Only one in five people back up their data: Germany warns most risk losing everything

Published: 31 March 2026

Anton Mous
Journalist

young woman, white handbag, smartphone, curly hair, pedestrians, crosswalk, berlin, shadowy — Young woman crosses a street near Bahnhof Zoo, Berlin. Wolfram Steinberg/picture alliance/Getty.

Happy World Backup Day! Today, governments, hosting providers, and other sponsors are calling on people to create a backup of their most important files. One of them is the German government.

According to Germany’s cybersecurity agency, the Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI), only one in five people regularly makes a backup of their documents, photos, videos, and other important files.

This means that most German citizens are at risk of losing their most important data.

That’s why Germany is paying special attention to making backups on World Backup Day, which is today.

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Creating a backup isn’t complicated, Germany’s cybersecurity agency says in a press release. You can use an external device, such as a hard drive or Network Attached Storage (NAS), to make a copy of your data, or opt for a cloud-based solution.

“Whether it’s family photos, contacts, or documents, countless important data files are stored on our computers, smartphones, and tablets. However, if a device suffers a technical defect, this data is lost. The same can happen in the event of a cyberattack or due to human error on the part of the user. Therefore, it's worthwhile to back up your data,” Marie Menke, consumer protection expert at BSI, says.

The cybersecurity agency has published instructions on how to create backups on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, and Linux.

If you really want to do things right, you should make both on-premises and off-premises backups of your files. If something terrible were to happen, like a fire that not only destroys your house but your backup devices as well, you’ll always have a second option to recover and retrieve your data.

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The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in the Netherlands recommends applying the 3-2-1 rule. This means that three copies of your data are stored on two different devices, with one copy kept at a different location.

“Disasters can strike in many ways. For example, a physical backup carries different risks than a digital backup. So be sure to store your backup in different locations, both physically (such as on an external hard drive) and digitally,” the NCSC proposes.

To remind others of World Backup Day, you can send a pledge via the World Backup Day website to “solemnly swear to backup important documents and precious memories on March 31st. @WorldBackupDay.”