

The State of eGovernment in Germany - endymi0n
http://distributed.hamann.se/blog/2013/08/31/the-horrifying-state-of-egovernment-in-germany/

======
patrickg
Losing my karma: This article is (partly) BS. I have just tried the steps in
the page, and it worked like a breeze.

2013-05-26, 23:10 CET: The link is not hidden, it is clearly visible and with
correct description. Currently this works also on a sunday.

2013-05-27, 19:30 CET: Login / registration works on Chrome / OS X .No forced
logout.

2013-05-28: link activation worked fine without problem

and so on. I don't want to say that the OP is wrong, it might be the OP has
experienced exactly what he has. But generalizing this is total bs. I have
done many bureaucratic steps here in Germany and most of them were really fine
(submitting tax forms, applying for tax ID, business registration
(Gewerbeanmeldung, Handelsregister), banking account, healthcare insurance,
...).

There are many different places where to submit forms, but usually the local
trade organizations (Handelskammern) help you by organizing / bundling things
together. Been there, done that.

~~~
queeerkopf
Dealing with the official bureaucracy in germany is in general quite
cumbersome. The IT solutions provided by the government mostly reimplement the
offline processes in the online world. I fully agree that this seems
ridiculously complex and time-consuming compared to the sleak UX we're
accustomed to on the net.

However due to the federal structure of germany your experience can vary
wildly depending on in which state and city you live. I live in Munich and was
recently pleasantly surprised how easy it was to request my postal voting
documents for the upcoming elections. Took me only 30 seconds or so :)

I think the city council of munich does quite a good job at innovating their
IT infrastructure. Most notably the limux project [1] but in other areas like
open data and open government as well [2]. Though there is of course still a
lot of space for further improvements.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux)

[2] [http://www.it-muenchen-blog.de](http://www.it-muenchen-blog.de) (german)

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kybernetyk
Oh man, I know that. I have to put up with German bureaucracy regularly.

Compared to my experiences with running a company in the UK it's almost like
the Germans don't want you to run a company at all.

~~~
UK-AL
It's because the UK is Entrepreneurial. No body bats an eyelid if a 16 year
old starts a company in the UK. It's normal.

In Germany, your meant to have the correct education, certificates, and
experience before your own company. There's tons of red tape.

~~~
patrickg
Huh? What stops anybody from registering a company at the Handelsregister and
start working? Who needs a certificate and a proof of experience?

Or do you mean society enforces it?

~~~
kybernetyk
> Huh? What stops anybody from registering a company at the Handelsregister
> and start working?

Maybe not really applicable for us tech nerds but the "Meisterzwang" is a real
obstacle for many people. But aside from that arcane institution there's not
really anything forbidding you to start a company.

The problem I have with Germany is the time and bureaucratic burden it takes
to get a Gmbh up and running. You're looking at a procedure that takes
multiple months and visits at a notary office for the paperwork.

Compare that to the UK where all you have to do is log into a website and fill
out a form to have your Ltd up and running.

~~~
cmarschner
Meisterzwang is pure quality assurance. And if you think how well known
Germany is for quality products it makes total sense. And I would argue if
there was a Meisterzwang for people concerned with egovernment we wouldn't
have this discussion. Besides the Meisterzwang was abolished for many
professions in 2004. See Wikipedia.

------
danmaz74
This is similar enough to experiences I had in Italy. I would have expected
Germany to be more advanced in this.

I've also been thinking many times how cool it would be if somebody started
creating an open source framework for EU e-government, considering that many
problems are common to all governments.

~~~
chestnut-tree
_" how cool it would be if somebody started creating an open source framework
for EU e-government"_

I agree this would be brilliant. I know in the UK the gov.uk site is all open
source: [https://github.com/alphagov](https://github.com/alphagov)

They recently published a blog post about how the New Zealand Government
Online team used some of the gov.uk code.

[http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2013/07/26/working-
with-...](http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2013/07/26/working-with-govt-
nz/)

I'd love to see a pan-European initiative to pool resources and knowledge.

~~~
danmaz74
What the UK is doing is commendable - unfortunately, they're also the most
unlikely to work at a EU level.

What I was thinking about was more of a grass-roots thing, started by hackers
who want the e-government to come to the 21st century. Who knows, if my
current startup turns out well and I'll have time to think about something
different, I could work on that :)

~~~
benilov
Grassroots sounds nice, but the hard work isn't writing the code - it's
convincing those within government that user-centered services and open source
are the way to go. I believe that this can only be achieved given a strong
mandate, from within government itself.

~~~
danmaz74
Based on my experience in Italy - with my former employer we did some work
with public administrations - my idea would be to start with cash-strapped
local administrations and the most forward-looking of their suppliers.

These administrations basically have all the same needs, but many of them are
served by small suppliers that always have to reinvent the wheel with some
half-cooked proprietary solution.

If there was a well-designed, free open source GPL solution that already
coverered 80% of the requirements, that could give a competitive advantage to
those who based their offer on that solution. They would then compete only on
service and customization.

As I see it, the problem would be mostly to kickstart the development of that
GPL platform - no for-profit company could do that, it would be against their
interest. But if a big and committed enough community started it, then it
could create a positive feedback loop that could be very difficult to stop.
IMHO this could be a field where the GPL could give its best (I'm not pasdaran
of the GPL, and released my own little open source contributions as MIT).

