Policy analysis

Now more than ever, I strongly believe that one of the most pressing tasks of my generation  (next to the climate crisis and growing inequality) will be to establish and vigorously defend the rights, norms, and rules that govern powerful technologies. This includes  the companies that built them, as well as the states that deploy them.

My expertise is privacy, data protection, and GDPR. I have also worked extensively on automated decision-making and discrimination, regulating AI, IoT security and liability, policing and surveillance technology, political targeted advertising, and responsible technology more broadly.

Commentary

The technological world we live in, is characterised by a fundamental asymmetry. Companies and governments know more about us than ever before. At the same time, the technologies that surround us appear opaque and incomprehensible to most people. It doesn’t have to be this way. One of my passions is to unpack, explain and demystify complex technical phenomena. I regularly comment on emerging technologies in the international press and have given TV and radio interviews on Al Jazeera, CNBC, BBC World News, among others. As a policy expert on emerging technology I have given expert evidence in the EU parliament, the House of Lords and the Belgian Federal Parliament.

Technical research

Together with my former team at Privacy International, I have carried out technical investigations that make routine and systemic abuses of data visible and tangible. Research topics include how Facebook tracks users on Android, an analysis of third party trackers on mental health websites, an analysis of Indian fitness apps, and a legal complaint against six data brokers, AdTech companies and credit scoring companies. Our work has been covered (and replicated) by the Financial Times, reported by BBC News, the Boston Globe, Le Monde, and Germany’s Tagesschau (among others).

Longer bio

Frederike Kaltheuner works on the intersection of emerging technology, ethics, and rights. Previously, she was the Director for technology and human rights at Human Rights Watch. Before joining HRW, she was a Special Advisor for the Vice President of the European Commission, as well as the inaugural Director of the European AI Fund, a philanthropic initiative to strengthen civil society in Europe. From 2019 to 2020 she was a public interest Tech Policy Fellow at the Mozilla Foundation. Previously she was a Director at the London-based NGO Privacy International, where she led the organisation’s work on corporate surveillance. Her team’s technical investigations into the murky world of online advertising have led to statutory inquiries by regulators, and caused some of the world’s most downloaded apps to change their practices.

As a policy expert on emerging technology Frederike has been invited to give expert evidence in the EU parliament, the House of Lords and the Belgian Federal Parliament. She regularly comments on emerging technologies in the international press and has given TV and radio interviews for AlJazeera, CNBC, BBC World News, BBC News, Tagesschau, Deutschlandfunk, WDR5 and BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, among others.

In 2019, she was awarded The Coaching Fellowship for young women leaders of impact. She was also a 2016 Transatlantic Digital Fellow on cybersecurity and platform regulation with the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin and New America Foundation in D.C. Previously, she has worked with the Centre for Internet and Human Rights, hosted the pilot for a TV show on German national TV and was a contributing writer for the French-German Philosophie Magazin.

Together with Nele Obermüller she wrote a book on data and justice (Nicolai Publishing, 2018, German). She is currently working on an updated and expanded English version with Oxford University Press, to be published in 2021. Her writing and commentary has appeared in The Guardian, Gizmodo, ZEIT Online and POLITICO Europe.

Frederike holds an MSc in Internet Science from the University of Oxford and a BA in Liberal Arts with a focus on Philosophy and Politics from the University College Maastricht. She was a 2016 research associate with the DATACTIVE collective at the University of Amsterdam and a 2010-2011 visiting student at the philosophy department of Bogaziçi University in Istanbul. From 2008-2013, she was a scholar of the German National Merit Foundation.