Germany’s Ministry of the Interior on 31 August opened De-Mail, offering citizens a central mailbox, with users verified by the ministry, and end-to-end encryption.
In its announcement, the ministry emphasises De-Mail’s ability to transmit confidential documents. The technically complex procedure has been made easy to use, the ministry writes. “Another advantage of De-Mail is that delivery is legally secure; the sending, receiving and the contents of De-mails can be legally proved.
“The Federal Government aims to establish De-Mail as a safe and user-friendly standard for legally binding electronic communication of confidential content”, the statement adds.
All federal public administrations in Germany are legally obliged to support De-mail per March 2016. Since February, the federal organisations are gradually added to a central De-Mail gateway service.
Well-prepared
The Interior Ministry opened the first central mail address, poststelle@bmi-bund.de-mail.de. The ministry will evaluate this service in the spring of 2016; after which it will consider expanding the system.
The De-Mail service has been in preparation for some six years; the German Parliament approved the plans in 2011. One reason for the long development period is a legal complaint by one of the contenders that responded to the ministry’s call for tender. This case was resolved in June last year.
More information:
Announcement by Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior (in German)
Heise news item (in German)
eGovernment computing news item (in German)