AnEkA

Initial situation

Context-sensitive systems use a wide range of data relating to both the user's environment and the user themselves in order to provide services tailored to the situation. They present users with suitable information depending on their location, time and interests and support them in their everyday life and actions. The data is combined from many different sources, such as various sensors and (partly publicly) available data and information, in order to draw conclusions about and predict the situation, environment and even the mood or behavior of users. The more useful data is available for context recognition and prediction, the higher the probability of a correct forecast and situation-appropriate adaptation of the application. While the collection and analysis of personal data ensures the functionality and high service quality of the systems, much of this data is also worthy of protection under applicable legal standards. This creates a fundamental tension between the high functionality and quality focus of context-sensitive systems on the one hand and compliance with legal requirements for the protection of informational self-determination on the other. This area of tension leaves many fundamental questions for the design and development of context-sensitive systems unanswered.

Project goals

The aim of the AnEkA project is to develop interdisciplinary requirement and design patterns for the quality-centered and legally compliant design of context-sensitive applications. To this end, quality-centered and legal requirements are to be methodically integrated into the system development process and directly coordinated with each other in order to achieve both a higher quality of the service process from the user's point of view and a legally compliant technology design while maintaining the same functionality. The overarching goal is to significantly facilitate the work of requirements analysts and system developers in the development phase. The project focuses on the application field of smart personal assistants (SPAs), which include prominent representatives such as Amazon Alexa, Samsung Bixby, Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana. SPAs collect data that can be interpreted and linked to create a personal reference and thus enable the potential for individualization and situation-adapted provision of services and information. The aim of the joint project is therefore to strike the "right balance" between functionality, quality and legal compatibility requirements and to translate the resulting research into requirement and design patterns. In this way, it should be possible to design both accepted and socially acceptable SPAs in the medium to long term.

Project participants

• University of Kassel, Department of Public Law with a focus on the law of technology and environmental protection, PD Dr. Silke Jandt
• University of Kassel, Department of Information Systems, Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister
• University of Kassel, Department of Public Law with a focus on Technology and Environmental Protection Law, Prof. Dr. Alexander Roßnagel
• University of Kassel, Department of Information Systems and Systems Development, Prof. Dr. Matthias Söllner

The AnEkA project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The project number is 348084924.

Contact person

Prof. Dr. Matthias Söllner