"Imprint" - "Declaration regarding Data Protection" - Gessler's Hat in Neuland

-» Deutsche Version

On current occasion:

Please note the information regarding "data protection" below, before you continue to use this web site or send me any kind of data.
Thank you.

If the legal preconditions are met in your country or where you are right now, you can reach me at the following addresses:

Dr. med. Jörg-Michael Sigle

Talmattstrasse 32
CH-4125 Riehen

Mobile (CH) +41-76-276-8694

My current e-mail-adress is:
joerg.sigle_REPLACE_THIS_WITH_AT_jsigle.com

(Protection from automatically generated advertisements: Please replace the text _REPLACE_THIS_WITH_AT_ in my e-mail address with the usual sign for "AT".)

My public key with the ID 089DCAF35F15062A is provided on various public key servers.

Currently, URLs of my personal Homepage in the WWW are:
http://www.jsigle.com
http://www.jsigle.de
http://www.sigle.info

Quality-of-Life-Recorder related pages are available directly at:
http://www.ql-recorder.com
http://www.anyquest.de

From the liberated information society to the installment of Gessler's Hats in "Neuland":
In memory of the Enlightenment, responsible citizens, true democracy, liberty, equality, brotherliness, peace etc.

Abschnitte:   Preliminary remarks    Previously assigned VAT-ID and previously responsible supervising authority    Disclaimers and exclusion of liability    Declaration regarding data protection    More important things    Epilogue    Epilation (by tearing one's hair)    The End

Preliminary remarks

All of the following information is provided according to the best of my knowledge in an attempt to respect the interests of all affected parties.

If you should notice any errors or omissions, please do not hesitate to give me a quick notice which I will be happy to accept and follow up.

In Switzerland, the legal foundation for my offerings is provided by the respectively applicable laws, and there are no special requirements for the operation of a web site. A declaration regarding data protection is only recommended, but not mandatory.

For the same reason, I will not name any possibly applicable legal foundations as possibly requested by the EU GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) or the German BDSV (Bundesdatenschutzverodnung), especially as these might change depending upon the country of the actual user. Instead I merely mention globally, that various paragraphs from the EU GDPR or the BDSV or other national laws for data protection, and other national laws from various areas (Commerce, Obligations, Consumer Protection, Art, Freedom of Speech,...) might be assumed applicable from their own point of view - but I also point out several reservations or restrictions as described below.

Potential users from the EU or other countries can ask their local authorities for data protection or chambers of commerce for the actual legislation that might be termed applicable by their original legitimate governments or by the bodies to whom government tasks have been outsourced.

Information fulfilling requirements of German legislation after German politicians discovered the WWW:

I have lived and worked in Switzerland for several years. That notwithstanding:

• When I still worked in Germany, my last VAT-ID-No. was: DE 152 276 27.
• When I still acted professionally as a medical doctor in Germany at my last place of residence there, the supervising authority was the Ärztekammer Nordwürttemberg, Stuttgart.
• When I acted in a way that fell under the definition of "gewerblich" as set out by German law at my last place of residence there, the supervising authority was the IHK Nordwürttemberg, Pforzheim.

Because regulations applicable to my pursuit of any of these activities are likely to change over time, please refer to the mentioned supervising authorities if you wish to receive detailed information about the applicable regulations.

Information provided as a response to certain other texts...

...which are considered as "law" by various people and institutions - even though their legitimation appears to be questionable at least - because a large proportion of legislation has been moved from the individual states in Europe into the hands of a commission, and thereby been removed from the citizens' control and legitimation even further than it had alredy been the case before in any of the representative "democracies" [...]:

Disclaimers and exclusion of liability

• This web site and anything I'm offering is explicitely NOT directed to anybody who lives or acts in countries or regions, or in the name of anyone who lives or acts in countries or regions, whose legislation or norms would be disregarded or violated by my offering in any way.
• The use of any given language or any given currency or the accessibility of the content from any state mentioned in the preceding paragraph or the prior use of my software or methods in any such state do not invalidate the restriction stated in the preceding paragraph in any way - because some of the texts on this web site have been written decades ago - and the languages and currencies used on this web site are used by scientists, professionals, IT staff and ordinary people in a large variety of countries around the world.
• Sadly I cannot determine which countries or regions fall under the restrictions above. If I tried, I'd have to search for respective laws in about 200 legislations in maybe 100 languages - which means I'd have to read, understand and implement these laws. At the same time, renowned legal experts and politicians in Germany say they can't even predict the effects of the EU GDPR alone, and also cannot guarantee that any consulting they may offer would be ultimately reliable. I don't assume that I, as some academic from a different field, living in a different country and being limited to only one person's lifetime, should be able to do the same feat 200 times over that these experts cannot achieve in their own country - simply as a prerequisite to make actual use of my right of free speech and free decision of what I want to work by running a small website and a self-employed professinal activity.
• Moreover, I cannot install technical measures to prevent the serving of my web site to countries meeting the above restrictions: for one, because I cannot know, understand or monitor all potentially applicable law for all possible countries - and on the other hand, because nowadays, typical region blockers rely on third party Javascript libraries, whose use would create a bunch of data protection risks on its own - and after all, they're notorious for allowing circumvention very easily, which means they aren't very effective, and consequently not very useful at all.
• Finally, I'm afraid I cannot give any country except the one where I live and work a special preference. If I did that, I would discriminate against people from all other countries right in the same moment, and thereby violate their rightful interests - and these would probably make the majority of humans on the planet.
• Consequently, I'm asking you to check for yourself - while making use of the information I'm supplying below - if your country (or the institution, to which the representatives of your country have outsourced your legislation, in order to move it even further away from any influence of yours) - would allow you to use my offerings, without such use giving rise to any accusation against myself that I would disregard any regulation from your country. - If possible in any way, please carry out this check before you use this web site any further or send any data at all to me.
• If afterwards you still should not be able to tell: Please check, if the laws in your country would at least grant you the option to make legitimate and practical use of web sites or other offerings under the condition, that you yourself declare your explicit or implicit consent to processing and storage of data to the extent that has been general practice for business requirements. (For the EU, this should not be too difficult - after all, the first verb of the first sentence of the GDPR already comes after a mere 31 pages (to 100 pages, depending on the PDF you have) - which is absolutely the easily comprehensible language that all legislation should be written in. Truly, a lighter read could hardly be imagined - apart from my own writing here, that is, because this is actually and decidedly even less complicated reading than the GDPR.)
• If you should feel any disadvantage or additional expenses from the fact that you might have to employ an intermediary located in a country with true democracy and practical laws in order to use this web site or my other offers due to the restrictions described above - you might indeed want to check whether you might be entitled to request some compensation or correction from the makers of the apparently defective laws or legislative processes which led to your exclusion from the group of addressees of my offerings (i.e. an attempt to improve the law, warranty, free replacement, or a roll-back of election results etc.) - especially as far as the legislative body of your country which had originally been installed by some constitution or Grundgesetz, should have outsourced the legislative process to another body, in order to move the legislative process even further away from its control by citizens, than it had already been the case in party-dominated-"representative"-pseudo-democraties anyway.

