50 years of provet: Legally compliant technology design yesterday - today - tomorrow

Registration under: c.geminn[at]uni-kassel[dot]de

The project group for constitutionally compatible technology design (provet) has been in existence for 30 years and has been a research group at the University of Kassel for 20 years. It is celebrating both "birthdays" on Friday, November 2 with a ceremony in the Gießhaus at the University of Kassel (see flyer attached).

The research group, founded by Kassel Professor of Public Law Alexander Roßnagel, pursues a unique legal research approach: it examines in an interdisciplinary and design-oriented manner how state-of-the-art information technology should be designed in a constitutionally compatible and socially beneficial way. It is based on the insight that legal objectives such as fundamental rights, democracy and the rule of law can only be enforced in a technology-driven world if the law influences technology. This research therefore aims to analyze the possible consequences of state-of-the-art technologies and how they can be influenced by designing technology in line with these legal objectives. At the same time, these technological applications require a suitable legal framework in order to be acceptable and accepted. For this reason, provet drafts proposals for legislation that steers the development of information technologies in full awareness of the potential consequences of technology. For this research, provet develops its own suitable research methods.

This interdisciplinary approach is not only highly relevant to society, but also to research. Many intensive collaborations with scientists from other disciplines and 91 third-party funded projects, including 13 projects supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and 4 projects funded by the State of Hesse's Offensive for the Development of Scientific and Economic Excellence (LOEWE), testify to the fruitfulness of the research approach. provet has developed proposals for a constitutionally compatible design for e-commerce, e-government, e-justice, e-payment, electronic signatures, electronic elections, long-term archiving, mobile internet, social networks, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, self-learning algorithms, ubiquitous computing, wearable computing, smart cars, smart homes, smart health, Industry 4.0 and many other information technology applications. provet has drafted legislation for technology-appropriate legal development, including the Signature Act, the Teleservices Data Protection Act, the ID Card Act, the De-Mail Act, the Trust Services Act and a Data Protection Audit Act, a Voting Service Provider Act and a modernization of data protection law.

The research approach has also had a positive impact on provet's employees. In the last 20 years, 4 provet employees have achieved a habilitation and 60 employees have completed a dissertation.

provet's interdisciplinary commitment has also had a structure-forming effect on the University of Kassel: together with computer science professor Klaus David and business informatics professor Udo Winand, Roßnagel founded the Research Center for Information Technology Design (ITeG) in 2005. Today, this is one of the four scientific centers of the University of Kassel and unites 11 professorships from 7 scientific disciplines, which together successfully research the question of how modern information technology can be designed in a socially beneficial way.

Since May 2018, Prof. Roßnagel has headed provet together with Gerrit Hornung, Professor of Public Law and IT Law, who will continue to lead provet with the same objectives in the coming years.

The development of provet and the scientific questions pursued by the research group are documented in the book

Alexander Roßnagel | Gerrit Hornung | Christian L. Geminn | Paul C. Johannes (eds.), Rechtsverträgliche Technikgestaltung und technikadäquate Rechtsentwicklung - 30 Jahre Projektgruppe verfassungsverträgliche Technikgestaltung, Series: ITeG - Interdisciplinary Research on Information System Design, Volume 7, kassel university press, Kassel 2018.