Germany has a strong commitment to the rule of law and to information privacy. Its concept of the ‘rule of law’ is best summed up in the idea of the Rechtsstaat, or ‘legal state’. The Rechtsstaat is a state that is based on civil liberties as well as the expression and protection of constitutional rights. For example, Article 1(1) of the German constitution, the Basic Law, states that human dignity is inviolable, and that the duty of all state authority is to respect and protect it. The Basic Law’s Article 2(1) in conjunction with Article 1(1) guarantees the right of the free development of the personality. Article 20(3) of the Basic Law explicitly binds all three branches of government to the constitutional order and to law and justice. As for information privacy, it has constitutional status in Germany. The constitutional protections derive both from specific and more general constitutional provisions of the Basic Law. These are found in Article 10 (privacy of communications); Article 13 (inviolability of the home); and Article 2(1) in conjunction with Article 1(1) (the basis for a judicially created ‘right of informational self-determination’ and ‘right of confidentiality and integrity in information systems’). This paper discusses these provisions in more detail in the next section. Federal and state data protection commissioners also play an important role in privacy policy-making in Germany. These officials are established under the Federal Data Protection Law (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz, or BDSG). They monitor the data use of the government and of the private sector, and they direct public attention to violations of privacy. A high level of public attention in Germany is directed to privacy issues. The constitutional complaint against a data retention law was brought by 35,000 citizens, which set a record in Germany for public participation in constitutional litigation. As another indication of this public interest, over 240,000 persons in Germany have opted out of Google Street View. Finally, the media cover privacy issues heavily, and general audience books on the topic, such as Die Datenfresser (2011)(The Data Eaters) and Die Facebook Falle (2011) (The Facebook Trap), receive significant attention.