Privacy Conference

Michael Will was appointed President of the State Office for Data Protection Supervision on 1 February 2020 for a period of five years. 

After studying law in Würzburg and completing his legal traineeship in Bamberg, he began his professional career as an administrative lawyer in the services of the Free State of Bavaria at the government of Upper Franconia in Bayreuth in 1995. After moving to the Supreme Building Authority in the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior in 1997 and to the Bavarian State Chancellery in 2000, Michael Will became head of the Department of Public Safety and Order in the Landshut District Office in 2002. At the same time, he was Managing Director of the Zweckverband für Rettungsdienst und Feuerwehralarmierung Landshut. In 2006, he returned to the Supreme Building Authority in the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior as an advisor in the subject area of road law. 

In 2009, Michael Will was appointed Head of the Data Protection Department at the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior for Sport and Integration. He also held the office of the official data protection commissioner there and was a member of the Data Protection Commission of the Bavarian State Parliament. 

On behalf of the Bundesrat, he accompanied the entire deliberations of the Council Working Party on Data Protection and Exchange of Information (DAPIX) on the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from 2012 to 2015 and also performed the tasks of the country observer in the committee pursuant to Art. 93 of the GDPR, which is involved, for example, in the adoption of adequacy decisions by the European Commission.

Meike Kamp was elected as the new Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in October 2022. Between 2010 and 2019, the lawyer already worked at the authority in the field of data protection, media and freedom of information. From 2005 to 2010, she worked at the Independent Centre for Data Protection in Schleswig-Holstein. Before her election, Meike Kamp worked as a meeting representative in the Federal Council for the Bremen State Representation in Berlin.

Bernd Nauen (55), Dr iur., CEO German Advertising Association (ZAW). Lawyer (Of Counsel Tavanti, Redeker & Partner). Member of the Expert Committee of German Business for Competition Issues, member of the Executive Board of the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA), member of the Advisory Board of the Data Protection Foundation. He began his professional career in 2000 at ZAW, later becoming head of the legal department of a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company in 2004. In 2008 appointed managing director and in 2020 CEO of ZAW.

Attorney-at-law Dr Carlo Piltz is a partner of Piltz Legal, a Certified Data Protection Officer (TÜV®) as well as a Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe (CIPP/E).
He advises national and international clients on issues of data protection, IT security and IT law, both in day-to-day business and in complex cases and contract negotiations. In addition, he is himself active as an external data protection officer. Dr. Carlo Piltz was invited to serve as an expert in the respective parliaments for both the new version of the Federal Data Protection Act and the Berlin State Data Protection Act. He is part of the editorial board of the journal "Privacy in Germany" (PinG) and since the end of 2019 editor-in-chief of the journal "Datenschutz-Berater". In addition, he runs the internet blog "De Lege Data" on data protection law issues and developments (www.delegedata.de) and can point to numerous publications.

Prof Dr Max von Grafenstein, LL.M. is professor for "Digital Self-Determination" at the Einstein Center Digital Future (University of the Arts) and co-head of the research program "Governance of Data-Driven Innovation and Cybersecurity" at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG). Max has been a practicing lawyer since 2011 and is founder of the academic spin-off Law & Innovation. In the last 10 years, he has been developing interdisciplinary methods for designing effective data protection by design solutions and providing the corresponding empirical evidence. Funded by the German Ministry of Education, the academic spin-off Law & Innovation is currently developing consent banners and consent agents that enable data subjects to more intuitively decide on the processing of their data.