EAccording to a media report, there were “massive attempts to access porn websites” from the service computers of the Archdiocese of Cologne. According to research by the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” (Friday), the diocese leadership was informed in July 2022 about the relevant activities of dozens of employees – among them were “high-ranking clerics”. Such activities are prohibited in a service agreement, even if they are not punishable under either state or church law. According to Catholic sexual morality, pornography is reprehensible and a serious sin.
At the request of the Catholic News Agency (KNA), the Archdiocese of Cologne explained on Thursday evening that, as in many other organizations, a service provider regularly checks the IT security measures: “This includes, among other things, checking whether the firewalls are attempting to access the IT security to reliably fend off risky sites (violence, pornography, drugs, etc.).”
“No evidence of criminally relevant behavior”
These checks were carried out taking data protection regulations into account and were “explicitly not aimed at checking the usage behavior of individual people”. The compilation mentioned in the newspaper report, which the “Stadt-Anzeiger” says it has, is the result of such a routine check. The list documents “access attempts that were successfully prevented by the automatic web content filter,” according to the archdiocese. An evaluation of the specific content behind the web addresses was not carried out.
This procedure was legally coordinated with external experts. According to the applicable data protection regulations, the evaluations should not be kept for longer than three months. Based on this routine check, there were “no indications of criminally relevant behavior”.
As the newspaper further reports, prosecutors are still interested “in a list from the Archdiocese with more than 1000 access attempts to pages that were blocked by a protection filter because of questionable, unwanted content and potential threats to IT security”.
Among the 15 employees with the most access attempts is a layman who has since left the office and against whom the public prosecutor for cybercrime (ZAC) is investigating separately on suspicion of possession and procurement of criminal content. On June 5, there was a raid on the suspect’s office and apartment. The archdiocese told the KNA that it was cooperating “fully with the state authorities” with regard to the investigation. The person concerned is no longer active in the Vicariate General.
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