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Whether it is their IP address, email address, place of residence, telephone number, bank account or credit card information, Internet users are giving ever more wide-ranging personal information and are increasingly revealing more about themselves. Often this is done involuntarily and the user rarely knows who is storing their data, where, for how long, and for what purpose. From the data that is collected, a complete personality profile can be assembled, including the user's preferences and purchasing behaviour.

The problem is widespread, containing not only the secret collection of data by vendors, but also the unnecessary or totally careless exposure of personal information by users themselves, especially through social networking. Once published on the Internet, this data is, as a rule, available for ever.

In addition there are also the demands of many states, as well as Internet service providers, telecommunications companies and mobile network operators, who are increasingly compelled by law to collect, store and archive data about their clients. Mountains of data are amassed in this way, which in turn awakens the greed of the service providers themselves, of advertisers and also of criminals.

The principles of data economy, transparency and international standards

Privacy on the Internet is extremely badly controlled. For that reason naiin strongly urges national and international companies, as well as legislators, to establish a policy of data economy. This means that personal user data should be stored only to the extent, and for the duration, for which it is actually required for the processing of a service.

naiin is equally committed in this context to transparency: if personal data is collected, the Internet user should be told exactly the nature of the data being stored and the duration for which it will be stored. The disclosure of data to a third party should be permitted only with the express consent of the user from whom the data came. This should also apply  to the collection of personal data that is not necessarily needed for the processing of a service used by the user.

naiin is entering into dialogue on privacy standards on an international basis with Internet, telecommunications and mobile phone companies, trade associations and political decision makers. At the same time naiin is drafting measures for self-regulation, as it is unlikely that governments will come to a common understanding on globally applicable legal privacy agreements.