Prof. Dr. Gerrit Hornung, LL.M.

Gerrit Hornung was born in Kassel in 1976. After graduating from the Albert-Schweizer-School in Kassel, he did a voluntary social year in a kindergarten.

Hornung studied law and philosophy at the University of Freiburg (1996-2001). After his first state examination in law, he attended an LL.M. course at the University of Edinburgh which focused on European law and European and international human rights. From 2002 to 2004, he was a member of the “Projektgruppe verfassungsverträgliche Technikgestaltung“ (Project Group Constitutionally Compatible Technology Design, provet) at the University of Kassel. His PhD thesis, dealing with the legal problems of smartcards (particularly the new German ID card and patient data cards), was awarded the 2006 Science Award of the Deutsche Stiftung für Recht und Informatik (DSRI). He completed his legal clerkship in Hamburg in 2006.

From 2006 to 2011, Hornung was managing director of the project group provet and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Kassel. He completed his Habilitation on “Fundamental Rights Innovations” in 2013 (Venia Legendi for Public Law, European Law, Technology Law and Legal Theory). From 2011 to 2015, he was a full professor for Public Law, IT Law and Legal Informatics at the University of Passau and speaker of the interdisciplinary Institute of IT-Security and Security Law (ISL). In 2015, Hornung was appointed to the Chair for Public Law, IT Law and Environmental Law at the University of Kassel, one of the directors of its Interdisciplinary Research Center for Information Technology Design (ITeG), and head of the Project Group provet.

Selected offices and memberships: Chair of the Central Ethics Committee of the University of Kassel (since 2019); Executive Director of the Institute of Economic Law at the University of Kassel (2019-2021); Advisory Board of the Zeitschrift für Datenschutz (since 2011) and of the Zeitschrift für Europäisches Daten- und Informationsrecht (since 2024); Research Advisory Board of the Plattform Industry 4.0 (since 2013); Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer e.V. (VDStRL); Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI, among others multiple speaker of the election committee for the online elections); Deutsche Gesellschaft für Recht und Informatik e.V. (DGRI); Senate representative of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for the online elections 2023; Liaison Professor of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (since 2022); Member of the Board of the Juristische Gesellschaft zu Kassel (since 2024).