WRITTEN ON March 3rd, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, Identity, What do we want?
I’ve always thought our German cousins/ancestors, whose language is well suited to trenchant philosophising, would be the first to articulate some of the deepest technical-privacy issues. And a promising sign will be the emergence of fabulous compound words to describe new concepts in the identity space. I hazarded a student-German guess about Privatlebennotwendigkeitbewußtsein. Now I gather there’s a constitutional (Grundgesetz) protection for something called Persönlichkeitsentfaltung which I think means the development of one’s identity.
Help, someone. What would be the German word for a fundamental right, enshrined in the constitution, to privacy which cannot be overridden at the convenience of Kafkaesque bureaucracy?I should explain that one does not mess with the Grundgesetz. Some of its prohibitions may seem odd, but there’s no room for jokes. Several years ago a German doctor had a patient doing physio which involved swinging their arm forwards above shoulder height. In jest the doctor suggested it was more fun if the patient clicked her heels on each swing. He was prosecuted and convicted under the Grundgesetz, and fined several thousand Marks. So as I say: no-one tweaks the whiskers of the German constitution, and it’s a very good thing to have on our side.
4 Responses to “Jenseits von Persönlichkeitsentfaltung”
Wilhelm
Das ist drei words ” Vorsprung durch Technik ”
Alex
“absoluter Schutz” feels great: absoute protection
“Kernbereich” is a fantastic word, evoking for me th einner core of an atomic power station
and Lebensgestaltung describes to me on ongoing process of organising life, not just a static set up.
Yup, I can see from the press release on your blog that what we’re trying to avoid at all costs are “Eingriffe in den absolut geschützten Kernbereich privater Lebensgestaltung.” Cheers Ralf. Keep up the good work. Are you involved in EDRI?
Ian writes:
One of our German DPhil students writes in response to your post:
Are you interested in the concept of “Persoenlichkeitsentfaltung” and its relation to the “General Right to Personality” under Art. 1 (1) and Art. 2 (1) of the German Basic Law? This is in fact the rationale for constitutionally protecting, among other things, “informational
self-determination” according to the German Federal Constitutional Court: our ability to develop a “personality” (not technically called
an identity) by interacting and testing certain forms of behavior with other people, learning from their reactions, adapting behavior etc. The process is considered so important that the state is not allowed to interfere.Or is this rather a call to arms for more entertaining German compound words?
Gutenachtschlaftallegutgruss
Well, frankly, both. I do think the Germans are more securely on track in the legal and constitutional thinking than we are. But I do love the compound words; it’s like pertinent art and Wibbies all rolled into one. So more of both please!
The German constitutional court has already defined this in 2004 as the right to the “absolute protection of the core area of the private conduct of life” (“absoluter Schutz des Kernbereichs privater Lebensgestaltung”). This core area cannot be overridden by the government.
The recent ruling on online searches only made clear that this core area can nowadays be on a server outside our homes or even on our mobile phones.