The Bavarian state government wants to oblige the authorities in the Free State to integrate only the Bavarian user account (“BayernID”) by default. Accounts of the federal government or other federal states should only be integrated via the Bayern ID, according to Article 29 of the draft of the Bavarian digitization law of December. A “different form of connection” should only be possible with the consent of the State Ministry for Digital Affairs.
Last summer, the city of Fürth was the first German municipality to integrate the federal user account into its digital administration portal. “If the electronic ID card is issued centrally in Germany, why shouldn’t the user account, with which citizens can authenticate themselves with the online ID function of their ID card, also be made available nationwide?” commented the city’s Chief Digital Officer at the time, Hauke Traulsen, the step.
Digital Ministry “open to talks”
However, the advance from Fürth was apparently not well received in Munich. “In the interest of coordinated OZG implementation in Bavaria”, the integration of user accounts other than BayernID is subject to special approval requirements, according to the justification for the current draft law. The reservation of permission was not yet included in a draft of the law from the summer.
At the request of c’t, the Bavarian State Ministry for Digitization said: “The Free State of Bavaria is fundamentally open to talks about the use of the federal user account in Bavaria.” The topic is the subject of further legislative proceedings. The draft law will be discussed in the state parliament next Tuesday.
User accounts should become interoperable
According to the Online Access Act (OZG), the user accounts should give citizens access to digital government services. The user accounts of the federal and state governments are to be interoperable, so that in the future you should be able to access all the services of all authorities nationwide with every account. The technology of the federal user account comes from Bavaria: It was developed by the AKDB, the IT service provider for the municipal umbrella organizations in Bavaria.
Bavaria had also recently distanced itself from the federal government and most other federal states when it came to digital sovereignty: the Free State does not want to participate in the development of a “sovereign workplace” for authorities. In addition to the federal government, 14 federal states are now officially on board.
(cwo)