fair.digital: Karlsruhe seal of approval for data protection in the IT sector
For many years, the hexagonal organic seal and the rectangular “Fair Trade” badge have shown supermarket customers which products come from organic farming or were grown under fair trade conditions and brought to Germany. Now there is also such a seal in the IT sector. The ” fair.digital” stands for transparent, secure and fair handling of user data. The certification is awarded to software, hardware and IT applications.
“In recent years, numerous data protection scandals have shaken the world. That’s why we want to give consumers guidance with the seal of approval,” says Martin Hubschneider, who presented the seal and the association behind it to the public for the first time at the karlsruhe.digital initiative’s InnovationFestival on October 16, 2020. The founder of Karlsruhe-based software company CAS Software AG and Managing Director of CyberForum e. V. is the first Chairman of the fair.digital association.
Clear award criteria
The award criteria for the seal of approval are clearly defined. fair.digital products and services must fully and consistently implement the European General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR). The second requirement for receiving the seal is the transparent handling of data settings and contact options. To this end, the terms of use must be easy to understand and publicly available. The fairness mentioned in the seal also plays an important role. This means that users’ sovereignty over their personal data must be respected. This is why as little data as possible is collected and not passed on without consent. “This seal is intended to support IT providers who take European data protection and fair practices seriously,” says Hubschneider.
Counter-draft to the data collection mania of US corporations
The founders of the fair.digital association definitely see the need for such a seal in Germany and Europe. According to Hubschneider, many citizens are now very skeptical about the data collection mania of the major US platform providers. In addition, most people in Germany would not accept foreign intelligence services using their personal data for industrial espionage. Instead, they expect a fair and transparent dialog between providers and users of IT solutions.
Skepticism is also growing in the business world due to the regular data protection breaches by the big IT giants. According to a survey by the IT association Bitkom, German companies’ concerns about US cloud services have increased significantly in recent years. The main reason for this development was concern about unauthorized data access.
Long list of data protection scandals
The list of data protection scandals is long. The most important ones include the NSA affair, in which whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the surveillance practices of secret services, and the scandal surrounding the data analysis company Cambridge Analytica, in which Facebook data was misused to manipulate the presidential election campaign in the USA four years ago. Even during the current election campaign between US President Donald Trump and his challenger Joe Biden, data protection activists are repeatedly warning of influence and election fraud through the use of unprotected user data.
Association board made up of IT experts from Karlsruhe
The fair.digital association is based in Karlsruhe. In addition to Chairman Martin Hubschneider, the board also includes Professor Alexander Mädche from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), online expert and founder Andera Gadeib, IT law expert Professor Michael Bartsch and Oliver Grün, sole shareholder of GRÜN Software AG, President of the Federal Association of IT SMEs and member of the Federal Government’s IT Advisory Council.