The Hessen data protection authority ('HBDI') published, on 18 April 2023, its 2022 activity report. In particular, the HBDI, Alexander Roßnagel, noted the following from the report:

• the total number of complaints handled in writing fell slightly from 8,400 to 6,800, and thus seems to have stabilised at a very high level;
• the HBDI has been increasingly attempting to address the fundamentals of privacy issues, including, for example, large IT systems that do not comply with data protection regulations and business models that ignore data protection, which would consequently prevent violations of the rights of thousands of individuals;
• the HBDI has made great progress in the public sector, noting that schools and universities in Hesse have been using data protection-compliant video conferencing systems since last year; and
• cyber​​crime and attacks on IT systems have seen a decrease by around 10% in 2022, from 2,000 in 2021 to 1,750 in 2022, whereby many attacks have targeted IT service providers who handle data processing for hundreds of companies and authorities.

Notably, the HBDI drew an overall positive conclusion from the report, noting that 2022 saw no serious data protection violations in Hesse, and that data protection is widely accepted in business and administration. Nonetheless, the HBDI stated that data protection regulations are not followed everywhere and misconduct still needs to be corrected through its intervention.

You can read the press release here and the report here, both only available in German.