GRK 1681:  Privacy. Forms, Functions, Transformations

• Subject Area: Literary Studies ; Educational Research ; Art History, Music, Theatre and Media Studies ; Jurisprudence ; Linguistics
• Term: from 2012 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 164644301

The Research Training Group concentrates on the concept of 'privacy and digitization' in its extension application due to its current societal and scientific relevance. It therefore focuses on highly topical issues. The Research Training Group´s primary aim is to gauge the value of privacy in an ever more digitalizing environment with increasing informational heteronomy and to reevaluate the given concepts of privacy. This will be conducted in three areas of focus, namely 'Digitality', 'Surveillance and Control' as well as 'Self-determination and Control'. The University of Passau offers a fruitful environment to address the complex and unsolved issues in this area of intersection between technology, law, ethics and social behavior with an interdisciplinary scientific approach.The cooperation between the Law Faculty and Faculty of Philosophy is to be continued, especially including media and cultural studies, which will prove to be fruitful in assessing a changing scope of investigation as the conditionality of privacy is modified through digitalization. Because legal safeguards are drawn into question due to decreasing normative capabilities of regulation, the involved scholars will ensure a necessary change of perspective and rewarding findings through the analysis of cultural, medial and philosophical change processes in the context of digitalization and therefore illuminate the reasons for a necessary legal reconditioning. Privacy Research in Passau has already connected itself with -- and established itself within -- the international scientific landscape.Young academics will therefore be prompted with the opportunity to research in a highly topical, seminal and still underrepresented scientific field. The demand for qualified staff in legal studies and the humanities, which are competent to handle questions about privacy protection to ascertain the digital change, is significantly high ("digital change management"). This is underlined by associating a member of the Computer Sciences Faculty, as that department will provide important insights into the privacy phenomenon from the perspective of information science.Furthermore, the current scientific plan of action will fit seamlessly in the research environment of the university and its academic networks. This is not only true for the Netzwerk Internet und Digitalisierung Ostbayern INDIGO, but also for the planned participation of the University of Passau at the Zentrum Digitalisierung Bayern.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Universität Passau
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr. Karsten Fitz; Professor Dr. Rüdiger Harnisch; Professor Dr. Dirk Heckmann; Professor Dr. Moritz Hennemann, since 6/2020; Professor Dr. Hans Krah; Professor Dr. Guido Pollak, until 3/2018; Professor Dr. Thomas Riehm; Professor Dr. Meinhard Schröder; Professorin Dr. Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider, from 10/2017 until 3/2019; Professor Dr. Christian Thies, since 4/2019; Professor Dr. Dirk Uffelmann, from 10/2016 until 7/2019; Professorin Dr. Daniela Wawra
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Kai von Lewinski, since 4/2019