~~~
benilov
Well, the GOV.UK code
([https://www.github.com/alphagov](https://www.github.com/alphagov)) is your
80% (or more likely higher) solution. It's based around many micro-services
that integrate over HTTP, so it's extremely extensible.

However, even with the software being perfect, you still have very high
barriers of entry to overcome: 1) the local authority is likely to be locked
into a 5- or 10-year contract with its current supplier 2) the choice of
supplier is rarely (if ever) based on technical excellence/licensing strategy.
Usually the people commissioning the IT don't tend to have a very deep
understanding of technology, licensing, etc

~~~
danmaz74
If the gov.uk code covers a lot of the requirements for local administrations
in continental EU, that's terrific. Honestly, for now I'm just thinking about
this idea, but I don't have the time to study it.

As for the contracts, at least in Italy I've never seen one longer than 3
years, and practically by law the deciding factor is, most of the time, price
(which is a big problem on its own).

~~~
benilov
Well ok, the GOV.UK is the 80+% solution for publishing; transactions is
another matter, although hopefully when the Digital by Default Service
Standard starts kicking in (specifically the open source provision:
[https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/digital-by-
default#criteri...](https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/digital-by-
default#criterion-15)) then a lot of code around transactions should start
appearing.

~~~
danmaz74
That's interesting, I'll look into it if I'll ever have the time ;)

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BjoernKW
Even their electronic tax declaration system (which you're required to use as
a company in Germany) isn't working properly at times. You should think that -
of all things - they should at least get that one right.

Germany government IT basically is a joke. Just Google for 'toll collect' for
additional hilarity.

~~~
kybernetyk
Heh, our only Windows PC in the office is used just for this. We're otherwise
a Mac/Linux shop and the last time I tried filling my (personal) taxes with
the Mac it failed horribly. At that time their Java applet wouldn't work with
every browser and with the most recent JVM on OS X. So I had to switch through
browsers, Google around and downgrade my Java VM.

After some tinkering (a lost Saturday) it finally worked but I don't want
something like that in my business. That's why we have one PC here :)

~~~
voidiac
Why not run your Windows in a VM and get rid of the PC?

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kleiba
Yep, sounds like an accurate description. Or at least, it wouldn't surprise me
at all to have such an experience. But then again, I think I'd never be so
foolish and even _try_ to do something like that online: Germany is easily 10
years behind countries like the U.S., Canada, Australia, etc. If there's a
possibility to snail mail something, I'd choose that any time. Or show up in
person at the office in question.

Not that the latter would be an experience any more pleasant...

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rapala
E-government has at least two big problems, and the author faced both of
those.

First, the users need to be authenticated, as in you are the _person_ you
claim to be authenticated. Almost no other web service actually needs to know
that. Banks are an other exception and for example here in Finland they
provide authentication for other private and government web services. Finland
also has those secure chip ID cards the author briefly mentioned. The problem
with those is that, at least here in Finland, nobody has them. And most of
those who have one, don't own a reader needed to use the chip.

The second problem is about logging and archiving. Governments are subject to
very strict laws and regulations about how certain cases need to be handled.
The are processes to follow. Who did which step when has to be recorded. When
the case is finally closed, every piece of paper about the case needs to be
archived. Was something denied because a letter from the applicant did not
have the necessary information? That letter needs to be archived. All this is
manageable when the case is handled in paper.

If the case is handled using a web service, things get more complicated. The
system has to log all actions done in the case. It has to archive documents in
proper ways. That's not impossible. But it is harder than stamping and signing
papers for those whose jobs have been about stamping and signing papers for
years. It's also harder for those implementing the web service, as most of the
strict regulations don't apply in other projects. All this means that big
money needs to used for creating something that adds complexity and is not
strictly necessary, and oh boy the government likes to skimp on those kind of
projects.

