"Alexa - now I'm checking my data!"

For smart personal assistants (SPA) such as Amazon Alexa, Google Now or Apple Siri, the departments of Public Law and Information Systems at the University of Kassel's Scientific Center for Information Technology Design (ITeG) have researched requirement and design patterns in the AnEkA project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), which reconcile two often conflicting goals of service quality and legal compatibility. The DFG has now approved a project extension in which the two departments, together with the Department of Information Systems and Systems Development, will evaluate the patterns developed by users and thus adapt them even better to the needs of SPA developers.

SPAs are becoming increasingly popular. During development, however, data protection and privacy often take a back seat in favor of high service quality. "One possible reason for this could be a lack of legal expertise on the part of the developers," suspects Jandt. "They find it difficult to implement legal requirements alongside functional requirements." The project group led by Prof. Dr. Alexander Roßnagel and PD Dr. Silke Jandt from the Department of Public Law, Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister from the Department of Information Systems and Prof. Dr. Matthias Söllner from the Department of Information Systems and Systems Development has tackled this problem. In the first phase of the DFG-funded project "Requirements and design patterns for the legally compliant and quality-centered design of context-sensitive applications (AnEkA)", requirements and design patterns were created. The patterns solve conflicts that arise in the development of smart personal assistants as soon as attention is paid to both a high service quality of the devices and a high level of legal compatibility.

In the DFG-funded extension of the project, the previously created patterns are now being evaluated. As in the first part of the project, the evaluation will also be carried out as part of an interdisciplinary collaboration at the interface between law and business informatics. "In the last two years, we have already been able to achieve a great deal through our interdisciplinary collaboration," reports Roßnagel. This approach reflects the core of the project and brings together two disciplines that can achieve great added value together. "The topic of legal compatibility has repeatedly been in the media - the urgency is enormous," warns Söllner. "And this is precisely where we want to use our knowledge together to improve the development of smart personal assistants," says Leimeister.

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister

University of Kassel

Department of Information Systems

Phone: +49 561 804-6064

E-mail: leimeister@uni-kassel.de

Prof. Dr. Alexander Roßnagel

University of Kassel

Department of Public Law with

with a focus on the law of technology and

environmental protection

Phone: +49 561 804-3130

E-mail: a.rossnagel@uni-kassel.de

Prof. Dr. Matthias Söllner

University of Kassel

Department of Information Systems and

Systems Development

Phone: +49 561 804-3450

E-mail: soellner@uni-kassel.de

PD Dr. Silke Jandt

University of Kassel

Department of Public Law with

with a focus on the law of technology and

environmental protection

Phone: +49 561 804-6088

E-mail: s.jandt@uni-kassel.de