The former Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at an appointment in Brussels in 2023. (Image: Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock.com). The Berlin Administrative Court compels the Foreign Ministry to disclose digital service messages. SMS messages must be classified as official information. The German Foreign Ministry must disclose text messages from former Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, in which the Green politician canvassed other states for support of a UN resolution. The Berlin Administrative Court ruled this way following a lawsuit by the transparency platform “Frag den Staat” (File no.: VG 2 K 3/24). In its decision [1], the court makes clear that business SMS messages must be classified as official information if they possess objective file relevance. A milestone for transparency. The ruling marks a milestone for freedom of information rights in Germany: For the first time, judges compelled a federal authority to directly release smartphone messages under the Federal Freedom of Information Act (IFG) [2]. The Foreign Ministry had initially rejected the “Frag den Staat” request in 2023 on the grounds that mobile data are generally not “worthy of filing.” Relevant contents would in any case be recorded in separate memoranda. The Berlin judges disagreed: The exact wording of messages carries considerable informational value precisely in the diplomatic context. For this reason, a summary in subsidiary files is insufficient. The Administrative Court allowed the Foreign Ministry only minimal editorial redactions: To protect international relations, the names of addressees from Senegal, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Brazil as well as country-specific designations for the Russian war of aggression may be redacted. Administrative practice under scrutiny. In administrative practice, requests for information access have hitherto failed almost without exception because SMS messages were deleted or concealed, as information freedom commissioners of the federal and state governments have long complained [3]. Ministries and agencies preferred to argue that the use of text messages for official communication was prohibited anyway. Therefore such data should not exist at all. In the current case, denying the existence of the messages was impossible because media had already reported on the specific messages. The Foreign Ministry ultimately had to concede during the proceedings that the sending of SMS messages here had been officially approved following an internal risk assessment. Official communication via messenger apps is generally no longer an exception in political practice. Particularly at the leadership levels of ministries, direct digital consultations are common, bypassing the traditional filing system. Since binding legal requirements for the systematic recording and archiving of digital communications are lacking, transparency initiatives have been demanding reform for years. For as long as text messages remain informal, their existence is hardly provable for outsiders. Perseverance required. Previous lawsuits by “Frag den Staat,” for example regarding WhatsApp protocols from former Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer, SMS conversations from Angela Merkel [4] or messages from former Foreign Minister Heiko Maas concerning the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, regularly failed [5] because the data had already been deleted or the courts followed the authorities’ references to restrictive internal use prohibitions and an unofficial communication character [6]. That a turnaround is beginning became apparent recently in proceedings concerning the Federal Education Ministry under Bettina Stark-Watzinger and the Wire service she used. Here the activists were able to obtain a preliminary deletion freeze in emergency proceedings [7]. (vbr [9]). URL of this article:. https://www.heise.de/-11299744. Links in this article:. https://fragdenstaat.de/dokumente/275771-002-vg-2-k-3-24-urteil-geschwaerzt. https://www.heise.de/news/Bundestag-verabschiedet-Informationsfreiheitsgesetz-107524.html. https://www.heise.de/news/Informationsfreiheit-SMS-Nachrichten-sollen-kuenftig-auch-in-die-Akte-7160465.html. https://fragdenstaat.de/blog/2021/12/20/keine-sicherungsanordnung-was-passiert-mit-merkels-sms. https://fragdenstaat.de/artikel/klagen/2026/05/informationsfreiheit-gilt-auch-fur-sms. https://www.heise.de/news/Urteil-Innenministerium-muss-Twitter-Direktnachrichten-nicht-herausgeben-6236823.html. https://fragdenstaat.de/artikel/klagen/2024/07/gericht-verbietet-bildungsministerium-vorerst-loschung-von-nachrichten. https://www.heise.de/newsletter/anmeldung.html?id=ki-update&wt_mc=intern.red.ho.ho_nl_ki.ho.markenbanner.markenbanner. mailto:vbr@heise.de. Copyright © 2026 Heise Medien
heise security News