Deutsche Telekom’s plan to thwart foreign spies: 'No single byte leaves Germany'

Deutsche Telekom has announced a new plan to protect German internet traffic from international spying efforts post-NSA revelations.

In August, Deutsche Telekom launched “Email Made in Germany“, an encrypted email service that only uses German servers to process and store all local email traffic. Now, the company wants to go a step further by working with other internet providers to introduce a so-called “National Routing” service. The service would ensure all emails and data packages sent locally do not leave German borders — at the moment, traffic is often rerouted via internet hubs in the UK or the US — WirtschaftsWoche reported on Saturday.

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Thomas Kremer, a board member of Telekom’s data privacy, legal affairs and compliance, told the magazine that “while being transported from the sender to the receiver in Germany, we want to guarantee that no single byte leaves Germany.”

The plan is still being finalized. In order for Deutsche Telekom to achieve it, it’ll have to get the agreement of all its competitors, including Telefónica and Vodafone. WiWo reported that Deutsche Telekom’s next move could see the solution spread to cover the Schengen region of Europe.

Germans were deeply concerned after documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed that Germany was as large a target for surveillance as Iraq and China, with half a billion phone calls, texts and emails investigated every month. Telekom’s solution does not, however, offer a way to prevent German secret service BND from accessing the communications – BND has already confirmed it has provided surveillance data for the NSA.

This story originally appeared on VentureVillage. Copyright 2013