GiddyGap

I've lived in several Scandinavian countries for many years. You're wrong.

Yes, I may be thinking of a contract in the Netherlands. They may still be among a few countries allowing prepaid SIMs without registration. But I'm not sure.

In Germany, it's an anti-terrorist precaution. Criminals love anonymous prepaid SIMs.

You do need ID in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain now. I think it's the same in most EU countries. Same thing. Anti-terrorism.

And that's very stupid.

It may feel stupid to you, but Scandinavia is a very different world than, for example, the US. They've never had a reason to not trust their governments. They are among the happiest countries in the world and their economies are outstanding and have been for a long time, and the standard of living is second to none. They feel like their governments work for them.

Same can be said of Germany, but they've obviously gone through different historic events and their approach to government is different.

You're not right about the rest of Europe not needing ID for a SIM. In Denmark, you need ID. In Sweden, you need ID. In Norway, you need ID. I'm sure you need in many other countries as well.

In the US, you also need an ID to open an account.

I didn't say that Germany doesn't collect data for basic protection of its citizens and for terrorism prevention (or, some may see that as surveillance). It does. It's just not shared in a big central system that other institutions and private companies can pull from like it is in the Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands.

E.g. if you move from one place to another in Germany, the government institutions in the two locales don't talk to each other about that. So, for tax and social benefits purposes, you have to tell each one that you moved. The federal government is also not involved.

Edit: spelling

Well, it defers a lot from country to country.

For example, populations in the Scandinavian countries have high trust in their governments and let them collect a lot of private data. They have personal identification numbers that contain lots of personal information that many institutions (e.g. banks) have access to unless you ask for privacy protection. All of this also makes interaction with institutions very streamlined and easy, but it comes at the cost of less privacy.

In Norway and Sweden, for example, anyone can access personal income data about anyone living in the country. Full transparency, more or less.

On the other hand, a country like Germany does not issue personal identification numbers because the population is highly skeptical of data collection and registration, a remnant from the wars. Germany is much more bureaucratic and its government less efficient, but Germans prefer the arm's length approach to government data collection and almost no data is publicly accessible.

I feel like Europe is the only place actually making an effort to protect personal privacy these days.

Not a good reason, but money.

Does that mean that massive layoffs work?

God bless the EU for taking this fight, and many others, on behalf of all of us. Only major entity actually making an effort at the moment.

Elsewhere: Airbus Christmas party budget doubles.