• If you should come to the conclusion that you do indeed live in a country whose laws appear to be defective or otherwise incompatible with the use of my web site or my offerings, and still want to use the information, methods or tools that I provide, by means of installing safeguards against possible breaches of that law which could result from direct unprotected use of any of my offerings:
  • You might configure your WWW browser so that it does not transmit the "Referrer", or browser- or operating system related information - or switch to using the TOR network and the TOR browser directly, if you do not want to reveal your IP to my web hoster.
    (This might be a good idea anyway for anyone living in a "constitutional state" which honors "liberty" so much, that its institutions do regularly pass legislation violating its constitution, do tap and eavesdrop upon a large portion of all Internet communication, do forward it to illegitimate third parties, do develop malware and even deploy it - which is sometimes so badly engineered, that it can not only "collect" evidence but even "place" it - and do still allow the use of such material in legal courts or in the press [...] - And, where officials happen to apear repeatedly in the context of "terrorist" activities or others "defending freedom" - with some 10 casualties in one example (NSU), and around 1.000.000 casualties in another (Iraq war) - and the occasional destabilization of whole regions of the planet on top. But, I digress. - Anyway, some say that state officials might actually have run some TOR Exit Nodes themselves - naturally without telling users - thereby limiting the actually achievable degree of anonymity in that network... Yes, all of this sounds a bit like a Science-Fiction-Dystopia - but so carefully dosed that the majority will not feel irritated in their everyday lives.)
  • You can also obtain information and services through a colleague ("intermediary") who contacts me from a country, according to whose legislation (which would be logically coherent and could be implemented in practical ways) the usage of my web site and my offerings are directly possible and compliant to any existing rules. Suitable countries can most probably be recognized from the fact that they have a true and working participation of their people in the process of legislation (aka. "democracy") - at least, as long as they have not been forced to adopt any of the questionable laws from neighbouring economic areas without corrections, in exchange for market access, yet.
  • Specifically, the web site is available on CD or DVD and the programs made available can be used under free operating systems - so that any unwanted storage of meta data from web site access or "telemetry" deployed by certain operating system vendors can definitely be avoided - if so desired.
  • Any clarifications or consulting services can also be routed through your intermediary in a suitable country - under the condition that no personal data of yours should reach me at all, and no services or goods would reach you from me directly.
  • Finally, the use of all of the tools and methods shown here can be planned and implemented completely by yourself, using the available documentation. The offered software in particular is fully functional even without registration.

• As far as my website serves other than personal purposes, as of 2018 it is primarily made for a professional audience.
• The application of the information, methods, tools and software always lies in the sole responsibility of the respective user.
• This may require special professional knowledge, the checking of information and examples provided here, and the observation of applicable rules.

• Any software, guidance or whatever else is provided here with regard to Quality-of-Life- or Outcome-Measurement, is NOT currently intended to be used to directly cause diagnostic or treatment related decisions. These ressources are only intended to provide a more convenient, but similarly versatile replacement of paper, pencil and a pocket calculator in the application of traditional paper questionnaires, thereby retaining the character of standard software rather than a medical device. They can provide merely some means and information offering additional orientation, but CANNOT at all replace established clinical examination, established diagnostic procedures, and careful consideration and judgement by responsible, trained and knowledgeable professionals.
• Any application of tools provided or methods described here, requires their individual adoption to local requirements including tests for correct technical function, interoperability, and lawfulness - observing all possibly applicable local regulations - by knowledgeable local professionals.
• The provision of tools or description of methodology do definitely NOT imply that they might be usable or permissible in the setting of any given reader.

• Any responsibility for damages and any responsibility beyond the provision of information or services otherwise agreed upon are excluded to the maximum extent allowed by law.
• With regard to links to external sites: I cannot completely or repeatedly check the content of linked web sites - and even less can I do this for web sites further linked from there. Consequently, I state that linked sites do not necessarily express my own opinion now or in the future, especially if they should contain undesirable, disgusting, tasteless, illegal, forbidden, extremely dumbfounded or otherwise harmful content. (Yes, there have been court rulings against people whose links pointed to harmful content only after multiple generations of links [...])
• In favour of readability I mostly refrain from "Gendering". Other simplifications may be contained as well.

