Skip to content

Data: Between Freedom and Protection

Data is polarising. It is the resource of the 21st century.  It enables business models and innovations in society, science and politics. Some people want to use it, others want to protect it and many regard their dwindling privacy with scepticism. In the dossier we ask: Is privacy really data protection and is your employer allowed to inspect your browser history? We explain why there is no such thing as a hacker.

Articles in this Dossier

“It’s about human dignity and autonomy”

Privacy and data protection are currently being debated more intensively than ever before. In this interview, Frederike Kaltheuner from the civil rights organisation Privacy International explains why those terms have…

The dilemma of an anonymous darknet - Generic Image

The dilemma of an anonymous darknet

Drugs, fake documents, weapons and child pornography – Most imagine the darknet as a shady street corner, where nobody really know what’s going on. Indeed, one might ask, why surf…

Datafication and Consumer Trust - Generic Image

Datafication and Consumer Trust

We’re already living in a highly data driven society. Algorithms control the content flow displayed to us through search engines, for the news we read on Facebook and Twitter, the…

Legal Hackathon: Privacy and Security by Design for the IoT - Generic Image

Legal Hackathon: Privacy and Security by Design for the IoT

Germany’s first Legal Hackathon “Building Standards of Privacy- and Security-by-Design for the IoT” took place in Berlin at the AoIR 2016: Internet Rules!, the annual conference of the worldwide biggest…

How Blockchain can foster innovation in science - Generic Image

How Blockchain can foster innovation in science

Academia is stuck in an analogue thinking. Blockchain technology, a decentral storage system, has the capacity to make digital goods immutable, transparent, and provable and it could solve many of the issues…

Is this actually still user-generated content on Youtube? - Generic Image

Is this actually still user-generated content on Youtube?

The division between professional media and user-generated content on YouTube can hardly be maintained any more. Web videos are increasingly more professional, especially because amateurs are often supported by specialised companies….

Big data leaks and the future of journalism - Generic Image

Big data leaks and the future of journalism

The Panama Papers have been described as “biggest leak in the history of data journalism” with approximately 11.5 million documents provided by an anonymous source to the German newspaper Süddeutsche…

When YouTubers Strike Back – DMCA and the case of YouTube’s failed dispute resolution system - Generic Image

When YouTubers Strike Back – DMCA and the case of YouTube’s failed dispute resolution system

When a CEO publicly states that the company is “listening” you know something’s up. So when YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki was forced to tweet these very words this came as a…

Games Research at HIIG Hits the Road - Generic Image

Games Research at HIIG Hits the Road

In recent months, research into innovations in games and gamification has been a focus in our empirical work at the HIIG. In a case study on innovation and imitation in the…

No innovation without investment – a dilemma of classic media industries - Generic Image

No innovation without investment – a dilemma of classic media industries

Digitalisierung und Internet sowie das veränderte Konsumverhalten der Mediennutzer stellen die Geschäftsmodelle der klassischen Medienindustrie in Frage. Diese kann darauf mit rechtlicher Gegenwehr oder ökonomischer Anpassung etwa mit neuen Produkten…

Academia is a Reputation Economy - Generic Image

Academia is a Reputation Economy

In autumn 2014, my colleagues and I conducted a survey on academic data sharing among 1564 researchers in Germany, a follow-up study on our paper “What Drives Academic Data Sharing?“….

Why Netflix started only now in Germany - Generic Image

Why Netflix started only now in Germany

A few days ago the US-streaming service Netflix started in Germany. It will turn out if the broadly discussed, long expected and from many dreaded service is able to fulfill…

Can or should TV and other formats be copyright protected? - Generic Image

Can or should TV and other formats be copyright protected?

Copyright as balancing instruments on markets for cultural goods With the emergence of television formats, copyright protection of formats was – and still is – doubted for several reasons: Formats…