Secure e-mail for teachers: The German capital counts on mailbox.org

The 33,000 teachers working in the public service of the German capital can look forward to receiving their own dedicated, secure e-mail account, operated by mailbox.org. Berlin’s senate department for Education, Youth, and Families will be providing all teaching staff in the city with a secure work e-mail address that they can use for official business. The service will be operated by mailbox.org, which means: Servers located in Germany, solid data protection guarantees, and thorough encryption of all communication pathways.

We are already providing secure e-mail inboxes for teachers in the federal state of Thuringia, and are very pleased to now be in a position to also support those in Berlin in their digitization efforts. Crucial for the senate decision to select mailbox.org as a partner has been our ability to fulfill all data security, encryption, and usability requirements of the tender.

All teaching staff in Berlin are going to receive their own e-mail account for official business communications, which enables them to send e-mails and files, and also manage tasks and appointments. They will also be able to use our online Office to create and edit text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations that are needed for their daily educational work, and share these documents easily with colleagues, students, and parents, all in accordance with the strict German data protection laws. Teachers will also benefit from an e-mail inbox that they can choose to encrypt automatically, which is a good measure to protect incoming e-mails from unauthorized access.

mailbox.org can use existing interfaces to integrate seamlessly with Berlin’s school portal on the Web, and their administrators will be able to manage everything independently from their end.

German data protection standards – important for the security of our schools

Similar to many workplaces, schools are an environment that is seeing more and more use of services such as MS Office 365, Gmail, or Whatsapp. How the companies behind these services collect and share their users’ data has raised widespread concerns about data protection and security. By opting for a communications solution that has been developed and operated in Germany, the senate department for Education, Youth, and Families in Berlin has recognized these concerns and acted responsibly to protect the data of teachers, students, and parents.

While Thuringia and Berlin have been the first to adopt our solution, we are aware that decision-makers in other federal states are also thinking about ways to acquire secure e-mail inboxes for their teachers. mailbox.org offers the highest security standards, and our reputation and technical experience not just in e-mail but also IT interfaces makes us an ideal partner for these kinds of projects. Interested? Don't hesitate to get in touch with Claas Heinrich at business-support@mailbox.org.