"Declaration regarding data protection"

• The following information is provided as of 2018-05-24. I'm striving to maintain the same standard in the future but only can achieve this within applicable technical or logical limitations and available ressources making an unconditional guarantee impossible. Moreover, various foundations of my offerings might change at some point in the future and that might also affect the way I might collect, store and process data in the future.

• Where my offerings go beyond personal or family purposes, I store personal data only to an extent which is required and adequate to maintain a business relationship, do my professional work, and maintain the required correspondence, or defined by legal requirements. This refers to contact data and information regarding the actual object of a business or professional relationship, or of an inquiry.
• In order to maintain any practicability, I understand incoming communication as documenting the sender's declaration of consent with my storing of the content and metadata of the message, and with its processing to the extent that is usually adequate or legally required in bussines. Otherwise, any communication attempt would have to fail and would be senseless, or each phone call or e-mail would necessitate the sending of a "declaration regarding data protection" as first response, together with a "consent form", and additional data storage only to keep track of these things. This would be openly absurd, would hinder any work in a totally inappropriate way, and could only lead to the deterrence of possible business partners.
• Regularly, I do not pass personal data to any third parties. This might only happen in reasonable individual cases - that might be possible due to legal regulations or in the interest of the affected party - und would whenever possible occur only after contacting them individually in order to obtain their consent.
• Stored data are deleted as soon as the duration of legally required storage has been reached and there are no remaining business or scientific reasons that would require continued storage. Accounting data must be stored for 10 years by law - according to the usual policy of fiscal revenue offices, from their point of view any information related to business can be seen as relevant, including project related communication. By certain considerations, all project related communication, designs, software, configurations etc. are treated as permanent assets independently from their relevance for accounting (e.g. to enable the maintenance, restoration, improvement of running applications, and to be able to prove authorship, level of creation, prior art etc., if this should ever be needed). These assets will be archived as long as the required space and technical means are available to do so.
• Regarding your data stored by me, you have the right to obtain comprehensive disclosure, to demand correction or deletion with confirmation, and to revoke at any time any implicitely or explicitely granted consent for storage or processing, and (as far as this would have any sensible application in the given context) a right of transferability of your data. All these rights exist while still honouring legal requirements and wheighing in any legally allowed interests that might exist at the same time from my side in favour of their maintenance, as well as possibly existing technical and logical (!) limitations. If these conflicting considerations should ever become relevant, whenever possible the affected person shall be contacted in order to balance the various requirements. As part of the handling of such requests, adequate and practical checks of the identity of communication partners and of their relationship to the stored data shall be obtained.

• This web site does not at all collect any "sensitive" data by all reasonable accounts, and does not provide "sensitive" content either.
• The freely accessible area of this web site does only contain static HTML pages.
• This web site does - except for the Live-Demo for AnyQuest for Javascript and for the Image-Viewer for Javascript in the photo gallery in the section Colours & Notes - not contain any Javascript elements. Consequently, it remains completely functional, even when Javascript support is disabled in the client software, or not even present.
• In its areas accessible to the public, this web site does neither deploy any Cookies, nor does it use variables in page calls, nor any other mechanisms to recognize users.
• This web site does not use any elements or utility software from third parties, and does not transfer any data to third parties.
• In a separate area, this web site offers electronic questionnaires (to provide a technical demonstration of AnyQuest for Javascript). Currently, only a pro forma patient identifier variable is collected to demonstrate this feature. This is limited to a 6 figure digit. No other numeric or text input for user identification are collected at all. Consequently, there is no intention to collect "personal data" in that area of the site (i.e. nothing that could be related in any way to any given person). One example questionnaire contains a field to record a reason for dropout. Input to this field is limited to 40 characters. As long as this field is not deliberately abused by a user to enter personal information there contrary to the purpose and the labelling of this field, then there is no way to even enter data that would make anybody identifiable in the AnyQuest for Javascript demonstration questionnaires.
• The AnyQuest for Javascript demonstration provides a way to download a tabular data export from previously completed demonstration questionnaire sessions. This download is password protected to reduce the possibility for abuse.
• In a separate area, this web site offers electronic questionnaires (to provide a technical demonstration of AnyQuest for Java). However, no user identification and no text input is collected at all. Consequently, there is no "personal data" collected in that area of the site (i.e. nothing that could be related in any way to any given person).
• In a separate area (to demonstrate the AnyQuest Server), variables are used to provide some functionality and to secure the connection. This area is made available only temporarily, and it can only be reached after individual invitation, and under my personal attendance. When available, it is hosted locally and used only to process dummy data. Consequently, there is no "personal data" collected in that area of the site (i.e. nothing that could be related in any way to any given person).

• Where my web site provides electronic forms (contact form, order form, request for information), they merely prepare an e-mail message in the preconfigured e-mail client of the user, which the user can check, complete, and finally send to me like any other e-mail message - or discard.
• E-mail is regularly transported through the networks in a completely open way and - as of 2018 - happens to be tapped, eavesdropped upon, collected, stored and processed automatically mainly by intelligence agencies in a way that is completely incompatible with the rightful interests of users and their constitutional rights
• If you want to use more secure communication, I can receive and send GPG/PGP encrypted messages.
• My public key with the ID 089DCAF35F15062A is provided on various public key servers.
• On my side, any communication content that is received or sent in encrypted form is regularly archived in encrypted form as well.
• (Not merely) According to recent publications, the use of the HTML message format is strongly disadvised, in order to avoid a variety of security holes. Otherwise, malware contained in e-mail messages could be deployed. This could forward the content from originally encrypted messages to malicious third party receivers immediately after decryption.
• The mailing lists that I have set up for announcements and discussion of QL-Recorder related questions among list members are hosted at freelists.org who have already announced that they will take several steps to ensure EU GDPR compliance.

