WIESBADEN, Germany (dpa) – Many people are attracted to the Internet because of the anonymity that it offers. Erotic Web sites, flirtations in chat rooms – all tempt users to abandon their identities briefly and escape into a secret world.
But just how secret are these worlds, really? If you ask Stefan Jaeger, a lawyer from Wiesbaden, Germany, he’ll respond in no uncertain terms. “Essentially, every move that a person makes on the Internet can be traced,” Jaeger says.
“Most log files of Internet usage that are kept by servers, mail systems, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) also allow administrators to see who called up which site when, and what that person did there,” Jaeger adds.
Being able to track Web surfers’ movements can be a tricky issue legally, though, since the laws governing such oversight are not clear-cut – when they exist at all. “Many people appear not to know the pertinent laws, to misunderstand them, or to just ignore them outright,” Jaeger says.
It’s generally believed that many Web sites keep detailed log files in order to analyse the behaviour of visitors. These logs can include IP numbers – a unique identifier for a computer while it is online – and Domain Name Server (DSN) names.
Each IP address is linked to the pages it has called up. And according to Lukas Gundermann, a European data protection expert, piles of this type of data are collected by ISPs, the companies that provide Internet access.
These “log files” enable interested parties to identify individual Web users, says Gundermann. “Every company wants to be able to bill its customers, and to this extent at least the telephone number, if not the actual address, is there,” Gundermann adds.
In some countries, federal agencies are attempting to make the use of this data legal. In Germany, for example, the so-called Conference of State Ministers has collectively requested for purposes of criminal prosecution that “ISPs and the maintainers of servers on the Internet be required to provide the IP addresses and online times of their users, and maintain these records for an appropriate length of time.”
Opposition to such control is typically strenuous. In the case of Germany, several officials charged with protecting the privacy rights of individuals have decried such policies as unconstitutional.
In a mutual declaration, German privacy officials have compared the data collection wishes of the interior ministers with “requiring the post office to keep and maintain records for every piece of mail sent and received, for purposes of possible prosecution at a late date.”
But the changing nature of Internet technology could give privacy advocates more to worry about in the future, no matter where Internet users are located. Lawyer Stefan Jaeger sees the growing availability of “always-on” Internet connections worldwide as a potential nightmare for Internet users who covet their anonymity.
“Until now, IP addresses were valid only as long as the call lasted. Every new dial-up connection brought a new IP number,” Jaeger says.
“With the onset of flat rates for unlimited Internet access, this will all change. Many users will have a constant IP address because they will set up long-term connections, and it will become much easier to find out what they are doing online.” At that point, any tales of a safely anonymous Web surfer will be found in the history books only.
