SurveillanceGermany considering requiring home, car alarm systems to be equipped with back doors

Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, of the conservative CDU, said the German government will next week discuss sweeping new surveillance powers aimed to improve public safety.

RND reports that that the proposal to be discussed would require operators of car and house alarm systems to help police and security services in their efforts to spy on potential terrorists or criminals.

The government plans have been met with harsh criticism from leaders of the Social Democrats (SPD), who are negotiating with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU over joining a grand coalition.

Because of its past – the experiences with total surveillance in both Nazi Germany and East Germany – the issue of surveillance and government practices is a sensitive issue in Germany.

Boris Pistorius, an SPD member and interior minister of the state of Lower Saxony, said de Maiziere’s plans were premature and “panicked,” and called for a more measured approach.

“2017 is not Orwell’s 1984,” he told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung. “We need sound judgment and not exaggeration.”

TechDirt notes that security officials, armed with court warrants, have encountered difficulties installing secret listening devices in cars and apartments because the targeted individuals were tipped off by security systems in electronic gadgets connected to the internet, or received text messages when their cars were opened – a security feature common in German cars.

The proposal to be considered by the government would require alarm system operators to provide law enforcement with specific tools which would enable them secretly to open and circumvent alarm systems in cases involving suspected terrorist activity or organized crime.

The Interior Ministry stressed that the proposal does not seeking access to suspects’ computers, smart phones or other electronic devices.