The Advisory Board on Digital Consumer Protection supports the BSI in an advisory capacity, assisting in the development and expansion of its tasks in the field of digital consumer protection. It comprises ten members, who ensure that the perspectives of consumers, civil society, consumer sciences, information technology and businesses are all incorporated into the process.

An overview of the Advisory Board members

Member	Organisations
Prof. Martina Sasse (Speaker)	Ruhr University Bochum
Dr. Dennis Romberg (Deputy Speaker)	Federation of German Consumer Organisations e. V.
Philipp Ehmann	eco - Association of the Internet Industry e. V.
Prof. Hannes Federrath	German Informatics Society e. V.
Linus Neumann (stand-in: Frank Rieger)	Chaos Computer Club e. V.
Prof. Martin Schmidt-Kessel	University of Bayreuth
Felix Kuhlenkamp, (stand-in: Dr. Pablo Schumacher)	Bundesverband Informationswirtschaft, Telekommunikation und neue Medien (German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media) e. V.
Dr. Ayten Öksüz	Consumer Association of North Rhine-Westphalia e. V.
Dr. Markus Bieletzki	Stiftung Warentest
Elisa Lindinger	Superrr Lab SL gGmbH
Prof. Dr. Kathrin Loer	Hochschule Osnabrück (University of Applied Sciences)
Prof. Dr. Gunnar Stevens	University of Siegen

Responsibilities of the Advisory Board

The digitisation of everyday consumer life not only brings with it a wide range of opportunities and conveniences, but also significant new threats, which present a number of challenges for consumer protection. This applies in particular to the aspect of information security, which is becoming increasingly relevant due to online shopping, electronic booking portals and networked devices - just to name a few examples. In this context, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) will play an even greater role in making digitisation more secure for consumers in future.

There are two factors that should not be underestimated here: firstly, consumers are heterogeneous, both as a target group and in terms of their protection-related needs; secondly, the field of activity relating to IT security is highly dynamic. In an effort to develop suitable consumer protection measures in the digital world while meditating between these two aspects, an Advisory Council on Digital Consumer Protection was convened at the BSI in June 2021. The task of this Advisory Board is to tackle issues from multiple perspectives, thereby ensuring that the advice provided is geared towards consumer needs and interests.

These safeguards include:

• Advising the BSI on how to shape digital consumer protection measures in a way that improves protection and resilience against all kinds of threats to information security;
• Advising the BSI on how to support consumers in the areas of risk awareness, assessment skills and solution expertise, while also recommending suitable projects relating to product inspection in the area of digital consumer protection;
• Providing advice on the results of the BSI's market monitoring activities (market analysis and forecast) for consumers' commercially available and networked IT systems and online services and then prioritising courses of action;
• Providing recommendations on how to address consumer trends and on new approaches to consumer protection;
• Providing recommendations on the holistic implementation and completion of BSI tasks in the field of consumer protection.