“Enforcing the law in the digital era – a key task for Europe”1

Increasingly, the forthcoming European Parliament elections in May2 are being described as a battle to decide Europe’s destiny. This is partly because Europe is often no longer regarded as a great achievement; instead, there are forces muscling into the European Parliament whose intention is none other than to destroy what Europe was once meant to be – an economic community and a community of shared values. The unbearably relentless wrangling about Brexit may have encouraged this alienation from Europe, but it would be far too simple to blame this shift first and foremost on the turmoil in the British House of Commons – because an achievement is always only as great as its perceived benefit to society. And, to overstate the argument somewhat, the acceptance of Europe will be decided not by major geopolitical issues like Brexit or by piecemeal regulations like the bans on lead pouring, drinking straws or cotton buds, but by how it handles the really important, socially relevant responsibilities and challenges. One such challenge is to manage the effects and excesses of the digital transformation process. In many areas of our lives, digitalisation is indispensable, and the same is true for a united Europe. It makes us what we are today: a modern information society. At the same time, however, the digital transformation can also represent an existential threat to this very society. Looking at the last 12 months alone, data integrity has simply taken far too many blows. In March 2018 it was discovered that the meanwhile bankrupt company Cambridge Analytica had used what was supposedly an academic research app to unlawfully harvest the personal details of tens of millions of Facebook users to then manipulate voters with targeted messages during the US election campaign. In September 2018, a security