Since 2017, security authorities such as the police and secret services as well as tax investigation departments and customs offices have been able to automatically access biometric passport photos from the electronic ID card and subsequently also from the passport online around the clock without justification. A federal retrieval ordinance regulates technical details. Nevertheless, access often fails due to the technical implementation. The federal government now wants to oblige the approximately 4,300 municipal registration offices to actually enable photo retrieval “at any time”.
This clause is part of the Draft law “to modernize the passport, identity card and immigration law document system”, which the federal cabinet launched on Wednesday. Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) gave the impetus for the initiative. In the paper, the government complains that online access to passport photos in the state and local administration “due to a lack of federal law obligation” is still “not possible or only possible to a very limited extent”. Only two federal states currently allow automated photo retrieval, and each only for their own authorized authorities.
problems makes evident a jumble of systems. 40 different IT service providers and ten manufacturers operate the identity card registers of the registration offices. Now there will probably be a mirror database at the state level into which individual passport and ID card authorities can upload their information or retrieve it from there. Estimated cost: 4.42 million euros.
Constitutional complaint pending
A constitutional complaint by the Society for Freedom Rights (GFF) is still pending against the general right of retrieval. The license for the security authorities, which data protectionists criticized as a Big Brother measure, is “tantamount to a loss of informational control,” the association complained in 2018.
Although authorized authorities are currently allowed to electronically read data from the electronic memory of an ID card, they would have to delete it again immediately after the identity has been verified. If the personal data is still needed, officials have to collect it again and transfer it to a computer by hand. This procedure should be automated. The federal government estimates the number of accesses by police officers for identity checks at 33.6 million cases per year.
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In addition, the minimum age for using the online ID (eID) is to be reduced from 16 to 13 years. The ID card should therefore be used more often for age verification. If a citizen moves, the newly responsible registration office should be able to access the personal data previously stored elsewhere without delay. The delivery of new personal documents by post is to be permitted. The government no longer wants to offer children’s passports, which are valid for one year, in order to create a uniform solution for German passport documents. The federal working group of municipal IT service providers Vitako raised concerns against Faeser’s original draft bill.
(ds)
