#rp23 keynote speaker Lilith Wittmann: A rocky road to eGovernment?

Lilith Wittmann is a software developer, IT security expert and activist from Berlin. Among other things, she campaigns for Open Data – data that is freely accessible to all – and does civil society work on topics such as administrative digitisation and security research. 

Lilith is a member of the group "zerforschung", which investigates the security of information technology systems, among other things. She became known for exposing security vulnerabilities in the Luca app and in the election campaign app "CDU connect". Although she initially only reported the vulnerability to the developers, the self-proclaimed "riot influencer" was supposed to sign a confidentiality agreement. After she refused, the party's federal executive director filed a criminal complaint, which was withdrawn again due to great public pressure. It was also not possible to invoke the German "hacker paragraph" about spying on and intercepting data, as the data was already publicly accessible.

Being critical of how and why the German administration does not work, Lilith calls herself "the black bloc of administrative digitalisation". In her #rp23 keynote, she will go on a search for clues and question why even billions in funding have not made Germany a bit more digital: Why is it that the German administration is not digitally accessible for us as citizens and that there are hardly any digital administrative services? Is it federalism, is data protection to blame for everything – or is it perhaps a strange understanding of digitisation in the administration?

At #rp23, we look forward to Lilith's inspiring insights – and are curious to learn how the digitalisation of the administration could finally work.