Lack of Transparency in Data Centers: Criticism of the Federal Government

• Germany's National Data Center Register was intended to provide transparency on energy and resource consumption for individual facilities, but has been crippled by Big Tech lobbying and legislative loopholes.
• Julian Bothe, Senior Policy Manager at AlgorithmWatch, describes the current state of data reporting as a failure of the federal government.

Importance of Transparency

• Public data on electricity, water, and emissions for individual data centers is essential for assessing environmental impact and planning energy grid or waste-heat utilization.
• Transparency drives competition for efficiency, which helps save resources, lowers costs for customers, and strengthens digital and energy sovereignty.

Legal Battles and Industry Resistance

• EU and German energy efficiency laws mandate that operators report and publish consumption data for individual data centers.
• Tech giants have successfully lobbied to classify these metrics as "trade secrets" at the EU level, a narrative they are now using to block transparency in Germany.
• Proposed amendments to the German Energy Efficiency Act risk codifying these exceptions, which critics argue is a capitulation to Big Tech interests.

Poor Compliance in the National Register

• As of July, only 482 of an estimated 1,000 eligible data centers have reported their data, with the government failing to enforce the legal requirements.
• The government is urged to enforce compliance, including imposing fines, to prevent market distortion and ensure a level playing field between smaller providers and global tech firms.

Addressing Trade Secrets and Security Claims

• Trade secrets are not a general exception to disclosure; legal experts argue that the public interest in sustainability data overwhelmingly outweighs corporate secrecy claims.
• Claims that disclosing water and electricity data poses a security risk are dismissed as a "fallacy of security through obscurity." Instead, data transparency is necessary for better crisis management and resilience planning.