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Plenary Chamber of the Bundestag
Photo: Christian Spicker / imago images / Christian Spicker
Despite concerns from data protectionists and the opposition, the Bundestag has passed a new law on the use of tax identification numbers.
It is to become a comprehensive citizen number that enables the authorities to access existing personal data at another authority.
If the Federal Council also approves the new regulation, the tax ID of those affected will also be stored in around 50 locations - for example in the residents' register, in the driver's license register and in the weapons register as well as in the pension insurance and health insurance companies.
The coalition hopes that this will make administrative processes easier.
The initiators of the new law want to avoid having to obtain the same data multiple times from different authorities or to submit identical documents more than once.
However, mutual data queries are only permitted if the person concerned agrees.
At the same time, all citizens should be able to see via secure access - the "data cockpit" - which authorities have exchanged which data about them.
Opposition has constitutional concerns
The federal government had repeatedly emphasized that all the requirements of the constitution would be observed.
The opposition voted unanimously against the law because they consider it to be incompatible with the Basic Law.
The digital policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Manuel Höferlin, said that the use of the tax ID as a uniform personal identifier was constitutionally highly questionable.
Green parliamentary deputy Konstantin von Notz warned that if the proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court should fail in a few years' time, "then we will have a problem of costs and time on a biblical scale."
Since the Federal Council also pointed out constitutional problems in its opinion, it is uncertain whether the new law will pass the Chamber of States.
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as / dpa / AFP
