(de-news.net) – The Police Union (GdP) and senior figures within the CDU and SPD have expressed firm support for the draft legislation proposing a mandatory three‑month retention period for IP addresses, whereas the Greens articulated clear opposition for the measure. Andreas Roßkopf, who heads the GdP’s Federal Police and Customs division, argued that although the proposed retention window represented a meaningful step toward strengthening investigative capacities, it might ultimately prove insufficient for the types of protracted criminal inquiries routinely conducted by law‑enforcement authorities. He emphasized that such investigations frequently involve complex, multilayered, and often international dimensions, which in turn require extended procedural timelines, sustained interagency coordination, and extensive research efforts that cannot always be accommodated within a three‑month data‑availability framework.
Hesse’s Minister‑President Boris Rhein (CDU), a long‑standing advocate of more comprehensive tools for combating crime in digital spaces, described the draft bill as an urgently needed corrective to existing investigative limitations. He maintained that the Federal Government must obligate internet service providers to retain IP addresses for a full three months if investigators are to have any realistic chance of identifying perpetrators who operate anonymously online. Rhein further contended that data‑protection principles should not be interpreted in ways that inadvertently shield criminal behavior, particularly in cases involving child exploitation, and he warned that numerous serious offenses continue to go unresolved because authorities lack the technical means to trace digital identities. In his view, allowing offenders to evade accountability under the guise of privacy protections undermines both public safety and the credibility of the legal system.
Dirk Wiese, parliamentary secretary of the SPD’s Bundestag faction, similarly characterized the initiative as overdue. He noted that security agencies have long depended on access to such investigative tools and therefore welcomed the justice ministry’s proposal as a necessary modernization of existing legal frameworks. Wiese argued that implementing this component of the coalition agreement among the CDU/CSU, and SPD within the administration’s first year would constitute a significant political signal, demonstrating both the government’s capacity to act decisively and its commitment to fulfilling its legislative promises.
By contrast, the Greens rejected the coalition’s plans as legally untenable. Helge Limburg, the party’s spokesperson for legal affairs in the Bundestag, stressed that previous attempts to introduce broad, indiscriminate data‑retention regimes had been struck down by both the Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice. Despite this jurisprudence, he argued, the CDU/CSU and SPD appeared intent on reestablishing what he described as warrantless mass surveillance in the digital sphere. Limburg acknowledged the necessity of equipping authorities with effective tools to pursue sexual offenders but insisted that the government could not continue what he characterized as an inept and legally unsound approach. He maintained that compelling the state to archive all internet connections was an inappropriate and disproportionate response to contemporary security challenges. Instead, he urged the coalition to pursue viable, legally compliant alternatives rather than repeating strategies that courts had already deemed incompatible with fundamental rights.
