By Stephen Peter
On Wednesday, the Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (44, SPD) visited the Citizens’ Registration Office on Blaschkoallee (Neukölln), promoting the digital administration. But that is still a dream of the future for many services provided by the authorities.
Because despite all the digitization promises made by the Senate, many services can only be carried out by fax for the citizen (first appeared on the market in 1966 as a facsimile machine)!
There are still a total of 5333 pieces in Berlin’s authorities! The devices are also used for communication within the offices – as if scanning documents and sending them by e-mail had not yet been invented.
For the citizen, sticking to the outdated technology has clear consequences: The Senate identified a total of 731 administrative services for which documents can only be sent by fax (274) or by letter (457). Digital State Secretary Ralf Kleindiek (57, SPD) gave this number to a parliamentary question from the FDP.
Kleindiek’s authority lists exactly the issues for which Berliners need a fax machine or have to go to the mailbox: For example, applications for maintenance or WBS, reports of violent incidents in schools, objections in planning approval procedures, undertaker powers, approval applications at the plant protection office…
Within the authorities, things are even stricter – there are “a total of 189 administrative services for which there is a fax requirement,” says Kleindiek. In other words: a duty to use the fax machine!
“It really frightened me that the fax machine still has such an importance within the Berlin authorities,” said FDP digital expert Roman-Francesco Rogat (33) to the BZ. “That should have been changed years ago!”