• The following data are stored by the hoster when the www site is accessed in order to ensure the operation of the web server and protect it against abuse or malicious attacks: Name, language and version of the client software (=e.g. a web browser, a proxy or a crawler), operating system, IP-address of the client, date and time of access with time zone difference to GMT, requested page, HTTP status code, data amount transferred, referrer. These data are deleted after 14 days.
• Log files and usage statistics are only created and deployed with local tools in the environment provided by the hoster.
• When a user follows a link in a www site, a web browser can possibly send the URL (="address") of the current site (="Referrer") to the server of the next site. This feature is pre-configured in usual web browsers but can be disabled by users.
• Client software usually also transmit information about the used web browser software, language and version, the operating system. The transmission of that information can also be controlled in many browsers.
• The web server of my hoster generates a statistical summary of received meta-information. This enables me to estimate the visibility of the web site through various search engines and other publications, their technical suitability and relevance for various viewing environments and operating systems, assess the interest of users in various topics on the site and whether they rather follow direct links from outside or visit several pages within, and to recognize technical problems like e.g. orphaned links within the site.

In my personal opinion, the following information is much more relevant - and its communication should be requested by law much more urgently:

• Beyond anything mentioned above, meta data and content transferred while using the WWW or from any electronic communication are regularly stored, monitored and automatically processed to the amount hosters have repeatedly been forced to do by various orders, exerted pressure, legislation violating constitutional rights etc. e.g. in Germany, or to the amount that communication is tapped, eavesdropped upon, diverted and copied at central network nodes (i.e. DE-CIX), or by malware commissioned by the government onto users' computers. Naturally, I do have neither precise information nor any control about these issues as long as my web sites are hosted in a country whose institutions are severely broken in this regard, or as long as connections are routed through such a country. Sadly, said occurences have never had any adequate consequences for those who are responsible for them - not even after laws were termed unconstitutional by the German Bundesverfassungsgericht or when the acts of certain agencies where termed rude violations of the law by the German Bundesdatenschutzbeauftragten (the highest federal data protection officer).
• Whenever you use a computer in certain regions with more money than working democratic control (e.g. Europe, USA), or when you use operating systems, software or online services of certain vendors (e.g. Microsoft, Google etc.) to display content from a web site or merely to find it, there is a high probability that third parties are eavesdropping on some of your data. This may extend all the way to a complete copying, automatic processing and the storage of an unlimited amount of all available data for an unlimited time. It is also possible to access all the files on your computer, and to change them without your knowledge or cooperation - and to bring forward some very nasty accusations against you - naturally backed by all the necessary "evidence".
• To current knowledge, the probability of such violations originating from government agencies is higher the more boldly or grossly they are carried out - and these agencies do not let their actions be restricted by applicable laws or even real democratic control. Their actions are apparently backed or even commanded by persons in charge whose natural responsibility should rather be the protection of all humans from such activities.
• A lack of effective control, a lack of true democracy, a lack of legitimation, a show of pseudo-activism intended to distract from much more serious problems, and a lack of credibility have apparently become the hallmarks of representatives of the so called "Western community of values", which have become more and more outstandingly visible and clear over the recent decades.

• Anybody can implement their own web sites or other offerings in the WWW or in the Internet not only within Facebook, Google, Instagram, Wordpress, Tumblr, whatever... - but also create these in a completely free way. This has several advantages regarding (creative, functional) freedom and data protection, but also some disadvantages - with possible lower visibility of a site created outside the mainstream dwells populated by the omnipresent herd instinct, and due to slightly higher minimum requirements regarding technical and sometimes legal knowledge. Sadly, a working knowledge of these possibilities or any interest in them already appears to have been lost by our contemporary population...
• The "WWW" is not "the Internet", but merely one application running in that network (and in other networks as well). The first web browser named "World Wide Web" was a pretty straightforward derivative of FTP, Gopher, Hypertext etc. and allowed for editing of retrieved documents as completely normal functionality. After all, it started out as a Christmas present for scientists, and not as a universal vehicle to foster consumption, advertising, spying, distraction, misinformation and (finally!) platform-independent malware.

• In normal operation, the Internet and other computer networks have absolutely nothing in common with "radio broadcasting":
  • In "broadcasting", radio waves (modulated with information) are emitted into a universally accessible medium. Any receiver located therein receives the same signals at the same time, and can demodulate them (i.e. make content visible or audible again) - completely independent from the sender, which does neither need any knowledge about an ongoing actual reception, nor assist in it at all.
  • In "broadcasting", the costs for powerful transmitters, making multiple transmitters work together and for creation or acquisition of content are rather high - the costs for a single receiver are rather low.
  • In "broadcasting", nobody created the medium in which information spreads - but completely to the contrary, the medium was naturally available from the start - and exactly ONE instance of it. It is impossible to separate one part of that medium from the rest, or to create and place a second medium of the same capabilities next to the first one.
  • For "broadcasting", consequently, there is only a limited selection of frequency bands available. And as every transmission reaches each and every location within the range of a transmitter - the same medium can not be used by a different transmitter at the same time and the same frequency for a different programme. Therefore, one central agency to assign frequencies from the limited pool available to a limited quantity of program providers appears to be very reasonable.
  • In "the Internet" however, exactly the opposite is true for all of these points.
  • In the "Internet + WWW", however, information is MERELY placed onto a computer ("Server") of the respective publisher - and NOT AT ALL spntaneously transmitted into any medium. Any spreading of this information will occur only when a user does request information or functionality. ONLY THEN, the user's software ("Client" = www browser, music player software etc.) will ask the server for one or multiple desired files, and as it usually has to provide the locations and names of the server and the files very specifically, it may have consulted a directory service (like Google) to obtain these. ONLY THEREAFTER, exactly the requested files, and possibly other completely defined data are exchanged exactly between the two computers involved.
  • Consequently, exactly NOTHING is regularly "broadcast into the Internet" or "placed into the Internet"! - but things are merely put onto some server - and only as when a user asks to get them, the server hands out a copy - exactly to this user.
  • So to some extent, the "Internet" resembles a library or a mail order catalog with numerous connected warehouses and lightning fast delivery - but definitely not a broadcast network.
  • Some computer network protocols have an option to send data "to all" - but this is absolutely NOT the normal or prevailing mode of operation and would only be used on occasions where multiple users - typically in a limited subnet - should be given the same data at the same time.

