Survey: German ministries lack digital sovereignty

German federal and state ministries primarily use US software and platforms for browsing, web searches, and social media. This is the result of a survey by the search engine Ecosia, which questioned 147 ministries in December 2025 via the Freedom of Information Act. Around two-thirds of the authorities responded substantively, about 20 percent refused to provide information (mostly citing security concerns), and around 10 percent did not respond at all.

When it comes to browsers, the picture is clear: Microsoft Edge is pre-installed in 98 percent of the responding ministries, and Google Chrome, Apple Safari, or Mozilla Firefox are often available as additional options. The situation is hardly better with search engines – only 24 percent of respondents use a European search engine, mainly in Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, and individual ministries in Berlin, Saxony, and Baden-Württemberg.

The social media landscape shows a similar trend: 97 percent of the ministries surveyed are present on Instagram, 77 percent on Facebook, 58 percent still on X – but only 17 percent on Mastodon. The findings for AI applications are more positive: around 40 percent of the responding ministries rely on European AI solutions such as Hamburg's LLMoin or Freiburg's open-source project F13, and many actively disable Microsoft's Copilot in their browsers.

Ecosia created the study with obvious self-interest. The company is now inviting all ministries in Germany to "take a first step towards digital sovereignty" and switch to Ecosia for their searches. Together with Mastodon, Ecosia proposes a "Mastodon First" strategy, where ministries publish their posts exclusively on Mastodon for 24 hours before they appear on other platforms.

Commentary: It's much worse than that

What the Ecosia survey doesn't reveal: there is no truly sovereign, European alternative for search and browsers. Even if ministries were to switch to a search engine operated by a European company, they would still be dependent on US corporations. This is because almost all alternative search services – including Ecosia itself – get their results from US services.

Ecosia is indeed building its own index in a joint venture with the French company Qwant with the aim of becoming independent from Google & Co. However, the index is still in its infancy and currently only delivers results for French-language content.

Microsoft Edge, which is pre-installed in 98 percent of ministries, is based on Chromium, like Google Chrome – a Google project. And the Norwegian Vivaldi, often cited as a European alternative, is also based on Chromium, as are many other browsers.

The also widely used browser Safari comes from another US corporation: Apple. Mozilla Firefox is the only other relevant browser. But Firefox is not a European solution either. And the US-based Mozilla Foundation is largely financed by a licensing agreement with Google, which uses it as the default search engine. In short: at the browser engine level, there are three relevant projects worldwide, and none of them come from Europe.

(jo)