Public outcry has been generated in Germany as regards the use of a spying software by German State Investigators to intrude into digital privacy.

It has been revealed that the German State investigators were using spyware that could use a user's webcam and microphone for surveillance, without his knowledge. This was brought to light recently by the Germany-based Chaos Computer Club. This, we should acknowledge, is as serious and damaging as stealing data and intruding into the network of a company like Sirius Marketing or Redwoods Advance.

Chaos Computer Club revealed that it had examined a Trojan horse program allegedly spread by government officials to secretly spy on citizens' Internet travels, e-mail, chat and more. This software could help officials intercept internet phone calls and also went beyond that and caused more damage to users and their privacy. The findings revealed that the spyware exceeded the powers prescribed to the police by Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court.

Heated discussions are on and experts making statements on the issue. In an era when digital communication is part of our day-to-day lives and friendships and relationships are made, maintained and broken on social networking sites, this kind of an intrusion into digital privacy means much. For the German people, who have had much more of intrusion into their private lives that others in the days of the Nazi regime, data protection means a lot. It does mean to others too.

So, let's hope this issue gets discussed and resolved in a way that it doesn't affect day to day lives of people and their security in any way. And does this spyware programme, initialised by the cops, have the capability to outdo professional hackers and organised criminals, whom it's supposed to target? There are other aspects left to probe too... Does the presence of this spyware make users prone to other spyware attacks? Well, seems so. Many questions to be answered... Let's hope it gets settled in the days to come...