AfD on digital affairs

The AfD wants to recognize a civil right to live without digital administrative and everyday processes and to fully preserve cash as legal tender. Location tracking and device monitoring are to be limited to the bare minimum. It bases this on citizens' rights of defense against the state.

The AfD wants this: Nobody has to do everything digitally. Cash should stay. Devices should track people as little as possible. Users should be able to turn tracking off. The AfD says this protects people's freedom.

Manufacturers would have to offer a way to switch off tracking and device monitoring and disclose what can be monitored. As examples of monitoring, the platform lists cell phone location, the eCall emergency system, automatic speed checks, and remote immobilization of vehicles. The mandatory speed warning system in cars (Intelligent Speed Assistance) is to be abolished because the AfD sees it as patronizing drivers. The party rejects systems that rate citizens' behavior along the lines of China's social scoring. According to the platform, data protection has high priority.

The AfD wants to undo the NetzDG (Network Enforcement Act) and refuses to implement the EU's Digital Services Act in Germany. It regards both as tools for controlling and deleting opinions online. It also wants the state to stop paying non-state actors that influence how opinions are formed.

The AfD wants to get rid of two sets of rules for social networks. One is the German NetzDG. The other is an EU law called the Digital Services Act. Both make platforms delete certain content. The AfD sees this as a danger to free speech.

According to the platform, the NetzDG forces social media companies to delete content very quickly and lets the federal government steer what citizens discuss. In the AfD's view, EU initiatives such as the Code of Practice on Disinformation are used to label legitimate opinions as disinformation. The party demands an end to all public funding of non-state actors that seek to influence or suppress opinion-forming. NGOs would have to disclose where their money comes from. The stated reasoning is that a democracy must tolerate its citizens' opinions.

The AfD wants to abolish the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO in German) and replace it with a leaner federal data protection law. In its view, the regulation does little to protect data but burdens small and medium-sized businesses and consumers. Data protection authorities would also gain more weight, including against the state.

The GDPR is the EU's data protection law. The AfD wants to abolish it. A shorter German law would replace it. The AfD says the GDPR is a burden for small companies and consumers. Data protection agencies should also be able to punish government bodies.

As an example of the burden, the platform cites the constant consent requests consumers encounter. The AfD holds that the regulation falls short of its actual goal, data protection and informational self-determination. It would be replaced by a federal law the party describes as lean and effective. Data protection authorities would be able to impose sanctions on government bodies too. The reasoning given is that the state must follow the same rules as citizens.

The AfD calls for a federal strategy for digital sovereignty. It is meant to secure citizens' self-determination and protect government bodies and critical infrastructure. Chinese corporations would be kept out of building Germany's digital networks.

The AfD wants a plan for digital independence. Germany should rely less on others for technology. The plan should protect citizens, government offices and important facilities. The federal government should develop its own devices and programs for this. Companies from China should not help build the networks.

The platform names open-source technology and decentralized systems as building blocks of the strategy. In addition, the federal government would develop its own hardware and software for critical infrastructure. The AfD justifies excluding Chinese companies by saying they are effectively controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

The AfD wants legal rules that make the use of artificial intelligence possible, for example in medical technology and transportation. It rejects EU regulation, including the AI Act, and calls for national solutions instead. Germany should not cut itself off from this growth market, the party says.

AI means artificial intelligence. The AfD wants to make it possible to use AI in Germany. Examples are medicine and transportation. The AfD rejects the EU's rules for AI. Germany should make its own rules.

The platform describes AI as a major growth market and names cheap energy that is available at all times as a precondition for using it. At the same time, the AfD sees risks for critical infrastructure, transportation technology and civil liberties. It rejects the Cybersecurity Act, the Ethics Guidelines for AI and the Artificial Intelligence Act, which it calls centralist. Practical rules at the national level would take their place.

The AfD rejects an ECB-issued digital euro and a central register of assets. It sees both as tools for sweeping surveillance and control of financial activity. Instead, it calls for a right to an analog life free from monitoring.

The European Central Bank plans a digital euro. The AfD is against it. It also opposes a register that lists what everyone owns. The AfD fears the state would then watch everything. People should be able to live without digital technology.

The platform expects the digital euro to become the dominant means of payment despite the ECB's assurances, and says it could later be made programmable. The AfD compares the resulting potential for control to China's social credit system. Combined with an asset register, it argues, this would lay the groundwork for expropriating wealth that has already been taxed. All of this could only be enforced through a de facto mandatory digital identity, which the party also views critically. It further regards the digital euro as a path toward the gradual displacement of cash.