• Consequently, the occupation of the Internet by politicians and certain public institutions under the pretext of a pretended equality between "Internet" and "Broadcasting" - including the installation of "broadcast fees" for computers and then for mobile phones (which was one step on the way to collecting these fees from each household, rather than from the owners of reception devices, so they have become a tax rather than a fee), the application of legislation ("Rundfunk-Staatsvertrag") formerly made for broadcasting networks, regulating access and content, and naturally installing additional fees and penalties, to small businesses publishing content through Youtube, and the declaration of any purported special need for regulation etc. - was one of the largest successful desinformation campaigns and subsequent raids in recent world history.

• This all the more when taking into consideration: who had the ideas, who has installed, operated and paid for the infrastructure - and who can now control and cash in by which proportion - and which duties are nowadays imposed onto normal users vs. how boldly the most fundamental civil rights are ignored by government agencies in this area.

• "The Internet" was never "devoid of the law" (ein "rechtsfreier Raum"), and consequently there was never any need at all for laws specially crafted for the Internet.

• When laws and provisions grow larger and larger in size, become more and more detailed and more and more specific, this is no proof of good workmanship, but exactly the opposite:
  • A sensible law showing good craftsmanship can be applied for a wide area and covers a large variety of situations, without becoming hard to read or incomprehensible - and it causes a desirable and important change in the behaviour it governs - which would not be achieved without this law.
  • When, however, the first verb of the first sentence of a given text (like the EU GDPR) appears after 31 pages (!), one may assume that ca. 99% of the people will not be able or willing to understand this text - which would, by the way, appear as one perfectly reasonable and adequate reaction. Such a text may serve very well as an outstanding evidence of incapacity of its authors - but never as a law.
  • The fact, that the same law requires one part of the people to forward its rules to the other part of the people "in understandable language" at every new business contact - AND to take into account whether they already know them - what triggers a need for data collection, storage, processing, consent, right to disclosure etc. all by itself - reveals as much about the theoretical foundation and feasibility of that law as the preceding detail reveals about its readability.
  • A sensible and well crafted law would not regularly require its content to be declared in every situation affected by it. (Just imagine, the complete set of traffic rules would have to be read aloud whenever someone enters a car or be printed onto every traffic sign...)
  • The "cookie warnings" which have appeared for months on almost every current web site - which are annoying, and a waste of time and energy, but have not achieved that any of these web sites would be usable without cookies - are living proof that the "law" which created them is ultimately useless nonsense.
• As - especially in politics and society - the lights of Enlightenment and Democracy apparently tend to fade away, and the Middle Ages and prehistoric times apparently become fashionable again:
  • Might I remind you that very long ago, "10 Commandmends" sufficed to govern in a very brief, clear and understandable language, a large portion of human interaction?
  • Might I point out their length and very clear language as a benchmark for what is desirable and necessary also for modern laws? If it's not possible to say something in equally short, concise and broadly applicable words - then it's probably no new law of a 100 pages for everyone that you need, but rather some individually tailored bulletin in every affected cafeteria. Or, before the draft is turned into a law, much more careful consideration - and a mathematician, or at least a seasoned programmer among its authors - or anyone else with more ability to think, abstract, integrate what's similar and separate what's different, than those folks who apparently participate in that process by now.
  • Might I suggest, that the German Government, the German Parliament and all institutions who acquired similar competences in Europe (or rather had these shoved onto them), should cease the invention of 200 new laws every year, and instead sit down and identify 200 obsolete or otherwise unnecessarily complicated paragraphs or laws, and simplify or repeal them? This would be a much greater service to all citizens than any burning of a few billions for the next advertising campaign for Europe.
  • [...]

Epilogue

In case the above information should not suffice to protect me from allegations that I might violate any acutally or supposedly applicable rules - I want to point out:

First, the length and the wording of several texts - including the "General Data Protection Regulation" (GDPR) of the EU - are very obviously beyond anything that could be read, comprehended, and - with respect to several of its requirements - implemented by an individual person.

This point is supported by the fact that repeatedly, experts and politicians have decleared and discussed the inconsistency and impracticality of the rules laid out by this "law" - and that many consultants refuse to guarantee for legal security as a consequence of their consultation - and that politicians as well as experts in the field say that clarification will have to be achieved by court rulings over the coming years - while Austria started out by passing a law that is intended to limit the possible damage caused by the GDPR.

In the original text of the GDPR, the first verb of the first sentence appears after 31 pages of text (after ca. 100 pages in another PDF, possibly a draft). This should exceed the capabilities of most readers - and this feature alone makes this text completely unsuitable as a law. Readability is a prerequisite of comprehensibility, and comprehensibility is a prerequisite for clarity of norms. Some constraints of applicability (e.g. "more than 250 employees", "only occasionally") are immediately rendered pointless by the fact that almost every business contact will lead to the collection of a name or an e-mail address - and these are explicitly termed "Personal data". Consequently, every one man shop and every club will process personal data "regularly", and not merely "occasionally" - and thereby be required to implement the full monty set out by the GDPR. The entitlement to obtain information about any stored information also causes a variety of questions regarding its feasibility (what, if a non-customer requests disclosure of personal data stored about him - whereby he basically advances to a business contact - but the question came in via e-mail, the answer would still require "legitimation", and consequently verification whether some e-mail address belongs - or has ever belonged - to a certain person?!) - Finally, this legislation requests its applicability effectively for the whole world - etc. pp.

