CDU on digital affairs

The CDU wants to create a digital platform where learners and education providers meet, including a personal digital learning account. This is meant to bring digitalization into adult and continuing education as well.

The CDU wants to build a digital platform for education. People can find suitable courses there. Everyone should have their own digital learning account. Certificates are stored there safely too.

Certificates are to be stored in the learning account in forgery-proof form; implementation is to be coordinated with the federal government and other states under the Online Access Act. An action plan is meant to improve data literacy for anyone interested while preserving employees' right to control their personal data. Digital infrastructure, hardware, and software in vocational continuing education are to receive funding. A state competition is meant to attract digital education start-ups, and the “Digital Campus Niedersachsen” is to get reliable funding. Interfaces to the state education cloud and open educational resources are meant to map a person's entire educational path.

The CDU wants to make public-sector data available for research and innovation as far as data protection allows. Small and medium-sized companies are to receive advice and funding when they use artificial intelligence for the first time.

The state holds a lot of data. The CDU wants researchers and companies to be able to use it. Data protection rules should still apply. Small companies should get help when they first use artificial intelligence.

The focus is on non-personal data, which is to be standardized, easy to find and provided with clear terms of use and licenses; data trustee models are also planned. AI support for small and medium-sized companies is to follow the model of the Digital-Bonus funding program. In the health sector, the CDU wants to advance digitalization and AI for diagnostics, therapy and telemedicine and to expand health services research.

The CDU wants to develop data protection, data security, and data ethics in a practice-oriented way because data-driven technologies are becoming more important. To that end, research and professorships in these fields are to be strengthened and an independent state ethics commission appointed.

The CDU wants more research on data protection and data security. There should be more professors for these topics. A new commission should advise on ethics in data and research. Ethics means asking what is right and what is wrong. The commission should work independently.

Cooperation with the Helmholtz institute for information security is to be expanded. Professorships in privacy, data law, data security, big data, and data and research ethics are to be strengthened, and the research data infrastructure expanded and networked statewide. The "future labs" at the Center for Digital Innovations would continue to be funded and pay more attention to data protection and data security. Protecting critical infrastructure such as energy and health care is to gain weight as a research topic. Research institutes such as DFKI, OFFIS, and L3S should take a larger part in the public debate on data protection.

The CDU wants to continue the rollout of fiber and mobile networks and stands by the goal of giving all households gigabit-capable connections by 2025. It counts fast internet as a basic public service; municipalities would continue to get state money for the rollout.

The CDU wants fast internet for all households by 2025. The state should keep giving towns money for this. The mobile network should also grow faster. Companies should keep their promises to build networks.

A 25 percent financing share would be secured in the state budget to connect unserved and underserved areas. At the federal level, the CDU wants to press for fewer investment barriers to rural broadband, nationwide 5G coverage and compliance with the conditions attached to spectrum auctions. The market survey procedure would be changed so that companies' rollout commitments become more binding. The broadband competence center in Osterholz-Scharmbeck would be kept to advise local governments. Mobile phone masts could be built to a greater height without a permit.

The CDU wants cell towers to no longer need their own building permit once their type has been approved. In addition, a competence center is to support municipalities with smart city and smart region concepts.

The CDU wants to make it easier to build cell towers. Once a type of tower is approved, no new permit is needed. There will also be an advice center for towns and cities. It helps with digital plans for places and regions.

The platform provides that cell towers need no further permit procedure once a type approval has been granted. It also calls for a rule under which an application counts as approved after three months, as the model building code already provides for housing construction. A new competence center is to help cities, towns and regions with smart city and smart region concepts.

The CDU wants to set up a separate ministry responsible for all of digitalization and for the IT infrastructure of the state and its municipalities. In return, the Ministry for European Affairs is to be dissolved. The platform argues that the principle of departmental autonomy hinders the digitalization of public administration.

The CDU wants a new ministry for digital matters. It will handle all digital questions in the state. In return, the Europe ministry will be closed. The party says each ministry works on its own today. That slows down digital progress.

