BfDI Kelber: One last farewell in plain language

It cannot be said that Ulrich Kelber was a loud Federal Data Protection Commissioner (BfDI). However, it would also not be true to say that he was convenient for those being monitored. And so it is remarkable how clearly Kelber speaks out once again at the end of his term of office, which has been extended by six months.

Kelber warns against a "blinkered digitalization" in which the implementation of functionality is placed above all else. And rejects a frequently made assertion: "Contrary to what is often assumed, we in the data protection supervisory authorities are by no means opponents, but rather fans of digitalization." It's about finding well-made solutions - which would even improve data protection. "We data protection officers hate fax machines", he says because media disruptions are prone to errors.

He describes what upset him the most in an article published on the BfDI website: Andreas Scheuer 2021 claimed via the tabloid "Bild" that the warning by cell phone in the Ahrtal flood had failed due to data protection. In reality, Germany had preferred to use warning apps rather than the internationally common cell broadcast method, which does not affect data protection – and this was at the express request of various CSU ministers. During the Ahr flood, this probably happened at the cost of human lives: Shortly before the flood, however, the NINA app only reached 11 percent of the population, according to the interior ministers. For Kelber, this is symptomatic of politicians who want to blame data protection for failures elsewhere.

Kelber also refuses to accept the often-heard objection that data protection stands in the way of increased data usage. With Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PET), which rely on encryption, signing, pseudonymization, anonymization and good rights and role concepts, the necessary tools have long been available. Instead of sensible digitalization, Germany tends to wait a long time and then "rush to digitalization".

Dangerously under-digitized

According to Kelber, the country is dangerously under-digitized because digitization is underfunded and characterized by a lack of willingness to standardize and high security standards. Kelber criticizes the fact that the ministries do not make use of the confidential advisory services of the BfDI and BSI for projects. According to Kelber, this would allow many a crazy idea to be scrapped at an early stage without losing face. Kelber also has clear words for the state of the digital economy: it collects extensive and detailed data from all possible sources. "That is why approaches such as 'data sovereignty', 'data literacy' or 'risk-based approaches' are not suitable for replacing basic principles of data protection such as purpose limitation and data minimization," writes the outgoing BfDI, adding that they could at best supplement them. The EU rules are good, but must be applied uniformly.

Kelber only touched on the fact that the data protection supervisory authorities themselves do not always act quickly – not even the comparatively well-equipped German ones. This applies to case processing and coordination between the authorities. And Kelber makes a conspicuously large detour around whether, considering the amount of data processing, official supervision is really the most effective way of taking action against private bodies, even if Kelber attests to its "teeth" in the article. However, this would probably also be a question for his successor, Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider, who has already been elected but not yet appointed.

Last week, Ulrich Kelber bid farewell to the staff of the Bonn authority, who presented him with a Star Wars lightsaber as a farewell gift from the "good side of the Force" - as Kelber himself liked to call the data protection supervisory authority. However, Kelber has not yet revealed on what occasions the former member of the Bundestag from Bonn would like to use this in the future and what his relationship with the Force will be like in the future.

(mma)