KI in admini-
stration:
GKD Reckling-
hausen and STACKIT

Digital administration: efficient, secure and data sovereign.

Close-up of hands working on a laptop while holding a stylus pen, overlaid with blue digital graphics showing an AI brain icon, security shield, folders, and document management interfaces. This image is AI-generated.

GKD Recklinghausen Modernizes Municipal Processes

Public administration faces a dilemma: processes need to be streamlined, digital, and modern without placing an additional burden on an already stretched workforce. There is a strong desire for AI-driven efficiency. At the same time, however, concerns about highly sensitive citizen data often hinder innovation. GKD Recklinghausen demonstrates that strict compliance requirements in public administration do not have to be a barrier to innovation: Using a dedicated, secure AI environment from STACKIT, the IT service provider digitizes municipal processes—such as scanning incoming mail—securely and agilely.

The Challenge: Innovation and Data Security

Initially, GKD Recklinghausen faced the same challenge as any public institution today: Local governments want to—and must—benefit from the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence. GKD Recklinghausen also had a clear goal in mind: to use modern AI language models specifically in its incoming mail scanning process to automatically classify content, better recognize handwriting, and concisely summarize lengthy documents.

In the public sector, however, the barriers to AI adoption are significantly higher than in the private sector. Highly sensitive citizen data is at stake. Strict legal requirements at the national and European levels demand the highest security standards. For GKD, one thing was clear: the use of conventional, public AI services was absolutely out of the question. It had to be 100 percent guaranteed that no data would leak to the outside and that the processed government content would under no circumstances be used to train third-party AI models.

GKD Recklinghausen therefore sought a partner that not only brings state-of-the-art technological expertise to the table but can also fully meet these extremely high requirements for security, stability, and control.

The Solution: Absolute Data Sovereignty and KRITIS Experience

One company that embodies precisely this combination of AI expertise and absolute data sovereignty is STACKIT. As part of Schwarz Digits—and thus Europe’s largest retail group (the Schwarz Group)—STACKIT brings deep experience in handling KRITIS requirements and protecting sensitive data in highly available German data centers.

The solution for GKD involved setting up a customized, dedicated AI environment that is operated exclusively and strictly isolated for the IT service provider.

“The digitization of public administration must not be derailed by security concerns; rather, it must be made possible through the right technological partnerships. Together with GKD Recklinghausen, we have demonstrated that a secure cloud infrastructure provides the necessary freedom to integrate state-of-the-art AI applications into everyday municipal operations in a legally compliant and efficient manner. We are laying the foundation on which the public administration of the future can grow independently and with the capacity to act.”

Gabriel Becker

Head of Sales, Public Sector & Defence, STACKIT

The Project: From the Agile Testing Phase to Secure Production Operation

To avoid wasting any time, the project partners opted for an agile approach. During an initial staging phase, GKD utilized the existing public STACKIT infrastructure to test the planned use cases with fully anonymized data at an early stage. This allowed them to validate prompt design and integration logic even before the production environment was set up. At the same time, GKD ensured that the new processes were practical and as user-friendly as possible for administrative staff right from the start.

Following a successful test run, STACKIT rapidly deployed the dedicated, security-hardened AI environment. The system is designed to be flexible enough to allow different language models to be switched or expanded as needed. This means maximum independence for local governments.

“Through our partnership with STACKIT, we were able to quickly implement a solution that fully complies with our strict security requirements for handling citizen data while also delivering high performance.”

Stefan Krüger

Team Leader, Application Management and Process Integration – Recklinghausen Joint Municipal Data Center Special-Purpose Association

The result: efficiency and forward-looking citizen services

The investment has paid off: In the scanning and workflow system, the jointly developed AI now handles content summarization, which drastically reduces the time required for incoming mail validation and transfer to the electronic file.

Citizens and municipalities thus benefit from shorter processing times for incoming mail. Furthermore, case workers are able to provide information to citizens more quickly.

"Through this combination of traditional document processing and modern language models, we can offer our customers significantly greater convenience and efficiency in their business processes."

Stefan Krüger

Team Leader, Application Management and Process Integration – Recklinghausen Joint Municipal Data Center Association

The AI journey at the GKD Recklinghausen Special-Purpose Association has only just begun. This is because the dedicated environment set up by STACKIT serves as a stable platform for further potential projects. The use cases—some of which are already in the proof-of-concept phase—are very diverse:

The Results at a Glance

State-of-the-art features

Secure provision of content classification, handwriting recognition, and intelligent content summarization in incoming mail digitization

Future-proof platform

A scalable foundation for implementing additional AI use cases (CMS, web chat, RAG)

Strong technology partner

Use STACKIT to integrate complex AI projects into existing business processes securely, transparently, agilely, and efficiently

Man with cell phone in hand and laptop open.

Are you facing similar challenges between the pressure to innovate and data protection? Find out how you can overcome technological hurdles with the sovereign cloud from STACKIT and use artificial intelligence securely for your competitive advantage. We would be happy to advise you.

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About GKD Recklinghausen

As a public-purpose association and municipal IT service provider for the Recklinghausen district and eight of its cities, GKD Recklinghausen is a driving force and plays a key role in supporting structural change through its solutions. As a modern company, it offers a broad portfolio of products and services for public administrations. This includes high-performance scanning and workflow systems that digitize, automate, and map document-based business processes in an audit-compliant manner.

KI in admini-stration:GKD Reckling-hausen and STACKIT