Legal security is definitely NOT a product of such "laws".

Other possibly applicable laws from the EU or Germany give a similar impression:

I recall the responsible ministery in Germany providing an example for some newly required declaration of customer rights - which turned out to be insufficient and not protect its users from cost intensive calls to order by legal firms. - I recall the - mildly put - crazy idea that the wording "in Textform" (in text form, or by written down words, normally used in contrast to orally) should only be fulfilled by anything printed onto paper, or written in a printable e-mail - but not by anything written in an equally printable web site. - I recall repeated attempts to free the providers of network access from responsibility for content - and hardly effective limitations of costs of legal calls for copyright infringements - repeated legislation requesting general data preservation by providers in ways repeatedly termed unconstitutional by the Bundesverfassungsgericht - the infamous "stop sign" campaign by "Zensursula" - the completely absurd announcement that "Internet" be "Broadcasting", designed to secure the cash influx from unreasonably high "brodcast fees" in the future as well as to enable control over Internet content and its publishers by adopting access restrictions, licensing and authorities from the old broadcasting setting, even though any technical reasons that would once have justified all this, were now absent. - I recall the "cyber security" and "cyber rapid deployment force" of the Bundeswehr - the "Gesundheitskarte", "De-Mail" and the "e-Perso" (whoever wants a translation, please look it up in your favourite search engine...) - and whatever else of unbelievable things there were.

I consider this erratic activity, with repeatedly broken and unconstitutional laws, participation in a number of wars around the world, and other blatant deficiencies in very central parts of the political system, to be a direct consequence of a lack of true democracy: The complete absence (!) of any true control, of any true accountability, results in political measures which are oviously not motivated by competence and striving to fulfill the true needs of the people. Instead, I'm astonished either by the truly unbelievable success of some lobbyists - or, in the other extreme, by what obviously crazy ideas are actually pursued again and again - and I cannot decide whether this is simply caused by populism, or by an unfortunate combination of profound ignorance with the never ending need for publicity.

Moreover, the resulting court rulings reveal some tendency favouring nitpicking or wiredrawn interpretations over common sense and over the language understood by normal human beings.

All this has already caused my emigration from Germany to Switzerland. By means of the GDPR, however, the lawmakers from Germany and the EU - with their doubtful legitimation and poor craftsmanship - come after me again.

Consequently, I want to ask: Is it allowable at all, that - first - some random representatives of the people relocate the process of legislation to outside of their country, and thereby further away from any possibility of their people controlling it? And is it allowable at all, that any "commission", that was created out of thin air and some economy association that had been very suitably tailored for such purposes, takes over more and more of the original government functions from the countries - then passes laws without any effective control - and then pronounces these laws to be applicable world wide (!) for anybody offering a web site or a service? - And sets out punishments which go far beyond any exclusion from access to their own market - punishments, which could very easily completely destroy even middle sized enterprises? Punishments, which leave smaller businesses, individuals, or clubs in every single case in a situation where they can absolutely not predict the consequences - which may be located anywhere between the impact of a traffic ticket and complete loss of one's livelihood ("up to 20 Mio. EUR or 4% of gross annual turnover, whatever may be higher")? - And all this effectively without a working legal recourse, as the costs (both money, time, energy, consequences) of a related lawsuit can hardly be estimated, and could probably not be born by small entities or individual persons anyway.

Consequently, I think that these "rules" came together in the most questionable and undemocratic way, they were presented in miserable quality with regard to their form and content, and any claim of legitimacy should already be null and void, as basic requirements for legislation are obviously not met (missing legitimation, missing readability, missing clarity of norms, completely unpredictable punishments appearing inadequately high, impracticality and missing feasibility, overwhelming number of rules etc.).

Notwithstanding these problems, I do neither want to shut down my web site or my professional work - nor simply ignore the deficiencies laid out and obtain some alibi security by simply adding some 40 page standard text. That would not be read by any normal visitor anyway - which may apply to these thoughts just as well, but at least they promote a true concern in an original text.

Instead, I attempt to lay out the most important points regarding data protection in truly understandable language - but also point out the above deficiencies and limitations.

Epilation (by tearing one's hair - the only thing to do after the preceding Epilogue)

A long time ago, some people have written a romantic, slightly out-of-this-world booklet. It says:

        Artikel 20
        (1) Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland ist ein demokratischer und sozialer Bundesstaat.
        (2) Alle Staatsgewalt geht vom Volke aus.
        Sie wird vom Volke in Wahlen und Abstimmungen
        und durch besondere Organe der Gesetzgebung,
        der vollziehenden Gewalt und der Rechtsprechung ausgeübt.

        Artikel 20
        (1) The Federal Republic of Germany is a democratic and social federal state.
        (2) All governmental power originates from the people.
        It is executed by the people through elections and votes
        and through special organs of legislation,
        of the executive and of jurisdiction.

Nowadays, very different people write texts like this one:

        THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

        Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union [...],
        Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,
        After transmission of the draft legislative act to the national parliaments,
        Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Commitee,
        Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions,
        Acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure,
        whereas:
        
        [ca. 31 pages of text with ca. 173 paragraphs]
        
        HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:
        
        [ca. 57 pages of text]

        (Capitalization as in the original source.)

