The AfD left years of journalists' accreditation records exposed on its website

The Alternative für Deutschland stored press-accreditation records from almost every federal party conference between 2017 and 2025 in a web-accessible system, according to CORRECTIV. The material covered at least 1,000 journalists and included photographs of press cards. Anyone with the precise address could retrieve some files without authentication; depending on the document, those images could reveal a reporter's private home address. The AfD removed the data after CORRECTIV contacted it.

The exposure conflicts with the party's own statement that copies of identification documents are deleted immediately after verification. The AfD confirmed the incident but did not answer the newsroom's detailed questions. Berlin's data-protection authority has added the matter to its review. The German Journalists' Association warned that private addresses in the hands of extremists can become a direct safety risk and urged affected reporters to seek information about what was retained.

This was not merely an old database with overly broad permissions. Accreditation creates a coercive asymmetry: reporters must disclose identity information to cover an event, while the organiser controls how long it keeps the record and who can retrieve it. Political parties therefore have both a legal duty of data minimisation and a democratic duty not to convert access to public-interest reporting into a security vulnerability.

The remedy should go beyond deleting the exposed directory. The AfD should notify every affected person, disclose the dates and categories of data involved, preserve access logs for regulators and commission an independent review of retention practices across its state and federal organisations. The regulator should determine whether the files were indexed, downloaded or shared. Without that accounting, the party's promise of immediate deletion remains a statement that the exposed archive has already disproved.