Structure and Tasks.
Germany: Land of Data Protection
Understanding the German mentality to data protection and data privacy is fundamental to doing successful business in the country
Nowhere in the world are there stricter requirements for data protection and privacy than in the European Union – and within the Union, no other country stands for data protection more than Germany. If you want your business to be successful in Germany, you should know the reasons. They have to do with the country’s history.
Germany’s Cryptic Debate on Data and Privacy
Activists are helping lead the battle for Germans to control their data privacy.
BERLIN — In a quiet neighborhood of Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, C-base, a hackers den designed to resemble a space station – complete with LED kitsch – is a hive of activity. On a Wednesday evening, several dozen Berliners gather to socialize and hear presentations on net-related topics while sipping pilsners. This is the monthly “Internet politics” evening of Berlin’s Digitale Gesellschaft – Digital Society, in English – an organization that campaigns for civil rights and consumer protection in Internet policy.
German watchdog says Amazon cloud vulnerable to US snooping
US legislation means Washington could seek access to sensitive police data that Germany plans to store with Amazon Web Services.
April, 2019. BERLIN — Amazon’s cloud hosting services are not suitable for storing German police data due to a risk of U.S. snooping, Germany’s top data protection officer told POLITICO.
Ulrich Kelber, Germany’s federal commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, said that U.S. authorities could invoke the CLOUD Act to demand access to data held by Amazon Web Services — creating a risk for German government bodies that store data with them.
The CLOUD Act, passed last year by Donald Trump’s administration, allows American authorities to compel U.S.-based tech companies to provide requested data, regardless of whether that data is stored in the U.S. or abroad.
Germany is the first EU Member State to enact new Data Protection Act to align with the GDPR
On 5 July 2017, almost a year before the General Data Protection Regulation (EU/2016/679, the “GDPR”) will be applied, the new German Federal Data Protection Act (‘Bundesdatenschutzgesetz’) passed the final stage of the legislative process, the so-called German Data Protection Amendment Act (the “GDPAA”). It has been countersigned by the German Federal President and published in the Federal Law Gazette.
The GDPAA will, with one exception outlined below, enter into force on 25 May 2018, and will substantially change the current German Federal Data Protection Act in order to align it to the GDPR, to make use of its derogations, and to implement the Law Enforcement Directive (EU/2016/680).
Although the GDPR directly applies across the EU and its provisions prevail over national law, Member States retain the ability to introduce their own national legislation based on certain derogations provided for by the GDPR. These derogations include national security, prevention and detection of crime, and also apply in certain other important situations – the so-called ‘opening clauses’.
Germans would pay more for their privacy than Americans
A study investigating how people in various countries value their private information has found that Facebook users from Germany would charge the social media platform the most for sharing their personal data.
The study, by US-based think-tank the Technology Policy Institute (TPI), is the first to attempt to quantify the value of online privacy and data. And for the study, it assessed how much privacy is worth in six countries by looking at the habits of people in the US, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia and Argentina.
It addresses the growing concern about how companies, from platforms such as Facebook to retailers, have been collecting and monetising personal data. Due to this, US regulators have imposed hefty fines on Facebook Inc and Alphabet-owned Google’s YouTube unit for privacy violations.
How the Thirty Years war affected Germany
The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was a brutal conflict that saw most major European powers use Germany as a battleground to sort out their assorted dynastic, religious, economic and territorial issues. The toll this took on the country was massive, and reverberated for long after; let’s take a look at some of the damage it did.
The Thirty Years War has earned a reputation for being a particularly nasty conflict: unlike most wars of the day, and arguably no wars until the 20th century, it saw massive civilian casualties, with parts of Germany losing more than half of their population. It’s estimated that of a German population of about 20 million in 1600, by 1650 only about 13 million were alive.
Information in the project – Holschuld or Bringschuld?
Holschuld from holen, to get and Schuld, obligation. You are obligated to get or ask for the information. Bringschuld from bringen, to bring, provide, give and Schuld, obligation. You are obligated to bring, provide, give the information.
“I didn’t know that!” – “But that’s on the intranet. You should have known that! After all, information is a debt to be collected!”
This or something similar is a dialogue that is heard again and again between project employees and project managers. Whereby instead of “Intranet” there can also be “Project drive”, “SharePoint” or another medium.
Is that really true? Is information in the project really the responsibility of the project staff?
I think the project manager (or the project office) makes things too easy here. I can’t throw all the information out at the employees’ door and then expect them to pick out the ones that are relevant to them. So that we understand each other correctly: the project manager can expect his employees to read meeting minutes or other periodicals regularly if they know where to find the latest issue.
But they won’t, and shouldn’t, bother to sift out “out of line” information that affects them from the jumble of information. That’s not their job. You should work on the project, any other approach would slow down the project.
Holschuld. Bringschuld. German law.
Holschuld: get obligation. Bringschuld: deliver obligation.
What is the difference between a debt to collect, a debt to bring and a debt to send?
In the case of a debt to be collected, the place of performance is with the debtor – the owed item must be picked up there by the creditor.
In the case of an obligation to deliver, the place of performance or fulfillment is with the creditor. The debtor must therefore pay at the domicile of the creditor. If there is a debt to be sent, the debtor must also send it.
The distinction is particularly important when it comes to the question of transport or shipment costs and the question of the transfer of the risk of the loss of the goods (e.g. if a package is lost in the post).
Bavarians
Bavarians (Bavarian: Boarn, Standard German: Baiern) are an ethnographic group of Germans of the Bavaria region, a state within Germany. The group’s dialect or speech is known as the Bavarian language, native to Altbayern (“Old Bavaria”), roughly the territory of the Electorate of Bavaria in the 17th century.
Like the neighboring Austrians, Bavarians are traditionally Catholic. In much of Altbayern, membership in the Catholic Church remains above 70%, and the center-right Christian Social Union in Bavaria (successor of the Bavarian People’s Party of 1919–1933) has traditionally been the strongest party in the Landtag, and also the party of all Ministers-President of Bavaria since 1946, with the single exception of Wilhelm Hoegner, 1954–1957.