Bitkom CEO Bernhard Rohleder. (picture alliance / dpa)
Many German industrial companies see data protection requirements as a drag on the digitalization of their business. In a survey conducted by the digital association Bitkom, 61 percent of companies listed them among the obstacles. The only more frequent reference was to a lack of financial resources, at 77 percent.
Data generated by networked machines is not usually personal, Bitkom CEO Bernhard Rohleder said on Wednesday. At the same time, he said, companies are concerned that information about the people who work with them could be derived from machine data. "And that puts us right in the middle of the issue of employee data protection."
The situation is creating legal uncertainty, he said - and much of German industry is still in the small and medium-sized sector. "These are companies that do not have a large legal department and in many cases do not know how to handle the relevant data," Rohleder emphasized. Accordingly, in the survey, reducing legal uncertainties when exchanging data with other companies was the most frequently cited demand on policymakers, at 84 percent. Bitkom surveyed 551 industrial companies with 100 or more employees in Germany.
Overall, the survey found that the coronavirus crisis had led to a surge in digitalization in German industry, with 95 percent of companies stating that digitalization had become more important. At the same time, 42 percent found that they had come through the pandemic very badly so far, while 23 percent gave rather badly as their answer.
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