Starting the transition

(c) State government of Schleswig Holstein

Independent, sustainable, secure: Schleswig-Holstein will be a digital pioneer region and the first state to introduce a digitally sovereign IT workplace in its state administration. With a cabinet decision to introduce the open-source software LibreOffice as a standard office solution across the board, the government has given the starting signal for the first step towards complete digital sovereignty for the country, with further steps to follow.

Citizen data remains secure

“The future of administration is cloudified, automated, algorithmized and data-based. Our IT applications will therefore run as cloud services on the Internet in the future. Accordingly, the major manufacturers of common IT products are increasingly moving their applications to the Internet. On the operational processes of such solutions and how they are used We have no influence over data, including a possible data outflow to third countries. As a country, we have a great responsibility towards our citizens and companies to ensure that their data is kept safe with us and we must ensure that we are in control of the IT we use at all times solutions and we as a state can act independently. Ensuring digital sovereignty is at least as important as energy sovereignty,” says Schleswig-Holstein’s Digitalization Minister Dirk Schrödter.

Strong digital location in Europe

“The path to digital sovereignty also follows a clear industrial policy compass. My vision of a strong digital location in Europe can become reality because we no longer have to spend our public budgets just on license fees, but rather invest in real programming services from our domestic digital economy and thus create value and create jobs locally. Our goals in expanding a common digital internal market are digitally sovereign solutions and services that we network with each other. As a state administration, we use the treasure trove of data to ensure open innovations, digital value chains and prosperity domestically.”

We take digital sovereignty seriously

According to Schrödter, digital sovereignty is an integral part of the state government’s digital strategy and work program. “This cannot be achieved with the current standard IT workplace products. We take digital sovereignty seriously and are moving forward: The decided change in office software is a milestone, but only the start of the change: the switch to free software Operating system, collaboration platform, directory service, specialist procedures and telephony will follow.”

With the cabinet decision, the state government has made the concrete beginning of the switch away from proprietary software and towards free, open-source systems and digitally sovereign IT workplaces for the state administration’s approximately 30,000 employees. Proprietary software refers to digital applications that are severely restricted in their use and further processing by copyright and licensing conditions. In addition, an offer is often related to operational and data center services, whereby the provider maintains product sovereignty.

Better IT security, profitability, data protection

The switch to open source solutions is an important building block towards maintaining digital sovereignty. The use of open source software also benefits from improved IT security, cost-effectiveness, data protection and seamless collaboration between different systems. In addition to open-source software development, the aim is also to release the country’s future development results under free licenses.

Six pillars of the digitally confident IT workplace

The components of the digitally sovereign IT workplace are being built in a total of six project pillars in Schleswig-Holstein:

Switching from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice

Switching the operating system from Microsoft Windows to Linux

Collaboration within the state administration and with external parties: Use of the open source products Nextcloud, Open Xchange/Thunderbird in conjunction with the Univention AD connector to replace Microsoft Sharepoint and Microsoft Exchange/Outlook

Conception of an open source based directory service to replace Microsoft Active Directory

Inventory of specialist procedures regarding compatibility and interoperability with LibreOffice and Linux

Development of an open source based telephony solution to replace Telekom-Flexport

Comprehensive training offering for staff

The use of LibreOffice as a standard office package in communication between ministries and authorities is short-term and its use is mandatory. If a change cannot take place in a timely manner due to technical or professional circumstances, possible outages will occur