Data protection

Data protection has long been more than just a legal side issue - it has become one of the central pillars of our digital self-determination. At a time when personal data is regarded as the new currency, the sovereign handling of information is becoming a question of responsibility - for companies as well as for each individual.

This tag is used for articles that take a critical and practical look at issues relating to data storage, tracking, cloud services, state surveillance and digital autonomy. The aim is to provide guidance - beyond scaremongering, but also beyond blind faith in technology.

The EU's digital ID: linking, control and risks in everyday life

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Digital ID of the EU

When you hear about „digital ID“, „European identity wallet“ or „EUDI wallet“, it sounds abstract at first - almost like another complicated IT project from Brussels. Many people have never consciously heard of „eIDAS 2.0“, the underlying EU regulations. And yet this project will affect almost every citizen of the European Union in the long term.

In essence, it is about something that we have been carrying around with us on paper or as a plastic card in our everyday lives for decades: official proof of our identity. Until now, we have had various documents - ID card, driver's license, health insurance card, tax ID, account login, insurance number. Each system works separately, each with its own processes, often confusing and sometimes annoying.

The EU is now pursuing the goal of merging these scattered areas of identity into a standardized digital solution.

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Apple MLX vs. NVIDIA: How local AI inference works on the Mac

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Local AI on Silicon with Apple Mac

Anyone working with artificial intelligence today often first thinks of ChatGPT or similar online services. You type in a question, wait a few seconds - and receive an answer as if a very well-read, patient conversation partner were sitting at the other end of the line. But what is easily forgotten: Every input, every sentence, every word travels via the Internet to external servers. That's where the real work is done - on huge computers that you never get to see yourself.

In principle, a local language model works in exactly the same way - but without the Internet. The model is stored as a file on the user's own computer, is loaded into the working memory at startup and answers questions directly on the device. The technology behind it is the same: a neural network that understands language, generates texts and recognizes patterns. The only difference is that the entire calculation remains in-house. You could say: ChatGPT without the cloud.

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A fact check on the electronic patient file (EPR): risks, rights and objections

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All the facts about electronic patient records

The electronic patient file, or ePA for short, is one of the most ambitious digitization projects in the German healthcare system. It is intended to bundle medical information centrally - from findings and laboratory values to medication plans, vaccinations and hospital reports. The aim is to better connect doctors, therapists, pharmacies and patients, avoid duplicate examinations and improve the quality of treatment.

What sounds modern and efficient on paper raises numerous questions in practice: Who has access? How secure is the data? And above all: do I even want all my health information to be stored and accessible centrally - even if I haven't asked for it?

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The digital euro is coming - what it means, what it must not do and what it could do

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The digital euro is coming

Public money is more than just a medium of exchange - it is a symbol of state sovereignty, a guarantor of economic order and a means for all citizens to participate freely in economic life. For centuries, cash was an expression of this freedom: anonymous, unconditionally usable, valid everywhere. With the gradual replacement of cash by digital payment methods, a central question is now being posed anew: who will control the money of the future - and under what conditions?

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Forced migration at HostEurope: When emails suddenly end up in the cloud

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Hosteurope migration to Microsoft 365

There are decisions that self-employed people like to put off because they are inconvenient. Changing hosting providers is undoubtedly one of them. As long as the websites are running, the emails are arriving and the bills are being paid, you think: Why touch something that works?

But sometimes you realize too late that "working" no longer means "right". My web hosting provider Hosteurope was of the opinion that it had to force its customers to migrate to Microsoft 365 for a fee without their active consent. The following is my experience, which ended for me with a migration to another hosting provider.

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Digital dependency: how we have lost our self-determination to the cloud

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Digital dependency with cloud systems

I've always thought it was a mistake for people to hand over their data - be it in the cloud, via apps or with any "free" services. For me, data sovereignty has never been a buzzword, but a question of self-respect. Anyone who uses technology without considering the consequences is entering into a dependency that often only becomes noticeable years later - but then has an even deeper impact.

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gFM-Business and the future of ERP: local intelligence instead of cloud dependency

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gFM-Business and AI + knowledge graph

For over a decade, the gFM-Business software has stood for something special in the German ERP market: it is not based on a cumbersome, difficult-to-maintain system, but on the lightweight, customizable and visually modelled FileMaker platform. This has many advantages: gFM-Business can be individually expanded, runs on Windows, macOS and iOS, and can be customized by both developers and ambitious power users.

With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) - especially through so-called language models such as ChatGPT - new opportunities are now emerging that go far beyond traditional automation. gFM-Business is actively preparing for this future: with the aim of not only managing data, but also unlocking knowledge.

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Integration of MLX in FileMaker 2025: Local AI as the new standard

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Local AI with MLX and FileMaker

While MLX originally started as an experimental framework from Apple Research, a quiet but significant development has taken place in recent months: With the release of FileMaker 2025, Claris has firmly integrated MLX into the server as a native AI infrastructure for Apple Silicon. This means that anyone working with a Mac and relying on Apple Silicon can not only run MLX models locally, but also use them directly in FileMaker - with native functions, without any intermediate layers.

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