Network Activities
Two international workshops which dealt with the topics of privacy and access to data and documents in the internet age established the collaboration in the context of the German-Brazilian Network. The first workshop took place in Porto Alegre (december 2014), the second in Hamburg (february 2015). Further conferences in Porto Alegre, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro und Hamburg (2015, 2016 and 2017) included a range of issues: protection of privacy and personality rights, forgetting on the internet and right to be forgotten, change of the media, the role of intermediaries or internet regulation possibilities. Several Ph.D.-students came to Hamburg to conduct parts of their research project at the faculty of law of Hamburg University.
Workshop “Data Access and Freedom of Information in Information Society”
On 12 and 13 February 2015 Prof. Dr. Marion Albers organized a workshop on the topic “Data Access and Freedom of Information in Information Society” at Hamburg University. Data access and freedom of information are central to the modern information society. In particular, the access via internet to data distributed by parliaments, governments, administrations and courts offers new dimensions of democratic participation and influence of the citizens ("Digital Governance"). Open Government Data is the new keyword which describes the publication of public sector data or documents on the internet, access to these data or documents and their further use . Research on, among other, claims concerning data access and freedom of information is still necessary because a new range of legal problems arises. A number of questions arise in Brazil as well as in Germany and they are in some cases answered similarly, in other cases differently. The workshop dealt with a range of issues by complementary lectures.
These lectures were held by Ingo Sarlet, Carlos Alberto Molinaro, Magarethe Schuler-Harms, Draiton Gonzaga de Souza, Martin Eifert, Arnaldo Sampaio de Moraes Godoy, Jörn Reinhardt, Gilmar Mendes, Jens-Peter Schneider, Catarine Acioli, Indra Spiecker gen. Döhmann, Ivor A. M. Hartmann and Marion Albers.
Centre for German and European Studies
In 2017, a joint "Centre for German and European Studies" has been institutionalized at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre (UFRGS) and Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre (PUCRS); it is based at PUCRS. Director is Prof. Claudia Lima Marques (UFRGS), Co-Director is Prof. Dr. Draiton Gonzaga de Souza. Among the topics the Centre will deal with are globalization and justice, sustainability, multiculturalism, new technologies and innovation. Particularly with view to the last-mentioned issues the Centre will collaborate with the chair of Prof. Dr. Albers. We will realize research projects, conferences and lectures.