On 4 June 2020, Peter Altmaier, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, and Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of Economics and Finance, discussed the GAIA-X venture. Andreas Weiss, Director of EuroCloud Germany, participated in the subsequent Virtual Expert Forum.

Europe is aiming to become a forerunner in both trustworthy artificial intelligence and the data economy. Correspondingly, the EU Commission presented strategies and launched consultations, the latter which ended on 31 May 2020. The eco Association took this opportunity to comment on these strategies.

Working groups, meetings, round tables, workshops: Many events that can no longer take place in the real world due to the COVID-19 pandemic are being recreated online. For online collaboration to be as productive as live on site, it takes more than video telephony and chat functions. The eco expert for online work and managing director of aixvox GmbH Detlev Artelt explains the secret of successful online events.

Representatives of the Federal Government and the French Government as well as business and science institutions of both countries have been working together with other European partners on the next generation of a secure data infrastructure for Europe: GAIA-X. This Franco-German project idea was first presented to the public at the Digital Summit in October 2019. Based on use cases from various economic domains and the public sector, representatives from about 300 companies and organisations have designed a technical architecture that guarantees trustworthy data exchange and can form the basis for a comprehensive data ecosystem. The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and the French Ministry of Economy and Finance (MINEFI) invite you to the presentation of the first results. Join the virtual LIVE-Talk between Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier and French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire.

For the Association of the Internet Industry, the responsibilities and liability for IT security must be regulated in a balanced manner within the framework of the IT-SiG 2.0 and security gaps must be closed quickly: State back-doors and the targeted weakening of encryption are counterproductive for IT security and jeopardise confidence in the use of digital services.

The Association of the Internet Industry welcomes the fact that the judgement has removed ambiguities in the setting of personal cookies and that the handling of data has been regulated uniformly at European level.

eco publishes guidelines on the current reform of the German Network Enforcement Act: The Association of the Internet Industry supports the containment of hate, incitement and right-wing extremism as well as the fight against illegal content on the internet. The controversial law continues to cause fierce debate due to an obligation to surrender passwords as well as a duty to disclosure inventory and usage data by telemedia service providers.

In February 2020, eco expressed several concerns regarding the first draft act. In general, it is questionable whether it makes sense for the legal basis under discussion to be revised in two separate legislative procedures within a few weeks of each other.