That you know, that is from domestic?
Because some people say that also religious groups use now disinformation as a weapon, and then they become normalized that all groups use now.
No, it’s not.
Yeah, I know. That’s why we distinguish between misinformation and disinformation. That is an important distinction, I think.
There is a question whether it’s also used by domestic groups, right?
Yeah, it is, but I wonder it makes a difference politically. Whether you can just say blame China.
That’s true, although not always easy either as we see with Nord Stream at the moment.
That’s true.
Let’s talk about open data. That is an important mission here of this ministry. Some people say it actually needs a legal framework, to do this well.
There is none at the moment, is there?
I looked a bit on the Internet and there were people complaining about the fact that it’s often not clear when data are updated and how often they are updated when you look at the data set.
Your Telco industry, are they happy with that when there will be mandatory provisions asking them to?
They are not happy about that.
Is there also an issue of protection, say data protection, and how you balance the two?
Yes and no. In the long run, when you deal with big data, it’s more and more difficult to distinguish non-personal and personal data.
We used examples with transport data, that when you count people and when you go to the urban fringe of cities, it’s less and less people who use that. Then there are moments where they intersect personal data and non-personal data.
Yeah, It’s doable, but the question is, are these practices, are they mandatory, are they defined somewhere?
Do you also observe that proposal of a data act on the EU level, have you looked at that?
This sharing?
I’m not sure if it will ever see light of the day, that’s still unclear, but to make it mandatory also for the private sector to share data it gathered?
That’s why you need a law?
Did the data act proposal, did it inspire you, or were you…?
I’m just asking. [laughs]
How interesting. I didn’t see much online about that.
Would I be able to talk to someone from this group?
That would be very nice.
Another issue I’d like to mention is the eID project. Could you tell me a bit more about the state of things in this…?
Why did they not use it?
Yeah.
You are going to reform it?
Your relationship to civil society, you come from that world?
That was my question, has it changed in one way or another, the relationship?
Generally, the relationship hasn’t changed. Because I heard that there is also more criticism now, that you face some criticism.
Only in that field.
I think my last question concerns, actually your indicators of success. How do you measure your own success as a minister?
That is still a bit vague, to say to have than being more in harmony with each other or technical…
Do you have any questions?
I think that was it.
Yeah, that would be wonderful, if I could.
No. I’m leaving on the 25th of March, but I could also do later. If per face-to-face meeting is not doable in the next couple of days, I could also do a Zoom meeting.
It makes sense rather to talk later?
How would I organize that once I’m back in Berlin? Could I do Zoom meetings with them?
Our data protection officer came to some agreement with them, so since then we can use it. Because our public service that was an issue there with how we would use.
We had in German ministries, incompatible streaming services they would not allow to use the other one. During the pandemic, there were some ministries using the Cisco one, and another one…
Yeah. It didn’t work out at all for a while.
No, I use Zoom because when I choose…
Yeah, but that depends always on the ministry. That would be in the ministry of commerce, but ministry of justice used a different one. They could not communicate with each other for a while.
Yeah, but Google Meet has no stable bandwidth.
We use that also, in one of the research institutes where I am. We use only open-source stuff there and Matrix is one of them that we use.