~~~
jpatokal
I'm a little surprised you don't mention Finland's rather effective solution:
banks act as an authentication service, so you can log into to your bank to
prove who you are, and the bank then redirects you to the original website. As
Finland has only half a dozen or so consumer banks, and virtually everybody
had an account with one or more, this works quite nicely.

~~~
rapala
I actually did mention that. :)

I think the system is pretty good. The only problem it has, that I know of, is
the price. The user of the service has to pay for every single authentication.
Couple of years ago the price was 14 cents per authentication. That was enough
for a one government project to second guess their choice of authentication.

------
_quasimodo
You should have embedded the scan as an Image into a Word 97 compatible .doc
file :)

------
aristidb
I think it's not entirely valid to generalize from one example to the "State
of eGovernment in Germany".

Don't get me wrong, it's not in a good state. But also not always as
horrifying as this example. (And it's much better here in the Netherlands.)

~~~
danieldk
_(And it 's much better here in the Netherlands.)_

Having recently moved from NL -> DE, I can't agree more. Dutch citizens have
one account (DigID) that can be used with nearly all government services.
Moving within the Netherlands, reporting taxes, etc. is a breeze. There is
even a portal where you get an overview of nearly everything (pension status,
study loan, etc.).

Here every thing is paper and you have to sign and complete dozens of forms,
many partly overlapping. That said, they were all processed quickly and well,
and my employer was very helpful in getting everything sorted out.

Of course, one upside of the German system is that it gives (the impression
of) more privacy :).

Not to complain about Germany in general, it's a wonderful country.

~~~
sveme
There have been initiatives to unify the different government services under
one account in Germany, however, whenever someone proposes to aggregate all
citizen data in one database, a huge outcry ensues. The basic reason is really
that no government entity should know too much about a citizen, so that 39-45
will not that easily be repeated. Sort of security by obfuscation.

It is in a way similar to the current google story, google trying to unify all
its offerings in one account, thereby making the experience much smoother and
helpful, and people refusing this because they don't want google to know that
much about them.

------
Semaphor
It is to be expected, after all, the internet is a new thing for all of us
according to our chancellor.

------
ryanweal
This closely resembles my experience getting my business established with
Québec. Eventually I sent an email to the helpdesk complaining about all of
the issues and in return they sent me an address to an office downtown. That
office _is_ the helpdesk and processing center.

Since then I go to the office every time, chat with the people, ask questions,
fill out my forms, and they process it immediately.

It took over one year to finally gain access to all the components of the
online system. I still can't read their PDFs because they require an Adobe
plugin for PDF "security".

At any rate, see if you have the ability to go in person. Helps with the
language barrier and probably more effective.

------
sampo
Finnish State Railways (www.vr.fi), a monopoly that operates all the trains in
Finland, closes their webshop from 1.30am to 4am every night. During the close
time you cannot buy train tickets.

~~~
Semaphor
Used to (I don't know if it still is, I switched banks) be similar for
Sparkasse online banking. The website closed some time in the evening and
reopened at 6am.

~~~
kybernetyk
Heh, when I was living in Poland for some years the biggest internet bank
closed their online banking over the weekend.

Well, they didn't close it. They just didn't take orders for wire transfers.
Not reading the message that popped up - I assumed it's something along the
line of "your order will be filled on monday" \- made me miss my first rent
payment :3

No idea why they couldn't just queue orders over the weekend.

That said: I've seen a lot of IT shit all over the world. No country is immune
to stupid people sitting at the steering wheel of IT departments.

~~~
Semaphor
At least you could access your account, Sparkasse didn't even allow me to log
in -.-

------
aaronh
Nothing new here. In NY state you have to send in your Article of Organization
to the NYS Division of Corps. You then receive a confirmation mailing which
you have to turn around and send in to the NYS Dept. of Taxation, so they, you
know, know you exist to tax. Durr! The state already knows it exists, it just
registered it, why am I playing mailboy and shuffling mail between two
departments which are probably within walking distance of each other!

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cLeEOGPw
And to top that, German government probably paid millions for anyone who
created the system, and since the system crashes so much they now need to pay
all the time to keep it running. In my country such projects appear when there
is massive corruption at that field.

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vdp
Well, at least you have something in Germany. In Bulgaria after 15 years and
over half a billion euros spent(and we are talking about one of Europe's
poorest countries here) there is almost nothing practically usable done.

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ams6110
This sort of stuff is why I still do my 1040 by hand on paper and mail it in.
It's just easier.

------
D9u
I thought that many German municipalities were switching to Linux based
systems?

Is it not succeeding, or are there other issues?

(I don't get out much anymore. I live on a rock in the middle of the Earth's
largest ocean, on one of the most isolated land masses on Earth.)

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Tagedieb
Postage is 58 cents. Not the smallest error in the article.

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SchizoDuckie
Wow. Sounds like Hotel California...

