Germany – Page 2 – understand-culture

Germany and the Love of Privacy

This unwillingness to discuss private time with colleagues reveals both the German distaste for small talk, but also the German desire for privacy.

Germans have a clear and robust sense of what should be in the public domain and what should not, and although there are exceptions for good friends, finding out what your colleagues get up to outside of work requires military grade interrogation techniques.

With waterboarding out of the question, I am left with little recourse other than to linguistically trap colleagues into giving away small details of their lives. The excruciating process of trial and error can last for years, until one day a colleague feels comfortable enough to actually tell you directly what they get up to when not at work.

Germans hand police too much data, court rules

German authorities have too much access to people’s internet and mobile phone data and laws must be rewritten as they are unconstitutional, a court says.

The federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe has ruled that the privacy of Germans should be better protected.

Police investigating crimes or trying to prevent terror attacks are currently allowed to access names, addresses, birth dates and IP addresses. They are not entitled to access data involving connections to other people.

However, campaigners challenged the existing laws, and the judges agreed police should only be allowed such access if there was a specific danger or suspicion of a crime. Current laws violated the right of citizens to phone and internet privacy, they ruled.

Privacy is a significant concern for Germans for historical reasons, dating back to the all-pervasive Stasi intelligence service of the old East Germany and the vicious Gestapo of the Nazi era.

Police Have Too Much Access to People’s Data, German Court Rules

The Constitutional Court said that the current laws did not do enough to protect personal privacy in the digital realm.

July 2020. BERLIN — The German police and intelligence agencies have excessive access to citizens’ mobile and internet communications, the country’s Constitutional Court said on Friday, ordering the existing laws to be tightened.

It was the latest decision by the court to support personal privacy over public security concerns in the digital sphere, which, taken together, have made the country a world leader in protecting personal privacy.

Critics charge that the string of court decisions could hinder the ability of security services to prevent crimes and terrorist attacks.

Information Management – Holschuld

Wikipedia – Information management uses the legal terms Holschuld (obligation to collect) and Bringschuld (obligation to deliver) for the information behavior of persons or personnel who have to collect information, messages or knowledge from the owner of the information in a timely and complete manner and in a suitable form or to forward it to another person.

According to the sender-receiver model, work instructions, service instructions or a manager must clarify in advance which information is required to be retrieved (pull) and for which information is required to be delivered (push) and who is responsible for the transmission of information. There is an obligation to deliver if the sender is the initiator of the information forwarding. In the case of an obligation to collect, the recipient is the initiator and must make an effort to obtain information from a source.

As a rule, information and messages are the responsibility of the person who received this information. He must decide to which addressees it is to be passed on. In hierarchical organizations, the reporting obligation (obligation to provide) is imposed on the respective lower level, which has to report to the higher level. Management must then inform the board accordingly. Since the supervisory board should obtain all relevant information in a better and more detailed manner, it has to actively demand the executive board’s obligation to provide it and to meet its obligation to collect it to a greater extent.

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).

The German Federal Goverment

Structure and Tasks.

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.

Get vs. Give

Holschuld: Hol from holen, to get + Schuld meaning debt. Holschuld means get-debt or get-obligation. In Germany if a colleague has information important to your work, you are obligated to request that information.