The German mentality of data privacy and security

1. Brief history of privacy and security concerns of German citizens in the Twentieth Century

• Surveillance of people in the Third Reich
  • Control, oppression, manipulation is deeply rooted in the Nazi systems that were established
• Surveillance of people in the German Democratic Republic
  • No privacy
  • Deviant behavior always punished
  • Surveillance of people deemed enemies of the state
    • Stasi
• First data protection law in the world was passed in 1970 in the state of Hesse

• In 1979 West Germany established what would become the Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (BDSG) (Federal Data Protection Act)

• 1980s – right to informational self determination, the right to allow or block the sharing of personal information

2. Privacy in the Technological Age

• Shift from privacy from government to privacy from corporations
  • Distrust in private sector
• The Internet
  • Suspicious of Big Tech
• May 2018 – GDPR
  • Effect on EU
  • Effect of specifically Germany
  • More discretion over data
•   Changing of the BDSG
  • “Businesses operating in Germany have to ensure that data – an increasingly lucrative aspect of the tech business – is anonymized and stored in accordance with the law.”