The new department is to have full responsibility for the IT infrastructure of the state and municipalities and for expanding network lines. Every other ministry is to get networked "satellites" or "agencies" coordinated by the digital ministry, which are to ensure a shared strategy and timeline. The state's representation in Berlin and Brussels is to move to the State Chancellery. The NBank, the state's development bank, is to take over the funding and advisory tasks of the former Europe ministry.

The CDU wants to create a central, accessible online portal through which all administrative services can be handled at any time. A service center is to help people use it, and government offices are to reach out to citizens on their own initiative. Visiting a local citizens' office in person is to remain possible.

The CDU wants one website for all dealings with government offices. People and companies can do everything there at any time. A service center will help with questions. People can still go to the local office in person.

The portal is to be open to all citizens and businesses and easy to use. A service center is to offer support by phone, video call or chat. Digital and automated processes are meant to speed up handling and, according to the platform, save costs in the medium to long term. Agencies are to act as service providers and work proactively, for example by reminding people before their ID card expires and mailing a new one after a photo is uploaded.

The CDU wants public agencies to buy software on the market first rather than develop it themselves, with a preference for open-source products. The IT of the state and its municipalities is to be moved into a shared cloud structure. Municipalities are to receive financial support for the switch.

The CDU wants government offices to buy ready-made software. They should write less software themselves. The state and its towns will store data in a shared cloud. A cloud is storage on the internet. Towns will get money for the switch.

In the medium term, state agencies and most municipalities are to stop running their own servers. On the shared platform, the state's IT service and outside providers are to be able to offer specialized applications, while control over data and programs stays with the responsible office. Also planned are innovation hubs, legally defined standards and interfaces, a list of approved applications, and a free "Niedersachsen App" for municipalities. The state's law on wage compliance and public procurement is to be adjusted for outsourcing IT services.

The CDU wants to strengthen digital skills in the state administration by recruiting and training more IT professionals. To that end, a separate civil service career track for IT occupations is to be created. The platform points to growing competition for such specialists.

The CDU wants more IT experts in government offices. They will get their own career path as civil servants. The state will offer more training places. Other staff will also get digital training.

The plan is a career regulation for IT specialists and technicians in the state's civil service law. Specialists are to be able to advance without having to take on management duties. A skilled-worker initiative for state and municipal administration is to add new positions, and the number of IT-related training places and dual study places is to grow. Digital training for existing staff, flexible working arrangements and working from home are also part of the plan.

The CDU wants to make electronic case files mandatory in the judiciary by 2026 and to launch electronic legal communication across all areas of law. In the party's view, an effective judiciary must also work digitally.

Courts should work with electronic files. By 2026 this should be required everywhere. The CDU wants to provide money for computers and software. Citizens should be able to order some documents online.

The CDU wants to provide substantial funds for hardware and software in combination with the digital pact for the judiciary. Experience with e-files at the Oldenburg labor court and the Stade social court is to be evaluated. Artificial intelligence is to be used responsibly in the judiciary, and telemedicine is to become possible in prisons. Register extracts and electronic certificates of inheritance are to be available through a digital service. Digital skills are to get more weight in law studies and at the college for court officers.

The CDU wants everyone in Lower Saxony to be able to use digital services confidently and plans media education starting in kindergarten. School social workers and police are to be trained to deal with cyberbullying. Those who cross legal lines with hate and incitement online are to be identified and prosecuted.

The CDU wants everyone to handle digital media well. Children should learn this in kindergarten and school. School social workers and police should get training against online bullying. People who break the law with hate online should be punished.

The platform sees media education first as a task for parents; in addition, plans are to be developed for kindergartens, schools and out-of-school settings. Risks such as addiction and cyberbullying are to be covered as well. Projects in schools and clubs that foster confident media use are to be funded, together with counties and municipalities and for all generations. Further programs are meant to help people assess what the CDU sees as the problematic role of social media in finding information. A cooperation between the interior and justice ministries and the state media authority is to make it easier for media companies to report criminal hate posts.