NRW secret service plans to save 14-year-olds' data

According to the secret service for the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the number of minors among Islamists prepared to use violence is on the rise.

Head of NRW secret services, Burkhard Freier, estimates than among some 640 'violent' Islamists in the state, 14 are aged between 16 and 18 years old. Of the 238 Islamists who had traveled from abroad, 11 are reportedly minors.

In response to the statistics, NRW's state government now plans to enable its secret services to store personal data belonging to young people who are classed as dangerous from the age of 14. The age currently stands at 16.

Under the proposed bill, data stored before the end of the person's sixteenth year must be deleted if, in the meantime, secret services have not found any further relevant information about the youth.

Chairman of the data protection foundation "Stifung Datenschutz," Frederick Richter criticized the planned storage period.

"The plan to save data for two years seems long," Richter told DW, "Particularly if you bear in mind that by having contact with the children, the families of suspects are also surveilled [by secret services]."

"With each expansion of surveillance and monitoring, freedom is restricted," Richter said, adding, however, that this is to be accepted where there are suspicions about a specific person.

"This is different from general data storage where's there's no reason," he said. "But the suspicion must be closely checked and be contrete," Richter added.

Islamist crimes

Since the beginning of this year, several young "Islamic State" (IS) sympathizers have been linked to violent attacks in Germany. In April, a bomb was detonated at a Sikh temple in Essen in western Germany, injuring three people. Following investigations, two 16-year-olds and a 17-year-old were linked to the attack, all of whom are suspected of having contact with the Islamist scene.

As recently as Monday, charges were also brought against a 16-year-old IS sympathizer for the attempted murder of a policeman in February. Prosecutors say the girl, known as Safia S. in the media, was inspired by IS to carry out a "martyr operation" at a train station in Hanover in central Germany.

Impressionable youths

Freier argues that the proposed bill is necessary as extremist organizations are known to specifically target minors who are often more easily influenced. This has become particularly prominent online.

"The possibility of thousands of 'shares' and 'likes' on social media means images can go viral and cult pictures stylized," warns youth protection advisory "Jugendschutz.net."

Responding to Freier's proposed changes, Lothar Michael, a professor of public law at the Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf, praised the draft bill.

"It is the task of the secret service to keep minors from radicalization," Michael said.

FDP politician and former NRW Interior Minister Burkhard Hirsch is against lowering the age, however. In a statement to the internal committee of Düsseldorf - NRW'S capital - Hirsch said the proposed change was "unnecessary and not useful."