ideas: Dr. Stoppelkamp, you are the managing director of the Federal Association of the Security Industry (BDSW). Safety is one of the basic human needs. Subjectively, many people would probably say that we are currently living in uncertain times. Experts, on the other hand, claim that life has never been safer. What’s your assessment?
dr Berthold Stoppelkamp: Looking at the annual crime statistics alone, Germany is one of the safest countries in the world in an international and European comparison. However, a large number of unreported cases can still be assumed, especially in the area of cybercrime and organized crime. However, the population’s subjective sense of security is different. According to surveys, around 42 percent of the population feel that their security situation has deteriorated, despite a relatively constant level of criminal offenses over the past five years. In my opinion, this is due to the large media coverage of isolated cases of killings and the spread of extreme crime and catastrophe events through digital media. Added to this are the risks of climate change and wars, which are perceived more than before, especially in Europe. In this respect, the topic of security policy has gained in importance for the federal government and political parties.
What tasks do you and the BDSW perform? What interfaces are there with politics?
The security industry is already making an important and indispensable contribution to security in Germany. As a business and employers’ association, the BDSW promotes the general professional, economic, socio-political and security policy interests of its members. My tasks include, on the one hand, representing the interests of the more than 1,000 member companies vis-à-vis politicians, the federal government, ministries, federal security authorities and the public, and on the other hand advising and supporting members in problem situations. In the area of security policy, I am the contact person for the parties represented in the Bundestag.
In an international comparison, Germany is one of the safest countries. In your opinion, is there still room for improvement?
From my point of view, in the field of security policy and the fight against crime, far too much attention is paid to the number of police officers and intelligence officers and an increase in staff automatically suggests more security. This is a fallacy, because new police officers don’t fall from trees. In this respect, one should cooperate and work together more and more closely than before with the security industry in the areas of protection of critical infrastructures, cyber security and disaster control. It would also be desirable to succeed in developing an interdisciplinary picture of the situation in real time with the involvement of the state, business and science. On the one hand, a better early detection of the situation, for example in the case of natural disasters, could take place and, on the other hand, a faster and improved management of the situation could be made possible.
After the start of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, Germany massively increased its spending on armaments. A sensible decision?
This decision has been overdue for ten years in order to keep the Bundeswehr operational and combat-capable. Until the turn of the century, Germany relied far too much on the great military capabilities of the USA within NATO, but especially in international crises. The security of Germany had been outsourced to the USA and the energy supply to a large extent to Russia. Until then, however, there was no majority in the population for more arms spending, because Germany is a pacifist country. In addition, up until then, the security situation had been viewed as completely relaxed by security experts and parties across Europe. Two years ago, individual parties even called for the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Germany. However, the Bundeswehr needs many more billions in investments in order to be able to guarantee national defense again in several years. However, the federal government has not yet sufficiently communicated this truth to the population; because this will only be possible through financial cuts in the work and social sector.
With increasing digitization, the issue of security on the World Wide Web is becoming more and more important. Are German companies and authorities adequately protected against hacker attacks?
The bitter truth is that business and government will never be 100 percent safe from such attacks, because all administrations will never have the same high level of IT security. This also applies to companies. The total damage to the German economy from data theft, cybercrime, cyber espionage and sabotage amounts to around 200 billion euros a year. It must therefore primarily be a question of raising the protective walls for the IT systems in a digital society so high that the criminal attacker has to invest so much time and money that he ends the attack early. European and national legislation on IT security and data protection has already had an effect on companies. Unfortunately, these higher IT security standards often do not apply in the state municipal area, so that unfortunately there are always successful attacks there. In general, however, the prioritization of digitization in Germany must change. Successful digitization cannot be implemented without information security. Just think of autonomous driving or Industry 4.0. More investment in IT security is required.
Finally, a question for our readers: Do you have any tips or advice on how everyone can improve their own security?
I can only advise consumers to look at neutral information and assistance on IT security from the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and to ask questions about IT security when purchasing products. Likewise, »Germany safe online« has good help ready for consumers. I advise companies to regularly sensitize and train their employees on IT security and to use the assistance of the Alliance for Cyber Security. It is also important that every company has an emergency and crisis plan for IT failures, even where the law does not expressly require it. In order to establish a holistic, professional company protection, the services of the security industry should be used.
Thank you for the interview.
The interview was conducted by Anja Schneider.