FDP on digital affairs

The FDP wants to set up an AI cluster at Bremen's universities and also create a cybersecurity cluster. Both are meant to connect academia, business, and public agencies and strengthen Bremen as a location for these technologies.

AI is short for artificial intelligence. These are computer programs that learn by themselves. The FDP wants to strengthen AI research in Bremen. Universities and companies should work together more closely. The same goes for protection against attacks from the internet.

The FDP calls artificial intelligence the most important technology of the future, whose benefits should be used without neglecting fundamental and civil rights. It sees the legal framework as a European matter; in Bremen it wants to support research and development. The cybersecurity cluster is meant to better link local companies, the police, public agencies, and research and teaching. The platform expects growth and future-proof jobs as a result.

The FDP wants contact with government offices to run digitally through a citizen account. Internal agency workflows are also to be digital from end to end and automated as far as possible. In the medium term, paper-based procedures would be dropped entirely to avoid duplicate work.

The FDP wants people to handle all official business online. There should be a digital citizen account for this. The offices themselves should also work without paper. Later, the old paper methods should end.

Citizens would log in to the account with an electronic ID (eID) that is being introduced at the federal level. The platform calls implementing the Online Access Act by the end of 2023 the bare minimum. Agency work is to be largely automated, with manual corrections still possible in individual cases. The reasons given are the shortage of skilled workers and what the FDP sees as excessive administrative staffing costs. The funding needed is to take priority over other spending.

The FDP wants agencies to share existing data with each other more easily so that citizens and businesses do not have to submit it repeatedly. Those affected would have to approve each transfer for a specific purpose. The platform also calls for uniform digital interfaces with public offices.

Public offices should share data with each other more easily. Then people do not have to give the same information again. People should agree first. There should also be the same digital access points for all offices.

The platform cites the property tax as an example, where citizens had to supply information the state already held elsewhere. To protect privacy and prevent misuse, each exchange would be tied to a purpose and approved by the citizen. Uniform interfaces between public offices, citizens, and businesses are meant to prevent errors and improve data quality. The FDP says this saves resources and capital on both sides.

The FDP wants to repeal the 2022 law that assigns application development for Bremen's agencies exclusively to the IT provider Dataport. Instead, public offices would work more closely with digital companies from Bremen and Bremerhaven. This is meant to secure local jobs.

A law lets only one company build software for Bremen's public offices. The company is called Dataport and is based in Kiel. The FDP wants to end this law. Companies from Bremen and Bremerhaven should be able to get contracts too.

According to the platform, the coalition of SPD, Greens, and the Left passed the law in 2022. Dataport is based in Kiel, and the FDP says the state of Bremen holds only a very small stake in it. The party sees repeal as a way to promote the local economy and innovation. It expects this to raise the standing of Bremen and Bremerhaven as a business location.

The FDP wants at least 90 percent of households and businesses in the state to have fiber to the home by 2030. Public Wi-Fi hotspots are also to be set up in city buildings, on public squares, and in public transit. The platform treats fast internet as a precondition for digital innovation.

The FDP wants fast internet for almost everyone. By 2030, 90 percent of homes and companies should have fiber. Fiber is a very fast internet line. There should also be more free Wi-Fi, including in buses and trains.

In the FDP's view, expanding conventional networks with moderate speeds is not enough to keep Bremen attractive as a place to live and do business. The party therefore wants to lay the strategic and planning groundwork for gigabit connections. Public hotspots would be designated in all city buildings and on all public squares. The party would support installing them in buses, streetcars, and regional and commuter trains.

The FDP wants to expand the unit investigating cybercrime in both staff and technology. Networks and IT systems in the state are to be protected against sabotage and hacking according to a recognized security standard.

There is more and more crime on the internet. The FDP wants more experts for this in the police. The police should get modern technology. The computer systems of the cities should also be better protected.

Police are to recruit IT specialists, create attractively paid posts for them and receive up-to-date software. To guard against attacks, which the platform attributes among others to authoritarian states such as Russia and China, trained staff are to identify and reduce risks on a regular basis. Plans include support for information security management systems in companies and municipalities, cyber defense centers and training centers for emergency simulations. Every municipal project is to prove it has security concepts from the planning stage (security by design). A confidential oversight body under the state's information security officer is to monitor IT risks.

The FDP wants people to be able to see the data stored about them, including raw data held by companies. Private addresses from the residents' register should only be released when someone proves a special interest.

Everyone should be able to see what data is stored about them. This should also apply to companies. Anyone asking an office for another person's address should need a good reason. The office should tell the person concerned about it.

The platform distinguishes between raw data and analyzed data: the analysis remains with the company as a trade secret and does not have to be handed over. With government bodies, access to one's own data is meant to build trust. Until now, private addresses can be requested without a special reason unless a block is on file. In the future, the person concerned is also to be told when their registration data has been requested.

The FDP commits to a right to anonymity online and in public spaces and to a right to encryption. It rejects camera surveillance without cause, blanket data retention, a real-name requirement and so-called state trojans.

The FDP wants people to be able to stay anonymous online and outdoors. The state should not watch people without a reason. Nobody should have to use their real name online. People should be allowed to encrypt their messages.

In the platform's view, cameras without a specific cause only shift crime elsewhere and do not reduce it. The FDP supports video surveillance at danger hot spots if there is a specific cause, staff are monitoring it and police can step in right away; police presence is to take priority. The platform calls blanket data retention a disproportionate intrusion that the European Court of Justice has struck down several times. It also rejects a digital ID requirement, limits on cryptography, keeping security gaps open and any obligation to hand over passwords.

The FDP wants to advance the digitalization of the justice system and make digital communication the norm. By the end of the next legislative term, all courts and prosecutors' offices in Bremen are to work with electronic files.

The FDP wants to make the justice system digital. Courts should keep their files on computers. This should be done by the end of the next term. Online hearings should also be possible more often.

Breaks between paper and digital formats in dealings among courts, police, administration, and the legal professions are to be eliminated as far as possible. All offices are to receive the necessary IT equipment and IT staff, and employees are to be trained. The platform places particular weight on data security and cybersecurity. Online hearings are to be strengthened, though not in criminal cases. It should also become possible to record proceedings on audio and video.

The FDP favors more digitalization in medicine to ease the workload of staff. It welcomes digital prescriptions, digital patient records and the digitalization of health insurers.

The FDP wants more digital technology in medicine. Programs should fill in forms automatically. That saves staff work. The FDP also likes digital prescriptions and digital patient records.

According to the platform, many formalities are still handled by hand, especially in hospitals. In the FDP's view, investing in software that fills in referrals automatically, for example, would greatly relieve employees. The party also names cutting red tape through digitalization as a way to counter the shortage of skilled staff.