The federal state of Hesse will introduce Cisco Webex video conferencing software to ministries and authorities on January 1, 2025. This was confirmed by the Hessian Ministry for Digitization at the request of the C’T. Webex is in place as an interim solution until “HaysenConnect 2.0” is used, a spokesperson said. There is no fixed date for this yet.
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HessenConnect 2.0 is an open source software based on Element/Matrix and Jitsi, which Hessen originally intended to introduce gradually from early 2023. These “state-of-the-art and future-proof” solutions provide greater security and better data protection because the data processing takes place in Germany. wrote Patrick Burghardt, then-state CIO, in December 2022.
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Deutsche Telekom was awarded the contract for the installation and operation of HessenConnect 2.0. A total of 70,000 PC workstations in the state administration should be equipped with it. According to a report by Tagesspiegel, the cost of this number of jobs should be around 10 million euros per year.
But now, in response to a request from C’T, the Hessian Ministry of Digital Affairs said that HessenConnect 2.0 is “not currently ready for use”. For contractual reasons, no information about the past expenditure of HessenConnect 2.0 can be provided. The ministry did not even want to mention WebEx’s costs – they simply said they were “standard market prices”.
The data protection officer is still introducing HessenConnect 2.0
When asked, state data protection officer Alexander Rosengel explained that, based on his knowledge, HessenConnect 2.0 should be “fully developed” in about six months.
Rosengel said he welcomed the state government’s decision to favor open source solutions in view of data protection laws and digital sovereignty. As of October 2024, their authority had assumed that HessenConnect would be launched on January 1, 2025. He was then informed about Webex’s decision.
According to Rosengel, the state administration shows a “recognizable willingness” to compile the necessary data protection documentation from Webex. However, so far, their authority has not found any documents that would enable them to conduct a “well-established data protection and data security assessment” of Webex.
The data protection officer announced that his own authority would not introduce WebEx: “We have decided to switch to the current version of the video conferencing solution HessenConnect 2.0 Jitsi/Matrix from January 1, 2025.”
(CWO)
