New chief data protection officer calls for more courage in digitalization

There were big fights that most people didn't notice. But now it's clear: a law professor from Bonn will become the new federal data protection officer. Her name Louisa Specht Riemenschneider And He could take over in the summer. They have been approved by the Traffic Light Alliance. Now it must be proposed by the federal government and elected by the Bundestag.

Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider, born in Oldenburg in 1985, is a proven expert in working with data. During her PhD in 2011 at the University of Freiburg, she dealt with data trading and received a Science Prize for it. Since 2018 she has been a professor of law in Bonn, where she also works Research center for legal issues of new technologies and data lawt directs. The 39-year-old has been advising the federal government on various committees for a long time and is a co-founder of one of the committees. Federal Data Institutewhich is currently under construction.

The reactions of experts and politicians are clear: “Great decision”, “Great woman”, “Loved, competent and realistic.” Specht-Riemenschneider will be the second woman to hold the position of Data Protection Officer. Her predecessor, Ulrich Kelber, deliberately caused conflicts with the federal government since taking office in 2019.

The overall usability of the data should be improved

Among other things, the government was banned from operating its Facebook page because it did not comply with data protection regulations, against which the government took legal action. He called for an end to data retention Which puts all people under suspicion, and data protection is a topic in school lessons. It has halted digitalization projects – for example in the healthcare sector. Kelber has had many supporters, especially in the field of data protection.

On the other hand, the new Chief Data Protection Officer sees digitalization as a great opportunity and wants to actively promote it. in the video She described digital identities, the electronic patient file, and the Data Institute, “which aims to improve the comprehensive usability of data,” as important projects in the digital strategy. It wants to achieve data protection and privacy protection primarily through “technical solutions”. These should combine ease of use with good data and a high level of protection.

Data protection and data use belong together

Louisa Specht Riemenschneider is not a brakeman, she is a driver. She hopes that digitalization will be felt “in all areas of society in the future.” “It will be especially important to me that we make progress in digital medicine and be able to identify and treat diseases faster and better based on data.” So it takes a completely different approach than its predecessor. The principle of “be careful, misuse” is followed by the principle of “both must work!” Another data protection advocate put it this way: “Data protection and use are interconnected.”