Stephan Dreyer

Stephan Dreyer is Senior Researcher in Media Law and Media Governance at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI). His research focuses on regulatory issues of mediated communication in a datafied society. He looks into challenges that regulation is facing in the light of new technologies, services and changing media use.

Currently he is working on legal issues of AI-based communication and automated decision-making systems, (social) bot communication and the limitations of transparency/disclosure as a regulatory resource.

He’s a legal expert in regulatory questions at the intersection of protection of minors, privacy and data protection. He also conducts legal and comparative analyses of systems in the area of media-related governance.

In the context of his PhD thesis, he has investigated the margins of appreciation as well as the determinants of legal decisions under uncertainty, with a specific focus on the protection of minors. His thesis also focused on the different scope for decision-making by legislators, supervisory authorities and self-regulatory bodies and their relevance for dealing with uncertainty.

After having studied Law at Universität Hamburg with a focus on Information and Communication Law, he has been member of staff at the Hans-Bredow-Institut since 2002.

Activities Outside of the Institute

Stephan Dreyer is spokesperson for the Complaint Committee as well as the Expert Committee of the “Association for Voluntary Self-Regulation of Digital Media Service Providers” (FSM); he is a Surveyor for Child Protection at the Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body (USK.online) as well as member of the USK Appeal Commission. He is member of the board of trustees of the German Association for Voluntary Self-Regulation of Television (FSF) and member of the Advisory Board at klicksafe.de. In the context of the European CEO Coalition (2011-2014) he has chaired the “Technical Task Force on Interoperability and Machine-Readability”, who has analysed opportunities and specifications of technical interoperability of electronic age classification information. From 2014 to 2016 he has been leading project co-ordinator of the international, EC co-funded technical pilot MIRACLE (Machine-redable and interoperable age label classifications in Europe), a project that has shown that interoperable age classifications are technically feasible, consumer-friendly and that ratings interoperability can strengthen the Digital Single Market to a significant degree.