First convening of the AlgorithmWatch Supervisory Board
On 1 October, the AlgorithmWatch Supervisory Board held its first meeting. We are delighted that Katharina de la Durantaye, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Steffen Wenzel will be supporting us with their expertise and experience through this important oversight role.
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger
Attorney-at-law, former Federal Minister for Justice
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger studied law in Göttingen and Bielefeld. The first state examination in law in 1975 was followed by the second examination in 1978. Between 1979 and 1990, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger worked at the German Patent Office in Munich, lastly as Head Government Director. In 1990 she was elected to the German Bundestag for the FDP and two years later became Federal Minister of Justice. She resigned from this position in 1996 following the coalition's decision in favour of the "electronic eavesdropping operation" and focused on her work as a member of parliament. She was, among other roles, legal policy spokeswoman for the Bundestag parliamentary group and deputy parliamentary group leader between 2001 and 2002 and from 2005 to 2009. In the 17th parliamentary term, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was once again appointed Federal Minister of Justice. She was active in state politics from 2000 to 2013 as Chairwoman of the Bavarian FDP, and in federal politics from 1992 to 2013 as a member of the FDP Presidium, most recently as Deputy Federal Chairwoman. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger is deputy chairwoman of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom since 2018 and since 2019 non-judicial constitutional judge in Bavaria.
Prof. Dr. Katharina de la Durantaye, LL.M. (Yale)
Katharina de la Durantaye holds a chair for Civil Law and Media Law at Europa-Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). Her work focuses on digital communication technologies—she is particularly interested in questions of intellectual property, including their international and comparative aspects.
Katharina de la Durantaye studied law and humanities at Università degli Studi di Bologna, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In 2003, she received her doctorate from Humboldt-Universität – her thesis focused on early forms of copyright law in Ancient Rome, andwas awarded Legal Book of the Year 2005. She obtained a Master of Laws from Yale Law School in 2005. She taught at Boston University School of Law, Columbia Law School and St. John's University School of Law. From 2010 to 2018, she was assistant professor at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In her second book (habilitation), she explored the German Civil Code’s rules on contract formation from a law and economics perspective.
Dr. Steffen Wenzel
Steffen Wenzel is executive director of politik-digital e.V. / politik-digital.de.
Steffen Wenzel studied politics and geography at the University of Gießen, where he received his doctorate in the subject of modern youth cultures. Since 2002 he works as a communications consultant focusing on online communication and project development as well as a moderator for talks and webinars. At politik-digital.de Wenzel is engaged in different roles since 1999. In addition, he is founder and partner of Hartplatzhelden GmbH, which operates a video and community platform for amateur soccer players at www.hartplatzhelden.de
Photos by Kristina Penner (finishing by Julia Bornkessel), CC BY