Bavaria halved the number of fax machines in its administrations within six months. Accordingly, 1,869 devices are still in use – compared to 3,766 in December last year. Shortly after taking office at the end of the year, the State Minister for Digital Affairs, Fabian Mehring, announced that he wanted to ban fax machines from administrations. “The aim is to transmit all documents within and between Bavarian authorities in digital form.” State ministry says for digitisation. The politician hopes that media disruptions will be avoided, administrative processes will be speeded up, bureaucracy will be reduced and artificial intelligence will also be used in officials.
Advertisement
“Fax machines are a relic of the digital Stone Age and do not fit into the modern situation in the age of AI,” the minister said. He wants to take a leading role nationwide with Bavaria. “Through end-to-end digitization of Bavaria’s administrative communications, we are preparing the ground for the use of artificial intelligence in the state administration and making the Free State suitable for leapfrogging into the AI era.”
The minister appreciated the prompt implementation of his plan
Mehring admires that his declaration was implemented so quickly. “It’s even better that words and deeds matched and just a few months after my initiative, half of the digital faxes were sent to the dinosaur museum.”
The digital ministry is currently working on an alternative to fax. The ministry emphasizes that it should be user-friendly, legally binding, data protection compliant and secure. The administration is currently trying out various solutions. Bavaria also wants to introduce its own electronic authorization seal. The ministry emphasizes that these changes will not change anything for citizens or companies. “If you wish, you can still fax documents to the authorities, which will then be processed entirely digitally.”
If the ministry has its way, municipalities should also switch to digital communication channels. There are a number of proposals aimed at supporting this – for example through funding programmes or co-financing. Mehring claims that eliminating fax machines is no PR stunt. “Digitalisation means much more than just bringing existing processes online,” says the politician.
Read this also
(Are)
