Germany appoints Louisa Spechtas the new Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI)

From Data Bytes 46 summarising updates from April 2024

The German Federal Government has appointed Prof. Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider, one of the leading scholars on the law of data and digitalization (currently at the University of Bonn) as the upcoming Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of In-formation (BfDI). Various Ministers of the Federal Government have explicitly endorsed her appointment as “an excellent choice” and a strong move in the direction of an “enabling approach” that fosters a culture of openness and improved usage of data, in order to facilitate growth of the digital economy. Within the German Federal structure, the BfDI has limited overarching competence and needs to arrange with different perspectives of the 16 regional data protection authorities a the Laender-level, as well as the Federal Net Agency with its competence in telecommunications data protection laws. In any event and given the BfDI’s strong visibility in the public debate, this is an important step forward for the German digital economy.

Authors: Alexander Duisberg, Partner; Andreas Mauroschat, Partner; Lisa Kopp, Junior Associate; David Plischka, Junior Associate