Germany wants UN to forge new online privacy charter

BERLIN – Germany has urged fellow European Union member states to support its drive for a new global charter protecting personal privacy online.

A letter sent by Germany’s foreign and justice ministers to their EU counterparts cites the debate over U.S. intelligence-gathering on the Internet as a reason to expand a 1966 United Nations treaty guaranteeing privacy.

The letter released today calls for an international agreement that protects privacy in the digital age and suggests convening a meeting of all 167 parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The United States ratified the treaty in 1992.

The claims about U.S. online spying made by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden have become an election issue in Germany two months before the country goes to the polls.