Field Notes

source

Bundesmeldegesetz 44 simple register extract

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Section 44 of the German Federal Registration Act (Bundesmeldegesetz, BMG), the provision governing the “simple register extract” (einfache Melderegisterauskunft) — the channel through which any person can obtain another person’s name and current address from the population register. The saved snapshot is the official statute text, with the .raw.html companion kept as the provenance copy.

What the provision establishes

Germany permits address-by-name lookup, but fences it:

  • the requester must supply enough data to identify one specific person unambiguously; a name alone producing multiple hits yields nothing;
  • the requester must declare that the data will not be used for advertising or address trading — for those uses the subject’s written consent is required (§ 44(3), with the consent form prescribed by ordinance);
  • commercial use must be declared and the data may then be used only for the declared purpose;
  • in practice the extract costs a fee (roughly €10-15 per person per query), and automated online queries face stricter identification requirements.

Section 51 adds the individual side: an Auskunftssperre blocks disclosure where facts indicate a risk to life, health, personal freedom, or similar protected interests, including stalking situations and exposed professions; a blocked query returns a neutral answer that reveals neither the data nor the block, and the subject is notified of later queries. Under GDPR Article 14, recipients of an extended extract must generally inform the subject.

Limitations

The fence is procedural, not absolute: anyone willing to pay and declare can obtain any specific person’s address, and journalists and power users have contracted access routes. The statute text is current as saved; § 45-52 complete the scheme.

Significance for the wiki

The German model answers the same question Sweden’s SPAR and people-search layer answer — “how does a state with a complete population register handle address lookup?” — with purpose declaration, fees, consent for commercial reuse, subject notification, and blockability. Anchors the German row of Public-by-default identity in international comparison and the purpose-fencing pattern in Access-transparency.

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