Commercial data mountains: When intelligence services obtain sensitive data from smartphone apps

German secret services often complain about how bureaucratized their everyday work is, full of regulations and annoying inspectors. However, there is one area in which they can operate almost without restriction until further notice: They buy information from publicly accessible sources on data markets, including heaps of personal data. This includes location data, home addresses and interest profiles, for example, which are collected when people use the internet and are usually used for advertising purposes.

However, such data purchases would undermine minimum constitutional standards, argues a recent study by the think tank Interface (formerly Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, SNV). In contrast to other methods of obtaining information, the services would neither need permission nor would the use of purchased data be sufficiently monitored afterwards.

The authors Corbinian Ruckerbauer and Thorsten Wetzling write that intelligence services can use this method to obtain information that "would never have been permitted to be collected by other intelligence service means or would at least have required extensive approval procedures". However, in the case of serious encroachments on fundamental rights, a similar level of regulation and control is needed as is provided for other methods of information gathering. "The purchase of advertising databases should therefore urgently be subject to better regulation and more comprehensive control," the paper demands.

This media report is only available in German.