Reporters look at the world! Hello everyone, I am Yu Peng, a correspondent of the General Radio Station in Berlin. Today I would like to talk to you about an embarrassing incident that recently happened in supermarkets and gas stations in Germany.
Yu Peng was interviewed at a supermarket in Berlin
On June 14, a supermarket I frequented did not accept card payments, which at one point led to a long queue of cash-paid customers at the cash register.
This is the second time this has happened to the supermarket in a month. On May 24, several supermarkets throughout Germany and some card swiping machines at gas stations failed at the same time, causing large-scale chaos.
There is a long queue in front of the supermarket cash register
Shops that are unable to swipe their cards properly have posted notices at the entrance and only accept cash payments. I've also seen two customers at the supermarket site who didn't have cash with them and had to go home empty-handed at the end of the checkout.
After investigation, the failure is caused by the poor maintenance of the software of the swipe terminal, resulting in the expiration of the digital certificate. There are thousands of swipe terminals affected, all of which are H5000 developed by the American company Verifone. The failure of these swipe terminals to be updated in a timely manner led to a series of chaos.
H5000 swipe terminal developed by Verifone (Photo by Peng Yu)
As for why such low-level mistakes occur, Wildport, an expert in the field of computing, believes that it is caused by management errors by both operators and users. However, Wildport believes that because the operators involved and supermarkets, gas stations, drugstores, etc. are considered large enterprises, it is surprising that such a large-scale mistake has occurred at the same time.
Customers in supermarkets waiting to check out
Germans have always preferred cash, and card swipes were not popular before the COVID-19 pandemic. It was not until after the outbreak of the epidemic that this phenomenon improved, and emerging payment methods such as contactless card swiping and mobile payment gradually became popular.
Recently, the German media also reported another rather surprising news. Germany's "Economic Weekly" recently reported that because the German Chancellor's Office does not have a secure video call line, Prime Minister Scholz has to go to the Ministry of Defense to make encrypted video calls every time he participates in a NATO video conference.
German Chancellery
It can be said that the Attitude of Germans to Card Payment and the situation of Scholz video calls are the epitome of Germany's "digitalization".
The European Commission's annual Digital Economy and Society Index report released late last year showed that Germany's level of digitalization in 2021 ranked only 11th out of the EU's 27 countries, which seriously does not match the status and image of Germany's industrial power.
Germany's level of digitalization in 2021 ranks 11th among the 27 countries in the European Union
Although Germany is a world leader in many industries, it has been criticized for its digitalization. Especially after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the ills brought about by the backwardness of digitalization have been concentrated. Taking distance learning as an example, before the pandemic, only 6 of the average 10 students in German schools had laptops. In other industrialized countries, an average of 10 students use laptops at least nine. In addition, a survey conducted by the Vodafone Foundation during the epidemic showed that 66% of teachers said that schools did not have a corresponding strategy to deal with distance learning. It can be said that in the early days of the epidemic, distance learning was an unattainable goal for Germany.
The German federal government promotes distance learning (Source: German government website)
Fortunately, the German government also realized that if it did not catch up with the trend of digitalization, it would lose its international competitive advantage in traditional industries. Therefore, in recent years, German governments at all levels have formulated a number of strategies and policies on digital development, making "digitalization" a top priority in economic transformation. German government officials have also repeatedly said in recent years that they hope to strengthen cooperation with China in the field of digitalization and improve the degree of digitalization.
The above is the observation of Yu Peng, a berlin correspondent of the General Taiwan Station, in the local area.
The author of this issue of "Reporters from the General Station Looks at the World" is Yu Peng, a reporter of the General Station in Berlin
(From the Voice of China column "Reporters From the General Station Look at the World")
Executive Producer 丨 Wang Qiaoling
Reporter 丨Yu Peng
Editor 丨Du Yuting