Europeans have traditionally placed much more of an emphasis on protecting the privacy of citizens than in the United States, and this is especially true in Germany. Each of Germany's 17 Laender, or states, has its own commissioner for data protection, who monitors the activities of both companies and the government. The site offers regular citizens both information and software downloads. Even though people suffer locally, we are talking about a global medium and we need to have global solutions and global answers for people. I think that's a very positive step.
Governments tend to be very reactive.
This is trying to build a system and a place where people can go and discuss issues and maybe even solve some real problems. That's the main motto for all our projects. We have projects on biometrics, anonymity and identity management. Our job is to talk to them about how to do this. That's very seldom.