Politicians are about to break their “sacred promise” that the controversial tax identification number will only be used for tax purposes. This criticism was exercised by the Federal Data Protection Commissioner Ulrich Kelber on Tuesday during an online discussion by the “Authority Mirror” on the planned modernization of the register.

On very thin ice Should the black-red coalition support the initiative of the federal government, the tax ID in future as an overarching “regulatory feature” and personal identifier in good 50 using particularly relevant databases of the federal and state governments, including vehicle and residents’ registers, would put them on “very, very thin ice legally” according to the SPD politician. The Federal Constitutional Court had “repeatedly confirmed and in some cases even tightened” its 1983 ruling against a general characteristic of a person, which began with the census judgment.

The number of administrative data has “grown immensely” since the eighties, Kelber explained his concerns. All federal and state data protection authorities have recently said very clearly that they consider the use of a cross-sectoral label to be unconstitutional. The executive did not even bother to “examine all possible alternatives equally”.

Example Austria In this regard, the inspector referred to the area-specific code numbers introduced in Austria, which could be mapped onto one another “with a secure, data protection-friendly system” with little traceability. This could be used “much more efficiently” in this country. If there is “such a milder method, the state is forced to choose it”. Kelber does not understand that the government is still looking to risk another setback in Karlsruhe. She is running a Vabanque game here, with which she is also endangering the entire system of administrative digitization via the Online Access Act (OZG).

The executive sees the planned modernization of the register as an important component in order to implement the OZG. “An essential prerequisite” is that data and evidence can be transmitted electronically. It is best not to do this over and over again, but rather in accordance with EU requirements “once only”. For this, the citizens would have to be clearly identified in e-government. According to Kelber, this mainstay could break off before the Constitutional Court.

“technical identifier” “We have to network the registers with one another” and access them “according to the law and Regulate the law, “emphasized Ernst Bürger, head of the digital administration department in the Federal Ministry of the Interior. To reflexively lead only one data protection debate and to ignore the benefits for the citizens is counterproductive.

A central federal register quickly rejected the department and opted for a “minimally invasive” solution. “The tax register already has a comparatively high standard,” said the official. The associated ID should now function as a “technical identifier” and be supplemented with attribute data. Access to it takes place in a tiered procedure. Those affected would also have to give their consent for individual services, which should be regulated in specialist laws. So not all information about a person would be brought together: “The identification runs as before, but data and registers can be adjusted in the background via the tax ID.”

No doubt “Our excellent constitutional lawyers” as well as those from the Ministry of Justice had examined the approach and found it to be good, Bürger clarified. Even a no from Karlsruhe would be “not a total write-off”, since the OZG implementation would run over a longer period of time and the option of being able to provide all evidence for an administrative service digitally almost automatically via the “once only” principle, not until 2022 is required.

The Austrian model has also not caught on internationally and “even experts from there advise us against,” said the insider. For this you need a central comparison point, which has not yet existed in Germany. States and municipalities are also not sufficiently connected in the Alpine republic. 21 European countries also have a central code number.

To dangerous In fact, it is not the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that is the problem, but “your own constitution”, Kelber referred to the Basic Law. The “Baltic variant” of register networking would not be compatible with this. In addition, the government wants to apply the proposed walls against the creation of data profiles only to individual sectors. The area of ​​”social” should also range from pensions to health insurance to youth welfare, which is “far too big”.

A comprehensive identity management is overdue, but the tax ID for it “is not the right way”, supported Christoph Sorge, holder of the chair for law and computer science at the University of Saarland, the data protection officer. The Austrian solution would also not be too complex, but “easily and quickly feasible”. The tax ID, on the other hand, is a number that hackers can use in the event of a successful attack to illegally merge registers or information from banks, employers and health insurance companies that handle it.

If the modernization of registers fails, this is immediate Nicolas Sonder from the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Kelber rightly agreed that this had an impact on the stability of the OZG. He is not so skeptical about securing the intended areas, but ultimately it is about informational self-determination. He therefore does not consider it to be ruled out that the constitutional judges would act as a corrective in the event of a complaint.

(kbe)