The most beautiful view has been promised to us for years by the digital transformation. Working in a home office would be unthinkable without digitalisation. However, the open door and the missing roof of our digital dwelling threaten to outweigh the advantages.
According to Article 13 (1) of the German Basic Law, the home is inviolable. It is precisely regulated that a search may only take place in individual cases and after a court order. We keep our data in our digital home. But in very few cases do we have a key to our own home. We have to get a password from a third party so that we can enter our home, which is in someone else’s possession. Where we might think we have a door, it is not there for others, when in 2022 more than 5.4 million records stolen from Twitter were for sale and a record of more than 530 million Facebook users could be found on the internet. The helplessness of the legislation is shown by the fact that, for example, adolescents who pubescently try out and exchange nude photos via social media now have to expect criminal charges for child pornography. Even if chat programmes want to guarantee encrypted communication, the user is never safe from the state, manufacturer or a hacker ignoring the secure door and simply opening the roof to secretly look in from above.
It is astonishing that citizens from all social classes do not see this digital legal ruin as a bad thing.
After all, in the pre-digital world, self-designed privacy is considered a measure of prosperity. It starts in the room for subletting, the flat that one then wants to own oneself because one cannot afford a house of one’s own. But homeowners also differ, with terraced houses, detached houses and even villas with a park.
So far, users lack the digital understanding that their social position will be differentiated in the future by how well they guard their privacy and how well they can individually benefit from freely available data.
So are Google, Facebook and Co. secretly communists who want to make everyone the same?
Well, with their products they are probably aiming at certain behavioural patterns that can be found in all social strata and are happy that everyone freely lets them evaluate the valuable data.
Even if it is only a few trendsetters who push this development, a silent majority must suffer from it and is even forced to go along with it.
Today’s emails are not encrypted and can be intercepted at any time. Nevertheless, they have replaced letters even in confidential communication with authorities.
The state must finally ensure that the pre-digital achievements in the digital society are preserved for those who are not used to fighting back. To this end, I call for the introduction of WAN anonymity. Similar to a car registration number, the data owner must be identified in the event of misuse. Otherwise, anonymity can only be lifted in individual cases to be regulated by the legislator. It is also possible to communicate, shop and pay anonymously via WAN. For this to work, the state must provide every smartphone owner with a PDS (Personal Digital System) USB stick. The citizen pays for web space in the cloud in addition to his internet flat rate. Each record is encrypted and decrypted via the PDS on the smartphone. Only the citizen has access to the keys. He can enjoy his data with the door locked and the roof intact, without having to reckon with unauthorised access.
You can find statements on my more than 100 EU initiatives.
It costs the state a lot of money to be able to guarantee a roof over everyone’s head in the pre-digital world. If the state wants to transfer this security to a functioning digital society, it can only do so with a digital, WAN-anonymous communication infrastructure that is free of charge for everyone. For this, the state spends a fraction of today’s costs arising from cyber attacks.
States are increasingly competing for skilled workers. Most people will prefer a digitally secure society to a nice view without a roof and door. Digital security for everyone determines success or decline!