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I digitalized Berlin's registration form

nicolasbouliane.com

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Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#241

Post by gwright »

jupp0r wrote: post #228
danjac wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the best way is to avoid these consultancies altogether and create a government digital agency (whether at local or national level). Motivated and well-trained civil servants familiar with the bureaucracy and terminology who can maintain and improve services in the long term. The UK .gov project seems to point the way.

This is largely impossible in Germany due to government pay rates being a fraction of what a competent person would earn in industry. There is very little flexibility in this due to equality principles. Sports is an exception, so they could fix it if they wanted to.

> There is very little flexibility in this due to equality principles.

I can imagine a lot of ways to interpret this but none really make sense in the context of your post.

What "equality principle" leads to a conclusion that a government employee doing X must be paid a fraction of what a private employee doing X is paid? I'm confused.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#243

Post by nicbou »

thelastgallon wrote: post #229

These digitization/paper-work/wait problems, 1000x for immigrants. Added bonus of uncertainty and significant stress, you never know how these delays in processing are going to impact your status.

Yes, and this is why I spend so much time on those problems. Germans can afford to wait, but immigrants need everything at once and can't afford the delays.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#244

Post by aleph_minus_one »

BucketsMcG wrote: post #184
ido wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why are online gov services still so much better in the uk then in Germany?

1) Most of uk.gov is actually designed and built in-house. 2) Germany, as a nation, got to about 1991 and collectively decided "This is nice, let's keep it like this". Even the most technologically progressive regions of Germany still think it's 1997. Elsewhere, it's like the wall never came down.

> Even the most technologically progressive regions of Germany still think it's 1997. Elsewhere, it's like the wall never came down.

It is in my opinion a little bit more complicated. The central issue is: many ideas for digitization that other countries or private companies do or have done are very privacy-invading.

Germany had two surveillance states on its soil in the 20th century (of which one ended only a little bit more than 30 years ago). Additionally, lots of German citizens remember the aftermath of the dragnet investigation to fight the RAF in the 80s. So privacy and the possibilities of surveillance are very sensitive topics in the German population.

Additionally, basically every German citizen knows that when data accumulates, politicians will find a reason to use this data to spy on the citizens (prosecution of criminals ... blah blah). Thus there is an insane distrust in the German population in the politicians. Just to give a more recent examples: when the TollCollect system for truck toll was introduced, there were from beginning on concerns that the billing data will become abused. The politicians appeased the citizens that this will never happen. Of course it did happen:

> https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/verbrechensvorbeu...

"Rasterfahndung, heimliche Online-Durchsuchung, Datenauswertung der Lkw-Maut - Bundesinnenminister Wolfgang Schäuble und die Unionsfraktion drängen auf zahlreiche Verschärfungen der Sicherheitsgesetze. Die SPD will mitziehen - aber nicht beim Datensammeln zur Verbrechensvorbeugung.

Entsprechende Pläne präsentierten Unionspolitiker nach Informationen des SPIEGEL in einer Koalitionsrunde am vergangenen Donnerstag. Unter anderem sollen dem Bundeskriminalamt die Rasterfahndung und die heimliche Online-Durchsuchung von Privatcomputern erlaubt werden. Außerdem sollen die Daten der Lkw-Maut dabei helfen, Verbrechen aufzuklären."

DeepL translation: "Grid searches, secret online searches, data analysis of truck tolls - Federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and the CDU/CSU parliamentary group are pushing for numerous tightening of security laws. The SPD wants to go along - but not with data collection for crime prevention.

According to SPIEGEL, Union politicians presented plans to this effect at a coalition meeting last Thursday. Among other things, the Federal Criminal Police Office is to be allowed to conduct dragnet searches and secret online searches of private computers. In addition, the data from the truck toll is to help solve crimes."

> https://www.zeit.de/online/2007/37/kommentar-online-durchsuc...

"Das Computer-Ausspähen wird also kommen. Wieder einmal wird der Gesetzgeber das Grundgesetz einschränken. Es mag nachvollziehbare Gründe dafür geben, wenn es darum geht, Terroristen davon abzuhalten, Hunderte von Menschen zu töten. Aber es braucht wenig prophetische Fähigkeiten, um vorauszusagen, dass es so kommen wird, wie es in der Vergangenheit immer gekommen ist: Erst versprechen die Innenpolitiker und die Sicherheitsbehörden hoch und heilig, das neue scharfe Schwert nur bei den ganz gefährlichen Straftaten und Verbrechern zu benutzen. Doch dann kommen die Drogenhändler, die Kinderschänder, die Betrüger und schließlich die Steuerhinterzieher. Und plötzlich sind auch Onlinedurchsuchungen ein ganz normales Instrument polizeilicher Ermittlungen.

Das war so bei der Kronzeugenregelung, bei der Datenspeicherung zur LKW-Maut und bei der Telefonüberwachung. Die gehört längst zum polizeilichen Alltag und wird von Richtern routinemäßig genehmigt. Auch beim Großen Lauschangriff drängt die Union seit Langem auf eine Ausweitung. Ihr passt es überhaupt nicht, dass die Polizei die Mikrofone ausschalten muss, wenn die belauschten Gespräche privat werden."

