D: Responsibility for data protection issues is increasingly consolidated

The German federal state of Brandenburg intends to merge data protection control authority for data protection in the non-public and public sectors under the State Privacy Commissioner (Landesbeauftragten für Datenschutz).

A draft amendment states: "Due to the rapid technological developments of recent years and their significance for data protection issues, as well as the fast-growing overlap of non-public and public areas of supervision, lasting and effective control of data protection can only be guaranteed if the existing resources at the State of Brandenburg's data protection control authorities are combined."

The federal states of Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein have already taken this step toward pooling these competencies.

In addition to the consolidation of competence, the European Data Protection Directive 95/46 EC requires complete independence of the data protection supervisory body. The separation of data protection supervision from other government institutions such as the Federal Ministry of the Interior or the regional board is designed to further enhance independence from the regional government authority.

By consolidating competency and responsibility in one place, businesses and government agencies now have a single point of contact.