Apparently, the passage regarding the god-given privileges of the souvereign has recently been left out - but even then, this text of the GDPR has very obviously originated from a completely different star than the text of Art. 20 GG above.

It is especially clear that all governmental power now flows exactly in the opposite direction of what the Grundgesetz had once defined:

        It does not originate in the people any more - but in a proposal from the "European Commission".

        And even the national parlaments do merely get some "transmission of the draft legislative acts" at some point in time.

This "European Commission" also combines the functions of "executive" und "legislative" - as it has the sole "initiative right" in the EU-"legislative" process. Which means that without its will, or against its will, there will be absolutely no new "EU-law" at all - and if desired, this executive can draft their own laws exactly to their own needs. If need be, then by repeated attempts - or in combination with laws the parliament definitely wants to have - as has already happened - or as last-minute-addendums in some unimportant looking paragraph. Ultimately, and in some way, the "acceptance" by the "parliament" will be achieved, and should nothing else work, the election rules might be changed.

The members of this "Commission" however, are not designated by the people. But by national governments. - And at least in Germany, the national government is not designated by the people either - but by the parliament - but only formally, because actually, the "creation of political will" originates alltogether in the political parties (including the nomination of all candidates with real chances to get elected into parliament, or to become a minister, prime minister, chancellor, president, or whatever else).

But even this is merely formally true - because in reality, all this takes place in small inner circles of leaders within the parties - quite regularly the same persons who also belong to the actual governments - and thereby the same people, who have created the institutions and staffing modalities in the EU in such a way, that they can now conveniently man the single body according to their very own preferences, which has executive AND legislative power accross all the EU.

Therefore, in the EU, all governmental power does now truly originate exactly at the point - which has the greatest distance anywhere in Europe from any possible influence of all the ordinary people.

And as a result of such a reversal of the setup defined by the Grundgesetz into its opposite - and consequently, of the planned democracy into an actually living oligarchy, where the last occuring exchange takes place into executive or supervisory boards of large companies - these modern European oligarchs write extremely long texts of "law", including endless details to regulate chit-chat, and are neither free of contradictions, nor can be implemented in a technically consistent way. And just today, they shall require anybody who offers any service anywhere in the world, to give direction to their customers or addressees at every first contact with regard to their "personal data rights". Which is quite curios already if you know, that in Germany, legal counselling by laypersons has normally been prohibited for decades [...]

Very obviously, somebody did not sufficiently heed the following warning when designing the EU - or they used it straightforwardly as their blueprint:

        Alle Staatsgewalt geht vom Volke aus.
        Und kommt nie wieder zurück.

        All governmental power originates from the people.
        And never ever returns.

Nothing could fit better to describe the way from the promise in the German Grundgesetz to the reality in German governments and finally in the EU.

The new entity was also equipped with little modesty: Two cities to be used for "Parliament" (doubling the requireing ressources, needing regular moves - but without double benefit). Add in double "compensation", subject to 8% to 45% "community tax" only - which means the same as "tax free" would at home. [...] [...]

And more recently: The ESM - endowed with several hundred billion EUR of money that suddenly flew to it. Free from all responsibilities, taxes, duties. All decisions secret, immunity for all actions. No personal liability or responsibility at all, no competition, no contact with any free or regulated market or any other objective measure of success. No real product! And nevertheless very comfortable salaries - as far as they become known at all - between 64.000 and 324.000 EUR - subject only to an "internal tax at the ESM" - and tax-exempt in their home countries. And neat titles on top of that: "Gouverneurs' council", "Directorate". Well, this image resembles an (absolute!) state much better than a public authority.

The design comes, of all people, from the most commendable of all ministers of finance. Who was constantly modest and the ideal example in correctness (keywords: doping, political party donations...), and therefore became the superior of all those tax-and-revenue offices, who create the exact opposite for 60 million Germans, of what he creates for himself. - To dare sketching such a feat: Wow. - Out of this very position: Wow again! - But to really get that thing: Only WOW WOW WOW!

That such things fail to provoke an outcry (uproar, general strike, ...) of Joe Public every day, shows the success of the original strategy of blunting of his senses by immodesty from day one - sweetened by chances to get an occasional "gifted" InterRail ticket or a small or large packet of monetary aids.

That however the same club, who invents such hundred-billion-Euro-constructs as self-service shops or personal playgrounds, requires all working people in Europe to inform their customers, that they now have the right to have their personal data deleted, and that name and e-mail address already belong to personal data - can only be perceived as satire.

To the credit of those who reign and benefit in these ways, one must concede, that their method can only work for, and is completely dependant upon, a wealth of "lawyers" and "competitors", who all stand ready to deploy it for their own good, and to the disadvantage of their fellow human beings:

No matter whether they fight for EU-"money" (which they paid themselves beforehand, multiple times, as taxes) - or use up their creativity to forge new phantastic interpretations from legal texts in the courts - or whether they pay rather expensive consultants to write data-sub-processing-agreements or certificates, rather than for working airport technology: In any case, none of those affected will remain sufficiently quiet after such a law has been tossed into the arena, to recognize, which Valient Little Tailor is really just throwing stones from high in the trees down onto the noses of both sleeping giants. And even one who still might understand, can make no use of that knowledge - when at the first opportunity, his next "competitor" or simply a random "lawyer" will immediately come over, to smack him their newly delivered club right across his head - for the sake of their own profit.

But that's just how they work, these famous "Western values" - and Machiavellis master apprentices.

.
.
.

