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Austrian Court Examines Law on Messenger Surveillance

Austria's Constitutional Court addressed on Monday a law on surveillance of communication via messengers, challenged by the FPÖ and the Greens. The case reached the highest court after the law was approved by the ÖVP, SPÖ, and Neos parties, and the court called a public oral hearing on it. Welt ↗

The subject of the proceedings is legislation intended to allow security authorities to monitor communication in digital applications. According to the risks described, such an intervention could also expose unrelated private data belonging to the state's security services, including holiday photos. DSN director Omar Haijawi-Pirchner Mayer stated that irrelevant chats would be deleted without delay. Der Standard ↗

The court also had the technical side of the law explained by an IT expert. He pointed out that with this type of software, trust in its manufacturer is decisive, as is trust that the program actually does only what is declared. The technical functioning of the tool is precisely one of the key questions the proceedings are meant to clarify. Welt ↗

The Constitutional Court's decision will be important both for the further fate of the law and for the limits of state intervention in private digital communication. The dispute will also show whether the current form of the regulation withstands scrutiny of fundamental rights and constitutional limits. Deutschlandfunk ↗

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World Politics 👤 omar haijawi-pirchnerová mayerová 🏢 fpö 🏢 neos 🏢 övp 🏢 ústavný súd 🏢 strana zelených