Project financed by the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer ProtectionStudy and dialog process regarding the potential of consumer protection technologies for consumer protection and empowerment

Digitalization and its impact on consumers are one of the defining issues in national and international consumer policy discourse. However, this discussion has so far lacked an analytically and empirically based systematic discourse on how digital technologies could and should be used by consumer policy actors in order to protect the rights and interests of consumers and to empower them more effectively and efficiently. Moreover, there is still a shortcoming of platforms on which the discourse on this issue is conducted between technology experts and practitioners, for example, from consumer organizations and authorities.

Therefore, the project aims to explore the potential of digital technologies for the enhancement of consumer interests, to identify relevant fields of application in a dialogue between technology experts and representatives of consumer organizations and to disseminate the results in academia and practice. This project is financed by the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection.

The final report on the research project was prepared as of 28.02.2021. The short version can be found here, the long version is available for download here.