recorded and kept available by the government. The data form a general basis for
information and fulfil the function of a telecommunications number register. As a rule,
they make it possible to obtain all the telecommunication numbers of any person;
conversely, virtually every telecommunications event for which a telecommunications
number is determined may also be attributed to a connection and thus to a subscriber. As data which relate to the fundamental elements of telecommunications
events they are therefore associated with particularly protected information relationships whose confidentiality is essential for a free order. In addition, the corresponding
data are collected and stored without cause by way of precaution in order to make
them available for the performance of government duties.
bb) Nevertheless, the encroachment constituted by this is not of very great weight.
In particular, the fact that the data are collected by way of precaution does not give
the procedure a very great weight. For even if § 111 TKG has a great range, the encroachment is restricted in substance to narrowly restricted data which in themselves
give no evidence as to the specific activities of individuals and whose use the legislature has restricted to purposes defined in more detail. In such cases, even a precautionary storage is not automatically a particularly serious encroachment for the mere
reason that it is carried out without occasion. Admittedly, the precautionary storage of
data must always remain an exception to the rule and needs to be justified (see BVerfGE 125, 260 <317>). But it is not excluded from the outset that precautionary data
collections may be justified as the basis of the performance of a variety of government duties, such as are currently familiar in the form of the register of residents or, in
the field of motor vehicles, in the form of the Central Vehicle Register (Zentrales
Fahrzeugregister) and the Central Register of Driving Licences (Zentrales
Fahrerlaubnisregister) (see § 2 Framework Act on Registration (Melderechtsrahmengesetz – MRRG –; § 33 and § 50 Road Traffic Act (Straßenverkehrsgesetz –
StVG –). The fact that here, the state obliges private persons to collect data on its behalf does not change this.
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The data covered by § 111 TKG have limited probative value. They merely make it
possible for telecommunications numbers to be individually attributed to the respective subscribers and thus to those numbers’ potential (and typical) users. These data
contain no more detailed private information. In a fundamentally different way than in
the case of precautionary storage of all telecommunications traffic data (see BVerfGE
125, 260 <318 ff.>), neither do these data as such contain highly personal information, nor is it possible to use them to create personality profiles or track users’ movements. Nor does § 111 TKG cover dynamic IP addresses. In the current technical
conditions, in which static IP addresses are allocated only to a very limited degree
and normally to large-scale institutional users, this does not enable an extensive attribution of internet contacts, even if static IP addresses were to be regarded in nonconstitutional law as line identification numbers within the meaning of § 111.1 sentence 1 TKG. However, if the allocation of static IP addresses were to be used more
extensively, for example on the basis of Internet Protocol Version 6, the provision
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