The Federal Council also criticizes the Federal Government’s initiative to use the already controversial tax identification number as an overarching citizen identification number for the modernization of registers. With the project, the regional chamber sees the overall usability of the tax ID at risk, “combined with significant negative effects on the taxation process”.

Constitutionality in danger In a statement passed on Friday, the Federal Council emphasized that the use of the tax ID “within the financial administration due to the previous area and use-specific design and thus restriction is compatible with the Basic Law “. With the planned “expansion of the purpose of use” to around 50 databases including the vehicle and registration registers, the admissibility of the use could be “endangered due to the wide applicability”

Should the draft for an identification number law (IDNrG) come into force, there is a risk, according to the regional chamber, “that from the previously permissible area-specific date a constitutionally inadmissible one common date becomes “. These constitutional concerns raised by the Scientific Service of the Bundestag “should be examined with regard to the risk of misuse and the dangers of data leaks when using cross-sectoral personal identifiers and, if necessary, remedied by suitable means”.

The state leaders followed one Recommendation from their financial experts. The economic committee, on the other hand, had advocated declaring the use of the tax ID as a central citizen number as suitable.

Costs may be higher than expected The Federal Council also points out that with the draft law, the federal government is on the one hand making detailed requirements for the federal states, which result in an immensely high one-time compliance effort of almost Generated millions of euros only “for the first implementation”. Whether this amount ultimately fully reflects the costs incurred seems questionable and remains to be seen. Furthermore, further permanent expenditure is necessary.

The federal government will benefit to a considerable extent from the register networking, it says in the submission: “The implementation of his digitization projects will be massively facilitated.” As a compensation, the regional chamber therefore demands 879, 9 million euros from the sales tax distribution in favor of the states. In the further legislative process, the additional costs incurred by the municipalities should also be taken into account and “adequately” covered.

The states also complain that only the identification of natural persons should be regulated. Partnerships, legal persons and other organizations were left out. The Online Access Act (OZG) on administrative digitization and EU regulations required “clear framework conditions for data traffic as soon as possible”.

Ministry of Justice should be involved The Federal Council informs the legislature that the relevant peculiarities of specialist law must also be taken into account when harmonizing the databases in the connected registers. The outlined unconditional replacement of the register data with the data of the Federal Central Tax Office could “make parts of the registers unusable”.

The authority to collect and transmit validity values ​​of data in the population register is granted cancel, the Chamber demands. This is not necessary for cross-register identity management within the meaning of the OZG. Information about an information block may only be disclosed in accordance with the protective provisions of the Federal Registration Act. In order to define data exchange standards, the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Justice Department must also be involved.

A threat to digitization In the case of planned legal ordinances, with which the federal government should be able to determine technical details, for example, the states are pushing for more say. The blanket exclusion of deviating state law in the entire scope of the IDNrG is too extensive. The order of competencies of the Basic Law cannot be undermined by simple federal law. This project should be clearly classified as unconstitutional. Above all, the listed real estate cadastre and provisions in the land surveying and cadastral laws, for which the federal government has no competence, are affected to be linked virtually via the tax ID. “Sector-specific” personal codes, as introduced by Austria, are the milder means. The Federal Data Protection Commissioner Ulrich Kelber described the executive’s project this week as a Vabanque game that endangers administrative digitization.

(mho)