On November 30, 2016 Bernhard C. Witt was elected new spokesman by the executive committee of the department “Security – Protection and Reliability” of the Informatics Society. He now represents the department “Security” in all aspects externally and is at the same time—as a department spokesman—a member of the executive committee of the Informatics Society.
Bernhard C. Witt has been associated with Ulm University for over 25 years now. He started his studies in computer science in the winter semester 1989/90, which was the first year computer science was offered as a study programme at Ulm University. Amongst several activities in honorary capacity during his studies, he was a representative of the conference of informatics student bodies at the “Fakultätentag Informatik” and contributed to the recommendations for the credit points system and the accreditation standards of computer science study programmes. Since 2005 he has worked as an assistant lecturer at Ulm University and offers the course “Fundamentals of Privacy and IT-Security”. The first textbook on privacy protection—“Datenschutz kompakt und verständlich“—is an outcome of this lecture.
His main occupation is as a consultant for privacy and information security at the it.sec GmbH & Co. KG, where he is head of the division IT Governance, Risk & Compliance Management/Privacy. Bernhard C. Witt considers his election as spokesman of the department “Security – Protection and Reliability” as a visible sign that “practitioners can make a difference with and within the Informatics Society to the benefit of security”. This opportunity is what he considers as a key task for his future work as spokesman: “Security is becoming more and more important in everyday life, thus making a joint effort on this topic imperative. Over the next three years as spokesman of the department, I will endeavour to raise critical awareness for and draw attention to core themes, such as information security, privacy, and reliability, and to strengthen the competences in this field.”
We are glad that Bernhard C. Witt, despite his new function, will continue to pass his extensive knowledge and broad experience on to our students.