Mario Birkholz

Science has always had significant consequences for the living of people and society. Before starting to study a natural science, one may believe that science serves to find the truth and to decipher the riddles of nature. It certainly does that.

But in the 21st century, science has become a mass endeavor that primarily serves the purpose of improving people’s lives – an orientation of research that only is fair, as it is predominantly funded by the taxpayer. As scientists we only have to ask for what the results of our work are to be used. Quite often, research has been applied for the development of new weapon and surveillance technologies.

In particular in the 1980s, this latter role of research was addressed by many colleagues and some of the publications and papers mentioned below are devoted to this question.

Nowadays, the digitalization of our everyday life is highly dynamic undertaking, causing enormous improvements of work processes, but at the same time threatening our liberty rights. Fortunately, a number of initiatives is aimed at containing the risks and sensibilizing the use of the Internet. One of these initiatives is the lecture series “Internet and Privacy” at TU Berlin.

Data Protection

1. Workshop at Bits-und-Bäume Conference 2022: “How much energy consumes my smartphone to spy on me?”
2. Lecture Series “Internet and Privacy” 2019 and 2021 at Technical University Berlin