Members of the government parliamentary groups of the CDU / CSU and SPD did not allow themselves to be upset by sharp criticism from the opposition at the 1st reading of the controversial government draft for a law on register modernization in the Bundestag on Thursday evening. “What is behind this is what we all want: the digitization of administration,” emphasized Marc Henrichmann (CDU). Citizens and business would thus be relieved, since data about them would “not have to be collected and transferred over and over again”.

In order to ” Implementing the once only “principle, according to Henrichmann, the” known tax ID “is almost an imposing general feature. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides for the use of such a code. The fact that the opponents are now referring to the constitutional jurisprudence, “why the whole thing shouldn’t work”, does not reveal itself to him.

Limping comparisons “I would like to point out clearly”, emphasized the Christian Democrat, that the popular census judgment and the right to informational self-determination enshrined in it is “from 1983” . At that time there was “neither the Internet nor any other technology”, said the 44 – year-old. Comparisons with this state of affairs are therefore clearly limp.

If 21 states in the If the EU already had the principle of a citizen number and it worked there, Henrichmann explained why there should be different standards in Germany. Austria, which has introduced an area-specific number instead of a central identifier, is also not a good example . The Alpine republic created a “large container” with a central register at the federal level. “We work decentrally,” emphasized the lawyer. In addition, the federal government takes the state and local administrations with it. The alternative procedure would also “take twice as long”. The data protection officers would therefore have to question their point of view and release the brakes. The birth certificate, for example, should only be presented once and the data from other registers should then be queried. For this they would have to be “unequivocally assigned to the right person”, which requires a “change-proof classification feature”.

“4-corner model” The tax ID meets the necessary requirements and can be extended “without further ado”, stated the CDU politician. “We will continue to effectively rule out any profiling.” The “4-corner model” is intended for this. Accordingly, data should not be exchanged directly between authorities, but rather flow through an intermediary. Krings made it clear: “Digital Guardians” only allowed legally permitted transmissions.

There is no “secret government plan to create a transparent citizen”, assured Helge Lindh for the SPD. In the direction of the AfD, he complained: It was “completely wrong that you speak of block waiting”. It’s about service and citizen friendliness. The tax ID was not originally created for this purpose. However, the coalition will use further security mechanisms such as the planned data cockpit so that the Federal Data Protection Commissioner Ulrich Kelber is also satisfied.

Rule of law declaration of bankruptcy “Overall, the constitutional criticism is devastating,” said the liberal Manuel Höferlin, contrary to the FDP slogan “Digital first”. The Federal Constitutional Court was very clear in its statement in the census judgment. The tax ID should only refer to the tax area. The idea of ​​an area-specific number from Austria is good. To steer a constitutional lawsuit with sight now would be “under the rule of law almost a declaration of bankruptcy” Green Konstantin von Notz. The coalition must therefore take seriously the criticism that the initiative is creating the technical prerequisites for this. Instead, it is important to ensure the long-term sustainability of the project: “If this law is tiling on the wall in Karlsruhe before the Federal Constitutional Court, like so many others,” Germany will remain behind in the urgently needed modernization of the state.

Federal Registration Act passed Shortly before, the Bundestag had passed the second amendment to the Federal Registration Act with the votes of the CDU / CSU, SPD and FDP. Left and Greens were against it, the AfD abstained. This should enable citizens in the future to access their data from the population register via an administration portal and use it for various purposes. In order to be able to do this in a user-friendly way, the members of parliament have decided to change the law for the required digital processes as well as additional rules on questions of the level of authentication and the technical standards to be used. official and data protection needs “should be adapted and expanded, the Federal Government had declared in its draft. To this end, data catalogs would be standardized. In addition, a distinction will be made in the future “between calling up a specific person (person search) and calling up a large number of persons who are not named (free search)”.

With the decision, the An – and deregistering from apartments “possible and noticeably simplified from home”, explained Henrichmann in his speech given here only for the record. “In addition, all data requests are logged and can be viewed by the data subjects.” Die Linke Ulla Jelpke held against it – also in writing -: “This draft law also contains a number of provisions contrary to data protection, with which the principles of data minimization and data economy as well as the basic right to informational self-determination are weakened.”

(vbr)