this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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Privacy
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I feel like at least in Germany privacy matters are alive and kicking thanks to GDPR / DSGVO
You literally have to provide identification when buying a SIM card for a mobile phone in Germany and it all gets registered.
Most of Europe doesn't have any such thing and even the UK with all it's authoritarian overreach doesn't have this.
There is literally no other use for this other than for the state to be to know who calls who.
Germany is a lot more "papers please" than most of Europe in my personal experience.
Yeah I think it's very subjective and this one anedcote is just that.
In Germany cash is preferred in most places, and that makes tracking payments difficult. This is not the case in most other european countries. That's an another anecdote for you.
That's a "people" preference.
Mandatory registration of who buys a SIM card is a "government" preference.
My point is that in Germany the Legislation favors privacy less than in other countries.
Your point seems to be that in Germany people favor privacy more than in other countries.
I made the point be about legislation because you mentioned GDPR / DSGVO, plus this post is about what governments are shoving down people's throats when it comes to surveillance. I don't expect that most people in Europe actually want governments snooping on their chats.
Still, it's good to know that in Germany the people themselves favor privacy, even if so far they've been less successful at avoiding governmental overreach on surveillance than people in many other European nations (though compared with, say, Britain, Germany is veritable paradise in terms of state surveillance of the civil society).