Virtual Privacy Office

The general aim of the Virtual Privacy Office is the encouragement and re-establishment of privacy protection using the current technical options. The realization of the following goals is considered as particularly useful toward this aim:

• central access to all information on privacy protection for Internet users is to be built up
• public relations work referring to privacy protection is to be improved
• co-operation of the involved institutions is to be improved
• the capacity of the involved institutions is to be enhanced by a meliorated division of labour
• the participation of external competent third parties is to be intensified
• work results are to be made transparent to provide a basis for discussions
• the realization of common projects is to be facilitated

The information on privacy protection from the project partners will be structured, stored and made available by the privacy information database. It is meant to be primarily used by the privacy protection authorities. Sections of the database could also be made available to further user communities. Decisions on this procedure will be made by the managing project partner.

This module is useful for the internal, non-public communication of the project partners.

This module refers to the virtual privacy protection office in the WWW, being made available as the central site for information and contact concerning questions of privacy protection. Various groups of information seeking users will be provided with the information collected by the project partners and the co-operating partners. It will be available in different categories. The privacy information database (which is to be constructed) will function as a fundamental database.

The public privacy office focuses on the citizens as clients of the project partners. It will answer individual requests and direct the petitioner to the requested information as well as channel requests directly to the responsible authority.

The function of the expert forum is to introduce external competent third parties to the project. Beside participation in the discussion forums, articles can be submitted from outside the project which will be examined by the moderator of the project partner who can include them into the privacy Internet portal. Also the project pool belongs to the expert forums. It will mediate the participation in projects on privacy protection.

The Virtual Privacy Office is supported by the project partners. The contents are also produced by partners co-operating from outside the project. Financial support by sponsors of the project is possible.

The co-operation of the project partners of the Virtual Privacy Office ends either by resigning in lieu of a period of notice or by an exclusion. Resignation can only be effected at the end of each quarter. A minimum 4 weeks notice period must be given prior to resignation. An exclusion is effected if there is evidence of action contrary to the aims and principles of the Virtual Privacy Office. An exclusion is also effected if an essential change of the tasks or structure of the given project partner makes the support of the aims of the Virtual Privacy Office untenable or the formal requirements defined in section 2.1 are no longer valid.

The project partners make contents available to the Virtual Privacy Office. All articles will be integrated without censorship, evaluation, comments or changes. This procedure will also take place, if contradictory statements are included. In exception alterations concerning metadata according to paragraph 4.3 sentence 4 and 5 are admitted. Each project partner is individually responsible for the law conformity of the articles handed in. The given managing project partner appears as a provider as defined by § 6 of the Teledienstegesetz (TDG) resp. § 6 of the Mediendienste-Staatsvertrag (MDStV) resp. the relevant national legal regulations.

After expiry of the funding with the end of the year 2002 the Virtual Privacy Office will be financed by monetary contributions of the project partners. The Independent Centre for Privacy Protection Schleswig-Holstein (ICPP) grants the appropriation and the operation of the technical components (particularly web- and e-mail-servers). Within the limits of their capacities the project partners will financially contribute to the further operating expenses. Within the limits of his financial capacities the managing project partner will compensate a deficit, if it is guaranteed that at least 50% of the means for further operating expenses are contributed by the other project partners. The managing project partner undertakes the collection of the financial contributions and gives an annual account.

Further operating expenses are costs emerging from employment of staff, rent of the leased line and replacements. As regards employment of staff the extent of the year 2003 will not be exceeded (salary for a half-time employment according to current German collective labour agreement (TL-L E13/E13Ü) plus payment for cooperation on a free-lance basis approximately up to the amount of the year 2003). The exceeding or an acceptance of other costs as further operating expenses may be resolved for the current or the following year with the votes of the project partners present at a meeting provided that at least half of the total number of project partners are represented at that meeting.