Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz (ULD, Engl. Independent Centre for Privacy Protection) is the Data Protection Authority of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost Federal State of Germany. Its office with 40 employees is located in Kiel, Germany. The Privacy Commissioner of Schleswig-Holstein, Dr. Thilo Weichert, is head of ULD. ULD is responsible for both data protection and freedom of information in Schleswig-Holstein.
The basis for the work of ULD is laid down in the Landesdatenschutzgesetz (State Data Protection Act Schleswig-Holstein). This act is one of the most progressive ones worldwide and includes among others provisions on a seal of privacy for IT products and on privacy protection audits for public authorities.
Since 1998 ULD has been working on multiple national and international projects in the field of data security and privacy protection, among others, the EC-funded projects “TClouds – Trustworthy Clouds: Privacy and Resilience for Internet-scale Critical Infrastructure”, “FIDIS – Future of Identity in the Information Society”, “PRIME – Privacy and Identity Management for Europe”, “PrimeLife – Privacy and Identity Management in Europe for Life”, and “PRISE – Privacy enhancing shaping of security research and technology – A participatory approach to develop acceptable and accepted principles for European Security Industries and Policies”. Currently ULD is providing its privacy expertise to the EU FP7 projects “ABC4Trust – Attribute-based Credentials for Trust”, “FutureID – Shaping the Future of Electronic Identity”, and “SurPRISE – Surveillance, Privacy and Security: A large scale participatory assessment of criteria and factors determining acceptability and acceptance of security technologies in Europe”.
In VALCRI, ULD is mainly involved in the Human Issues Work Package (WP3), contributing to Task T3.4 “Legal and Ethical Aspects”
Know-how in privacy and data protection; legal expertise; ethical expertise; requirements engineering and evaluation on the basis of EU as well as national (German) data protection law; risk analysis; privacy impact assessment; privacy-enhancing technologies; privacy by design.