DeepL translation:

"So computer spying is coming. Once again, the legislature will restrict the Basic Law. There may be understandable reasons for this if the goal is to prevent terrorists from killing hundreds of people. But it takes little prophetic ability to predict that things will turn out the way they always have in the past: first, domestic politicians and the security authorities promise on high and holy to use the new sharp sword only on the very dangerous crimes and criminals. But then come the drug dealers, the child molesters, the fraudsters and finally the tax evaders. And suddenly online searches are also a normal instrument of police investigations.

This was the case with the leniency program, data storage for truck tolls and telephone surveillance. This has long been part of everyday police life and is routinely approved by judges. The CDU/CSU has also long been pushing for an expansion of the large-scale eavesdropping program. It does not like the fact that the police have to switch off the microphones when the conversations they listen in on become private."

Thus: never trust a politicians: politicians are nearly all fraudsters who belong into a high-security jail instead of a parliament.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#245

Post by aleph_minus_one »

carlosjobim wrote: post #185
jlangenauer wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, this is how most "advanced" economies operate. It's identical in Australia (although there the consulting companies run the sweatshops directly so they can skim more cream off the top). Same in the UK.

What frightens me is comparing the snail-like rate of progress in the post-modern era with the rapid progress during the 20th century, regardless of economic and governmental system. It's like the a hand brake was simply engaged. I get it that people in power want to stall things so that they can skim money for their own purposes, but doesn't anybody else get just bored by the lack of progress?

> but doesn't anybody else get just bored by the lack of progress?

Be the change that you want to happen. Where possible implement it in software with your friends and publish it on the internet. Thus: I am not bored by the lack of progress, instead I am rather overworked by implementing parts of this in my free time after work.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#246

Post by cromka »

mawadev wrote: post #203
nforgerit wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German here. I'll have to dissent on the buddy-business part. That's not how Germany works. It's the opposite, which turns out to be even worse: As a bureaucrat that wants to solve a specific problem, you form a project and are required to make a public submission. Those submissions have to adhere to very formal predefined legal standards (in order to omit corruption) which make them incredibly time-consuming paperwo…

That is true and in the end the Chief-Executive-Intern-Junior-Fullstack-Developer from hungary/poland/croatia/romania will do it for the german consulting company bc in-house german developers are too expensive.

Can’t speak for others, but Polish engineers aren’t and haven’t been cheaper than German for a while now.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#247

Post by konschubert »

patrickk wrote: post #219
askonomm wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from Estonia it is hard to believe how Germany still requires you to show up at government entities. I thought Germany was a very advanced country. I've done everything online for the past 10 or so years, having to only show up to the police to retrieve my new national id card or passport once it's ready, but every other service is entirely online: https://e-estonia.com/solutions/

A lot of the bureaucracy is a badly disguised jobs program. There would be so many people out of work if there was actual work to reform some of these ossified government services.

None of these people would be out of work, we have more than enough jobs.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#248

Post by rad_gruchalski »

2716057 wrote: post #70

No, no, it's all wrong. Here's how we digitize our administration in Germany the proper, Germanic way: A fixed sum for digitization is allocated and the local government publicly advertises a project. A bureaucrat higher up the foodchain has a friend/cousin/former colleague who runs an IT service business side gig. Guess who will win the contract. The friend/cousin/former colleague starts building by outsourcing the…

When the wind stops, the form goes offline because the Pi uses 100% renewables. Last month the form went offline during a windy period because the neighbours complained about the wind noise the micro-sized windmill was producing: nimby.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#249

Post by ethbr1 »

alex_suzuki wrote: post #232
tormeh wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, finally someone else with whom to fax.

Anyone here who has written a fax gateway (receive TIFF of fax, do OCR, save somewhere and convert to PDF)? raises hand (fax is alive and well in Switzerland)

This boggles the mind on the cultural-legal implications in fax-centric countries of doing:

Fax to TIFF to OCR to PDF to internet transfer to TIFF to fax

But anyone still requiring fax would probably just be happy "it came out of a fax machine / software."

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#250

Post by swores »

prennert wrote: post #104
flurdy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sister sent a parcel this week with presents for my daughter's birthday (Happy birthday Ruby!), from Norway to the UK. She filled in all the spoiler customs parts but must have gotten stressed and completely forgot to write our street name and house number. Just my name, post code and country. 3 days later our postie knocked on our door and asked if this parcel was for us! We don't live in a big city but still it…

As long as the postcode is complete, there are only few full addresses that the postie needs to check against. If you got a letter the same day to your full address and your name is unique, then it would be fairly quick to find you. BTW in Scotland at least, during the Christmas period, it is customary to leave a Christmas card for the postie outside with a small bank note in it. An easy way to say thank you for thei…

Customary (and extremely welcomed by the many postmen & women I've had the pleasure to know, my father having worked for Royal Mail / CWU) in England as well as Scotland (and I'm sure in Wales/NI too - probably elsewhere as well, and even in places where it's not customary it won't do any harm to thank people providing year round services to you with a small gift once a year!)

Also, while I agree with you that in this case (having a full postcode as well as name) it would have likely been an easy task for the local postie, Royal Mail do actually have a small team* of people who work in figuring out more tricky ones, so if a local person can't work it out for being on their beat it can be sent to the "address detectives" (great title!) to try to solve.

This is a great example of that from a year or two ago, including a few other similar stories at the end: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/07/lives-across...

* My knowledge is both 20 years out of date and fuzzy in my memory, so I've no clue how big a team it is nor if there's enough confusingly-addressed items to need anyone working on it full time, or if it's just one aspect in a wider set of responsibilities that a team does when needed.

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