Grüne on digital affairs

The Greens want to speed up the rollout of fiber to every home and mobile coverage without dead zones. A 500-euro voucher is meant to encourage households and small businesses to connect. The party sees a gap-free network as a precondition for equal participation.

The Greens want fast internet in every home. Dead zones for cell phones should also disappear. Households and small firms would get a 500-euro voucher for fiber. The rollout would start in rural areas.

To move faster, permits and so-called cluster tenders are to be simplified and modern cable-laying methods allowed. The rollout is to begin in rural areas, where the program says coverage is worst; this is also meant to create jobs there. Open Wi-Fi is to become standard in public squares, public buildings, and on buses and trains.

The Greens want to make dealings with public authorities digital and simpler, with uniform portals and a single login. Public data is to be made freely available, and the state is to rely more on open-source software and end-to-end encryption.

The Greens want to make public offices digital. The fax machine should go. Everyone should be able to handle official matters on simple websites. The state should open much of its data to all. State software should be well encrypted.

The portals are to be accessible, user-friendly and written in plain language; municipalities would get uniform IT systems for this. At the same time, non-digital ways of accessing services are to remain. A statewide open data strategy would release non-sensitive public data and give companies and municipalities incentives to do the same. According to the program, promoting free software makes the state less dependent on large IT corporations. End-to-end encryption is to be standard in all state IT projects, and municipalities would get advice on becoming a "smart municipality." For artificial intelligence, the party wants to draw up guidelines together with business and civil society.

The Greens want to support companies, especially small and mid-sized ones, in going digital and to orient Bavaria's IT sector toward sustainability. New data centers are to run climate-neutral from 2027, and public authorities are to buy IT according to sustainability rules.

The Greens want to help companies go digital. Small firms in particular should get help. From 2027, new data centers should no longer harm the climate. Their waste heat should warm buildings. Public offices should buy eco-friendly computer equipment.

The plans include statewide platforms for small and mid-sized firms, investment in employees' data skills, and models for sharing data, such as data trustees or decentralized data pools. The party wants to build up expertise on IT security and emergency plans together with business and academia. Public data centers are to be listed in a register and run sustainably, while private ones get a funding program for new construction and climate-friendly upgrades; waste heat is to feed into heating networks. A state GreenIT strategy would set procurement rules and targets for all authorities. Further items are rules for electronic waste, recycling loops, repair cafés, and research funding tied more closely to sustainability goals.

The Greens want every Bavarian municipality to have at least 50 megabits and a fiber-optic connection by 2030. In addition, municipalities are to get help strengthening culture, meeting places and new forms of housing in rural areas.

The Greens want fast internet all over Bavaria. By 2030, every town should have fiber. Fiber is a very fast cable for the internet. Culture in rural areas should also get more help. Examples are theaters, clubs and museums.

The platform justifies the network expansion by saying fast internet is needed for shopping, working from home and remote schooling. Quality of life should not depend on where someone lives. Municipalities are therefore to receive support when they fund theaters, clubs and museums or create services for children and older people. Multigenerational houses, central meeting places and co-working projects in village centers are to be expanded. Digital neighborhood help and digital administration are also supported.

The Greens want every Bavarian municipality to hold the "Kommunale IT-Sicherheit" (municipal IT security) seal by 2024. The platform argues that municipalities are increasingly targeted by hackers and that smaller ones in particular are poorly prepared.

Hackers attack towns more and more often. The Greens say small towns are not well prepared. By 2024, all towns should have a seal for IT security. The seal shows that the town's computers are well protected.

The goal is better IT security in local government. The platform sets 2024 as the deadline by which all municipalities should hold the seal. The party points to the growing number of cyberattacks on local administrations as the reason.