Germans and data privacy

If you are working with German customers or colleagues, you might have noticed they have „a weird sense of data privacy“. Or as someone from North America said recently: „If they do nothing wrong, why would they mind being monitored?“

Today is a great day to shed some light on that.

Until 35 years ago, in the living memory of many of the people you work with, there was a German state that monitored its citizens. It had the biggest secret police in the world (in relation to inhabitants) and encouraged people to report on their neighbours and family members, framing it as the duty of a good citizen to protect the state.

People were put in prison because of something they said in a letter to a friend or in their own living room. And of course for trying to leave the country. Young people were denied access to university because of the music they listened to.

You might say that was a long time ago and the GDR does not exist anymore. But I would argue that this is a collective trauma that has not really been addressed. Germany was reunited, but not much was done to heal those scars.

It might also explain why “these young people” are much more relaxed about sharing their personal data than people over 40.

PS: I wrote the first version of this post in 2023 for LinkedIn. In the meantime, a lot has happened. One of the most democratic and free countries in the world – if they do say so themselves – now shows disturbing signs of using personal data for political reasons as well. Maybe that will make people in other parts of the world become a bit more wary about sharing personal data as well.