Why keep it simple when you can make it complicated. That’s a thought you often have when dealing with Germany’s digitisation of government. A case in point: in principle, Germany aims for the Once-Only principle — meaning data only has to be entered once, and can then be retrieved by various authorities. In theory. In practice it looks different, as the Handelsblatt reports.

Because it still applies to authorities: data that’s been entered has to be deleted, sometimes even painstakingly redacted — even when the exact same data would be needed for a related administrative service. In the example given, it’s about company founders who have to be part of a trade association and register with the accident insurance fund. Even though registering the company and registering with the association and accident insurance are basically part of one bigger whole, all the data still has to be entered three times.

Do we sometimes have too much data protection? Should lawmakers turn the obligation to delete into an obligation to share instead? What do you think?

Source: https://lnkd.in/dvwz4dK8

Image: Scott Graham for Unsplash.

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