Christmas tree in UNIVIE’s main builing’s aula - quite a Pycnic

Retrospect

#arsboni

Finally, the talk with Julian Hessenthaler, is online.

In addition, I had the opportunity to discuss the publication of official documets in criminal procedures,

and the (frustrating) status of legal information in Germany with Dr. Martin Plum who is a German Parliament Member.

We also had the finals of the international Data Protection Moot Court and streamed the oral haring with, inter alia, Max Schrems in the jury.

This is from our press release, provided by Klaudia Kwiatkowska who managed the endeveaour together with Mariana Rissetto, Marie-Catherine Wagner, Marco Blocher, Paul Reisinger and Léa Caner.

On Monday, 18 December 2023, the finale oral hearing of this year’s Data Protection Moot Court (DPMC) took place. Since September 2023, 12 teams from around the world have been participating first in a written submission part and then in oral hearings. The moot court took place fully remotely.

The teams were faced with a case on the lawfulness of processing and automated decision-making. The teams representing the data subject, a butchery shop owner, had to draft a complaint to the Data Protection Authority of Randomistan. The teams representing the controller, the Municipality of Woodville, had to respond to the complaint.

The award for the Best Written Submission went to Kanan Khalilov, Nurlan Karimov and Elvin Karimli (Lund University, Baku State University, Université Lumière Lyon-2) from Team 3, one of the data subject teams.

The second round of the submissions were the oral hearings where the corresponding data subject and controller teams were heard by the DPA of Randomistan composed of jury members. The DPMC had the honour and pleasure to host jury members from academia, law practice, civil society and the Austrian DPA.

Based on the scores from this round, Marta Terletska from Tallinn University of Technology (Team 7), representing the data subject, won the Best Speaker Award.

Taking into account the overall scores for written submissions and oral hearings, best data subject and controller team were heard by the grand jury once again in a final hearing in order to determine the winner. The teams competing in the final hearing were: Kanan Khalilov, Nurlan Karimov and Elvin Karimli from Team 3 and Eliza Rohotska, Nazar Dudchak and Anastasiya Tokaryeva (Ukrainian Catholic University) from Team 4. After an excellent oral hearing, involving opening statements, questions by the jury and a rebuttal, the winning team was selected.

The DPMC awarded the Best Team 2023 title to Eliza Rohotska, Nazar Dudchak and Anastasiya Tokaryeva from Ukrainian Catholic University, representing the controller.

Athens

The moment I am finishing this, I am in the National Library of Greece for a consortium meeting in Trustee.

Although I appreciate the conversations a lot here, I must confess that departure from Vienna was ‘demanding’.

3D Printing

The conference that Prof. Dr. Iris Eisenberger, Prof. Dr. Konrad Lachmayer and myself had organised at UNIVIE ran smoothly and I am very much looking forward to seeing the cotributions to be published in a book with MANZ next year. However, the current Covid wave was also visible here as not less than three speakers needed to step down last minute for health reasons.

Christmas Party

Sadly, I could not participate in the Department’s informal Christmas Party due to a Covid Infection in my houshold (not me) so that I didn’t want to take the risk to infect others. But I however got a very nice personal Christmas present that was done by Theresa Henne during the party. It’s hanging on a wall in my office now. The detail I like mostt in it (apart from the hen in the lower left corner serving as a signature) is the red hair making me significantly younger and more progressive than I am in reality.

Prospect

#arsboni

Paxlovid is keeping me busy. I will have a conversation on the lack of supply and the parliamentarx debate on the issue with Mario Lindner,Member of the Austrian Parliament, on Friday December 22 at 10.30 in the morning.

And I am currently planning a session, most likely on December 28, asking whether good scientific practice requires that an author uses their real name and not a pseudonym. A current debate in Verfassungsblog is the root of this debate and Alexander Somek is a confirmed speaker. Details are not fully set yet so that I will (most likely) inform about details via Social media early next week.

#arsboni Special Editions

I will have not less than three #arsboni special editions (which means that they are part of my regular teaching) early January, two of them in English, all three of them highly interesting in my view.

On January 10th at 18.30 CET I speak with our law school’s dean for students, Prof. Dr. Christian Koller.

On January 17th at 17.00 CET Professor Jacob Mchangama will be my guest, criticising Europe’s attempt to regulate platforms in the light of free speech.

And on January 18th at 17.00 CET Prof. Dr. Martin Husovec will analyse Europe’s Digital Services Act in a systematic manner.

Conferences

I don’t know whether you are perceiving these days as I do - my impression is that everybody believes that the world will end by December 31 so that every possible appointment, meeting, conference etc. needs to be done right now. But if you belong to the optimists believing that there will be another January after December, may I kindly offer you three possibilities to block significant timeslots in your hopefully still rather empty agenda.

AI and Medicine (English)

On January 12 2024 we will host a magnificent conference on AI and medicine from a legal perspective.

The lineup is remarkable and includes some of the most prominent academics in the field. It will also be a nice opportunity to meet many of our staff working at the department in projects related to the topic.

Forum Datenrecht (German)

Dr. Žiga Škorjanc will host the next edition of our series “Forum Datenrecht” on January 15 from 17.30 to 19.30, again in the law school’s top floor.

The keynote will be given by Professor Dr. Andreas Wiebe, the panel looks very interesting too:

1. Mag. Lisbeth Mosnik (stellvertretende Leiterin der Abteilung III/5 – Digitale- und Schlüsseltechnologien für industrielle Innovation im Bundesministerium für Klimaschutz, Umwelt, Energie, Mobilität, Innovation und Technologie)
2. Mag. Ursula Illibauer (Expertin für Regulierung und Datenschutz, Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Bundessparte Information und Consulting)
3. Mag. Katharina Raabe-Stuppnig (Expertin für Medien-, Datenschutz- und Medizinrecht, Rechtsanwältin in Wien)
4. Dr. Gerald Trieb, LL.M. (Knyrim Trieb Rechtsanwälte OG, Gründer und Partner)

Austria’s Digital Health Strategy (German)

Last, not least, on January 30, from 14.00-18.00 we will discuss Austria’s Digital Health Politics in its European Context.

Panelists are

• Botschafter Prof. Dr. Martin Selmayr (Leiter der Vertretung der Europäischen Kommission in Österreich, Wien)
• DDr. Meinhild Hausreither (Sektionsleitung Humanmedizinrecht und Gesundheitstelematik, BMSGPK)
• Olaf Heinrich (CEO Redcare Pharmacy)
• DI Arnold Herzog (Leiter Geschäftsfeldentwicklung und Verrechnung, AGES Medizinmarktaufsicht)
• Dr. Gerhard Jelinek (Leitung der Wiener Pflege-, Patientinnen- und Patientenanwalt)

The session will start with two short keynotes by Hausreither and Selmayr. I will have the privilege to chair the meeting.

All three events are still open for registrations, 2 out of the 3 are free of charge (and the third one with a really small fee for academics/students). I would love to see you there.

Christmas Season

I am planning to take some days off - actually not really off because I need to urgently, urgently, urgently finish several publications. I will be back to normal on January 10th, so please expect another edition of this neewsletter on Friday, 12th of January. Whether I will send one in between or do a YouTube video or fall into silence (rather unlikely, thouh) is undecided yet, it very much depends on my mood and whether I will have anything to tell in the meantime.

Daisy needs some rest too.

But she is also looking - with some amazement - into the future.

Thank you for your interest in my work, for your support and your feedback that I highly appreciate. I hope that you will find some time to rest, that you stay as healthy as possible and that you will have lots of nice and interesting conversations with people you like in the upcoming days.

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)