This empirical study by Gerhard Hammerschmid in cooperation with the Public Governance Institute in Germany (Institut für den Öffentlichen Sektor) looks at the impact of 2015 changes to Germany’s laws governing how personal data in municipal civil registries are handled – information about individuals that companies can request to manage their customer data. The study uses examines a dataset of over a million anonymized business requests from civil registries in the period 2014 to 2017 by a market leader in commercial services. The evaluation was accompanied by qualitative interviews with experts and the analysis of the fees structures of all German federal states. The results not only show how quality indicators such as hit rates or processing time vary over time, but also offer conclusions about fee developments. Lastly, the study offers insights into the actual purposes of inquiries, which was the subject of controversial public debate when the law was being drafted.
Research project
