The abundant availability of personal data online was exposed in Germany this week, after a state privacy watchdog attacked private lottery companies and call-centre marketers for using millions of illegally procured contact details.

Thilo Weichert, head of a privacy protection centre in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, told a local newspaper that the addresses of the entire population of Germany and details of up to 20 million bank accounts are available to purchase illegally online – and that this data is being used commercially.

The controversy was sparked last week after a whistleblower from a commercial call-centre operation produced a CD containing the bank details of 17,000 German citizens. He said that it was just a small fraction of the illegal data the company had been using. "In fact, I saved the addresses and banking information of 1.5 million clients," Detlef Tiegel told reporters.

Weichert this week called for tighter legislation governing the exchange of data. “Lawmakers can do more to protect consumers. The transfer of data for marketing purposes should be made universally conditional on the customer's approval,” he said.

The German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said the country’s data protection laws should be ‘seriously probed’.

Online nation

The last time the personal details of an entire nation were found online, it was under quite different circumstances. In April 2008, the Italian tax office decided to publish the names, addresses, income and tax status of every single Italian citizen on a public website.

The Italian tax office claimed the move was not only in the public interest “to allow the free circulation of information in a framework of transparency,” but also “in line with privacy guidelines”. The data was taken down 24 hours after going live following a complaint from Italy's own privacy watchdog.

Further reading

Data theft is a people issue
It is important to understand the legal context for guarding against data theft, says Warren Wayne of law firm Bird & Bird

The return of the ID card debate
The UK government’s embarrassing loss of 25 million citizens’ personal details has reignited the ID card debate

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