The Federal Republic of Surveillance? - Alex Fanta

´It‘s possible, yes`. You could feel the unease, journalists said. The Austrian ministry does collect data on the sexual orientation of its employees, Interior miniser Günther Platter admitted. But only in cases of internal investigations obviously. Obviously. The minister had been pressed before about allegations regarding ´irregularities` occuring in his department. The parliamentary investigators were still astounded when they witnessed this confession last week. 

What consequences this will have for Austrian politics? Probably none. The Ministry of Interior has been in a state of denial for months concerning allegations that they are too, err, lenient on the proliferation of personal data among government agencies. Even fairly impartial bystanders have taken notice. In late 2007, a new law allowing the police to make unlimited use of traffic surveillance cameras on motorways was introduced. A feat that was called ´a pathway to the ways of the German Democratic Republic` by none other than Head of the Constitutional Court, Karl Korinek. 

Fingerprints – you leave them everywhere. But from 2009 on you will be asked to give them -  to the Feds. Health insurance cards and passports will both require a fingerprint from next year on. Complex discussions in the media are answered mostly monosyllabically by Mr. Platter. Greater success in the combat of crime is argument enough, he says. Even though it was only a few years ago that high ranking police officers were convicted of passing on confidential data to political opponents of Haider´s FPÖ. Months after this ´Spitzelaffaire`, Haider won the elections of 1999 in a landslide. 

With a global current towards the ´transparent citizen` Austria is the European leader, NGOs complain. Yet civil rights activists can’t seem to gain public opinion. With little awareness for privacy in the general public things are doomed to get worse.