German Justice Minister Barley, DE-Mail is in contravention of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Bundesministerium der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz
Mohrenstraße 37
10117 Berlin

May 30, 2018

cc Social Affairs Courts Munich and Graf-Schlicker

Subject: DE-Mail in contravention of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Dear Justice Minister Barley,

In an interview with the SPIEGEL magazine you claimed:

"As a consumer protection minister, I can say that the new law gives people more control over their personal data. This is a huge step forward for the self-determination and privacy of millions of Europeans. The EU has used German law as its model. All those who are looking for support for the necessary changes, be it volunteers, volunteers in clubs or photographers, must also receive them competently. Especially the state data protection officers are doing an important job, for example with corresponding checklists and explanations."

and further

"According to the General Data Protection Regulation, there is an obligation to set up privacy-friendly default settings. This does not only apply to social networks, but also to the smartphone or the intelligent refrigerator with internet connection. Compliance with this obligation will be monitored by the data protection supervisory authorities. Politicians will be very attentive to whether companies comply with these obligations." - Google translate

I am afraid, you could not be further from the truth. The Social Courts in Munich reference to your ministry's German "Portal of the justice authorities of the federal and state governments" and they offer two options to transmit documents electronically. One option is the abominable email "service" De-Mail (1).

Here is my experience of the process of signing up for De-Mail with the company Web.de. The sign up runs consecutively across a couple pages:

• In order to sign up for De-Mail you already need to have signed up for an email address with Web.de. From that email account you can access the sign up for De-Mail.
• On page 1 in addition to name, address and date of birth the mobile phone number is asked!
• It gets even better, because in order to reach the next page of the sign up filling in the mobile number is mandatory! The second page then explains the different ways for the personal identification. There is also one WITHOUT the need of a mobile number!
• One way is to select a personally convenient date on which you want to be called. For me it was May 9 between noon and 4 PM. Of course, this being a German company, nobody called! Instead, I had a call on May 7 and that landed in my mailbox.
• Later I learned from an employee that an identification by mobile phone call is not possible. This is only for appointing a visit from an employee for personal identification at home (2). Excuse me, but that could also be done by email.
• Hold it, because it gets even more entertaining. You can print out a pdf with your data. With this data sheet with your personal data and passport you go to a single (there is only one!) location in Munich. This is a DPD (parcel service) shop in Truderinger Strasse 261. Once there, nobody knows a DPD Shop! Because ...
• the DPD Shop is a kiosk! Be sure to look it up on Google Streetview. Connected without a separating wall  is a fast food restaurant or something. There you hand over your personal data sheet to the clerk of the kiosk. I was there two times and the second time a different person who was in the back of the fast food restaurant eventually came forward. The kiosk was unoccupied and the office door in the back was open. That's where your personal data sheet goes and you have no idea who else has access to this office cubicle. You also have no idea what this particular individual does with your personal data before he sends it off.

In other words, the mobile number is not necessary for identification. But the Web.de folks offer a generous discount of € 4.00 if you agree to have you phone number listed!

Are you kidding me, Justice Minister Barley?! Is this a sick joke?

I never used that email address, but from day 1 I had the privilege to find advertisements in my Inbox. Google handles those with absolute ease and deposits them neatly into the Spam folder. The idiots of German Web.de do not care.

It does not stop there. Despite having cancelled my application, I still can not close down my account at Web.de, because apparently something is still open! Mrs. Barley, with all due respect and pardon my French, who needs that shit?

I had contacted your ministry's liaison Mrs. Marie Luise Graf-Schlicker in March in this matter. Unfortunately, in typical German fashion, Mrs Hyphenated Name deemed it to be beyond her social status to reply.

Bonus trivia courtesy Bavarian Social Court LSG: Upon informing them by normal email about my findings they expressed being unable to respond as I had not used De-Mail. You can't make that up.

Sincerely,

__________
(1) One has to imagine the ass-hatted idiocy to conceive an email system limited to Germany only.
(2) I was told the earliest date for such a visit would be in 6 weeks time!!! Hello, Earth to Germany, please come in.