Germany that the U.S. National Security Agency may have collected personal information on millions of Web users in breach of national and international rules. The claim, made by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, has become an election issue in Germany two months before the country goes to the polls.
A letter sent by Germany's foreign and justice ministers to their European Union counterparts proposes expanding a 1966 U.N. human rights treaty to cover modern forms of communication like email, instant messaging and social media.
"We want to use the current debate to launch an initiative that would outline the inalienable privacy rights under current conditions," the two ministers wrote. The letter, sent last week but only released Wednesday, suggests convening a meeting of all 167 parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The United States ratified the treaty in 1992.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/germany-lobbies-un-online-privacy-charter