To make it clear especially to the Germans among the betrayed Europeans, how far away you are from a true democracy: Once more regarding Art. 20 GG (2):

Well: How often in all of your life have you, personally, been able to participate in such a popular vote - in your hometown, your district, your Bundesland (State), or the Bundesrepublik (Federal State), or the EU? And how often was this popular vote - just to make sure - still labeled "non binding" from the start? And how many questions that directly affected you, where decided in the same time without your participation? And how often have you been denied a popular vote, even when all or many other countries in the EU got one?! - And that occured with questions of which importance? - And how often - especially regarding your relation to official institutions - have you been better off or worse after such decisions than before?

Do you remember? Whereas the Grundgesetz expressly demands the participation of the people through votes - in real life you have been expressly excluded even when the two most important authorities of your state were outsourced - and thereby withdrawn from the last tiny bit of control by the people, and even by the national parliament: Namely the one institution, which determines the amount of money in circulation and thereby its value (and the value of your work, and your assets) - and the one institution, which makes the laws.

And if you should really, e.g. in Baden-Württemberg, have had the opportunity to participate in a popular vote for a whopping one to four times in a human's lifetime - of which three discussed the merger of the two parts of the state, some after years of fighting in courts, and EXACTLY ONE SINGLE PLEBISCITE IN 72 YEARS!!! (AND COUNTING) asked your opinion regarding a factual issue - and even that happened only, after One had his eyes shot out because he wanted to exercise his rights as a citizen - shot out by the "Friends and Helpers" of a prime minister ("Freunde und Helfer" - of the normal citizen - used to be a friendly term once applicable to the police in Germany) - a prime minister, who was so uncannily democratic that he, should the need arise, might possibly handle a deal "under friends" worth several billions, and to the disadvantage of the state, neatly and quietly past parliament... - AND, after taking the additional precaution of declaring this so called "plebiscite" as "non-binding" (!) - Well, my dear, thereby especially democracy-blessed Fellow-Baden-Württembergers: When have you personally been presented the last question for a popular vote in simple, non-misleading language, that really hit the core of the issue, and where arguments for either option were explained in clear, comprehensive, thruthful depiction, and you did not have to feel a few years later that you had been completely betrayed?

Now, do you think it is especially democratic, if you first are not asked anything of relevance at all for 66 years - and then, when it finally happens just once - in the one and only "non-binding" (!) popular vote regarding a factual issue that you ever experienced - you merely got ... the wool pulled over your eyes?

What a relieve, that now - instead of wasting any energy to correct such little problems, especially as they have turned out very comfortable for the governing ones over the last 72 years - someone finally ensures, that all professionals, self-employed, small businesses, and clubs will regularly tell you about your rights regarding disclosure and revocation of consent in data protection. - All this, while "the state", at the same time, requires you to provide biometric photos for id cards, and your fingerprints, and installs universal access to all id card data including your fingerprint and picture, cameras with automatic face recognition and wide area tracking, deploys license plate recognition and tracking, requests that cars can be localized and remotely controlled at any time, orders regular storage of data from your communication at providers even without any accusation or any judge being asked, deploys mass mobile phone localization e.g. to follow up (!) the participation in demonstrations, orders the continuous tapping and forwarding of half or all of the Internet traffic towards the NSA, the development and deployment of the "Bundes-Trojaner" (=government issued malware), has unlimited authorities granted by the new bavarien police law, produces spontaneously inflammable inmates where needed, or people who unhappily stumble with their faces right into the walls while in police custody, or a student who was accidentally shot by 12 bullets from behind, or a psychiatric patient who was shot for hopping into a fountain, or an obvious stroke patient that was rather tested for drug abuse than correctly treated for 8 hours, or new legislation requiring a crucifix in every state office in Bavaria - alltogether things that apparently have been illegal or infamous all too long. All that while the credibility of most politicians extends from the floor almost up to the feet - and is exactly matched by the culture seen in political discussions.

Yahoo, on the other hand, implements advertising opt-out by letting you flip 318 switches - one per ad-partner, and Google presents the settings to disable their core business in a similar way - neither simple, nor stable, nor completely usable without an account. Microsoft lets you grant them an all-in right to access any file under Windows 10 as well as the right to display advertisements or to perform up- or down- or crossgrades at any time - and in the course of such upgrades, resets privacy settings in various places - naturally only to fight off any threats, the same motivation that is probably behind the ads on their "lock-screen". - And Facebook just so collects the data from WhatsApp, that were meant to never leave that company. And WhatsApp collects the phone numbers and names of all contacts from the mobile phones - which also reveal who has relations to whom - even if most of them would not use WhatsApp at all. - All of that, just because it's really simple and everything is so nice and colourful around here.

And yet, the largest collectors and dealers of personal data probably remain: The residents' registration office, the tax and revenue office, the social security funds (keywords: "broadcast fee", "church tax", "allowable expenses", "Gesundheits"-Karte [=Health insurance membership card with some added data collection coup]) - and the NSA and the BND - but the happy data-collecting-, eavesdropping-, and sharing-party of all institutions with some affiliation to the government is naturally excluded from the protection offered by laws like the GDPR.

It's really handy, isn't it, when you can simply make your own laws just to your liking - without any disturbance by the people affected... :-)

The End

This quotation stands at both the top and at the bottom of this page. Please note my greetings to the Gessler's Hat that have been inserted in between, and have a very careful look at my additions regarding the difference between the modalities of data protection ordered for normal people vs. demonstrated by governments from this point of view.

And then, really try to find out (or ask "Your elected representative"), whether you might have any entitlement to a fix or free replacement from any side - and how you might be able to enact the respective claims.

But mind you - this applies not merely to the EU GDPR - but much more importantly to one invaluable thing, that has hitherto been comprehensively and by multiple steps "outsourced" and cheaply sold - this is your fake "democracy".

Good luck with any attempt to get the real thing instead - I hope you will succeed!