Overview

• Bitkom’s representative survey of 603 companies reports 44% face a very high effort from data-protection rules, up 6 percentage points year over year, and 97% report at least a high effort, up from 94%.
• A majority say the workload is increasing, with 53% reporting a rise and 16% a strong rise, while 30% see no change and none report easing.
• Smaller firms report heavier strain, with 45% of companies with 20–99 employees citing very high effort versus 38% among firms with 500 or more staff.
• Bitkom president Ralf Wintergerst criticizes complex requirements and fragmented oversight that lead to differing interpretations.
• Bitkom calls for reduced documentation and reporting duties and AI-aware guidance, viewing an EU draft to ease GDPR paperwork for firms up to 749 employees as insufficient.