Germany wants access to citizens' data. That's sparked fears of a sinister past

[inanna]

Updated 10:09 AM ET, Sun June 9, 2019

Berlin (CNN) A hidden audio recorder built to fit inside a bedroom door. A tiny camera stashed in a garden birdhouse. Secret odour-samplers embedded into living rooms sofa to collect signature body scents, to be stored for future use so sniffer dogs can track surveillance targets.

These are just some of the ingenious devices used by the East German State Security Police -- better known as the Stasi -- between 1950 and 1990 to spy on private citizens, many of which are now on display at the Stasi Museum in Berlin.

Yet these devices pale in comparison to the smartphone in your pocket or the virtual assistant in your home that is collecting data on your daily habits.

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"The home is still considered a holy place as compared to what happens in public. The possibility that everything you do at home will be tracked and the data given to law enforcement, just because of court order, is pretty scary."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/09/europe/germany-privacy-fears-ger-intl/index.html