The data protection officers from epicenter.works and the opposition criticize the handling of the climate bonus. Specifically, it is regarding the fact that this is partly done by a private company. When asked by APA, the Ministry of Climate Protection emphasized that the Programming Factory GmbH has been a framework contract partner of the Federal Procurement Agency for years.
epicenter.works was outraged yesterday via Twitter that a private company was getting the data of 7.4 million Austrians because neither the climate protection nor the finance ministries managed to organize transfers and mailing. The SPÖ now jumps on this criticism and announces a parliamentary question.
The deputy club boss Jörg Leichtfried (SPÖ) was “stunned by the government’s sloppy handling of data and tax money”. A private company, which apparently belongs to Raiffeisen Oberösterreich, received the most sensitive account data from various state sources: “Who guarantees that it is safe there?”
NEOS is also critical. Secretary General Douglas Hoyos sees no careful handling of sensitive data if the government passes it on to a private company instead of letting the tax office pay it out: “The climate bonus was a huge botch and a complete mistake from the start. The ÖVP and the Greens have to go back to the start and start from scratch.”
Ministry of Climate ensures data protection
The Ministry of Climate emphasizes that the services would be accessed as part of the framework agreement for the processing of the climate bonus. The Programming Factory GmbH acts as a processor of the Ministry of Climate Protection in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation.
The data available under the Climate Bonus Act would be processed according to the highest security standards. The data processing and storage takes place exclusively in Austria, and the project as a whole is designed to save data as much as possible.
