Dating Security: Bundesnetzagentur Stops Confidential Phone Calls for Partner Seekers | Consonance (Gleichklang)
Hannover, May 2, 2009
Until now, members of the psychological dating platform www.Consonance.com have been able to call each other via anonymous temporary phone numbers, a feature that significantly improved security. This facilitated initial contact while simultaneously preventing the temptation to disclose personal data prematurely. The temporary phone numbers thus also contributed to protection against stalking and other criminal dangers that can arise from online dating.
Now, in a bureaucratic act, the Bundesnetzagentur has taken away the ability for all partner seekers to make anonymous calls via temporary phone numbers. Providers have been prohibited from continuing to offer this service in the future. From the justification, it can be inferred that one apparent reason for denying partner seekers the ability to make anonymous calls is to not hinder police or even intelligence surveillance of their conversations.
In an email to Consonance, the Bundesnetzagentur boasted that it was its concern to give due consideration to consumer protection, innovative market ideas, and equal-opportunity competition. However, when asked what possibilities would exist under these conditions for members of dating platforms to continue to call each other anonymously—also for their own safety—the Bundesnetzagentur could no longer come up with an answer.
Professor Dr. Bernhard H. F. Taureck, spokesperson for the dating portal, comments:
“The impression arises that a bureaucratic monster agency wants to put obstacles in people’s way even when they are searching for a partner. In apparent anticipatory obedience, freedoms are being curtailed in order to facilitate police and intelligence surveillance measures. Everyone who wants to remain anonymous toward their direct conversation partner during the initial phase of partner search is placed under general suspicion of abusive use.”
According to Professor Taureck, the action of the Bundesnetzagentur does not contribute to consumer protection, but rather makes partner search more difficult for countless people and at the same time endangers the safety of members of dating platforms, who may now feel compelled to disclose their personal phone numbers prematurely. In this way, authoritarian thinking and bureaucratic narrow-mindedness lead to a practice that is ultimately hostile to democracy and innovation.
