Strict data protection laws are hindering Germany’s efforts to swell the ranks of the armed forces of Europe’s largest nation, its reservists’ association has warned.
Patrick Sensburg, head of the Reservist Association of the German Armed Forces, said tough German and EU privacy rules meant it could not keep in contact with close to a million people who might help boost the country’s reserve forces as it seeks a stronger role in European defence and security.
Sensburg said that when Germany suspended conscription in 2011, it also stopped keeping track of former conscripts.
“We have lost their contacts,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “It’s crazy.”
…He said it was absurd that the body responsible for collecting Germany’s annual television fee could contact citizens a few weeks after they had moved house, while he had no way of tracking down people whose names were in the association’s records.
Here is more from the FT, via Shruti.
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