Advisory Council on Consumer Issues

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Advisory Council for Consumer Affairs was set up on November 7, 2014 by the Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection Heiko Maas to advise the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection on consumer issues. He meets regularly in Berlin and has there its own office . The Expert Council is independent and consists of nine members.>

development

In April 2013, consumer experts proposed that consumer policy in Germany be made more evidence-based and that an independent expert council be set up for consumer issues. This proposal was included in the coalition agreement for the 18th parliamentary term of the Merkel III cabinet in November 2013 and implemented in November 2014. The Expert Council is financed by the Federal Ministry of Justice with an annual amount of € 480,000.

According to the coalition agreement between the parties in the Federal Government of February 2018, the work of the Expert Council will continue during the legislative period.

tasks

The council of experts for consumer questions is supposed to present the situation of consumers and the corresponding development tendencies, undesirable developments and correction possibilities. Future topics should also be identified. It develops recommendations for action for consumer policy and consumer information and reviews consumer policy instruments and measures. In addition, he can submit further expertise and statements at any time. It provides expert opinions on the situation of consumers in Germany on important consumer-relevant topics and developments. After its establishment for the subject area of ​​the digital world , the Expert Council placed the focus of its activities. The topics of 2016 included the opportunities and risks of crowdfunding, the further development of consumer law in the digital world and digital sovereignty.

Members of the 1st appointment period 2014–2018

The following nine people were members of the Advisory Council on Consumer Issues in its first term of office:

Members of the 2nd appointment period 2018–2022

The following nine people are members of the German Advisory Council on Consumer Issues in its second term

  • Nina Baur (Technical University Berlin, Chair for Methods of Empirical Social Research at the Institute for Sociology)
  • Susanne Dehmel (Business Representative, Bitkom eV, Member of the Executive Board, Head of Legal & Security Division)
  • Veronika Grimm (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Economics)
  • Peter Kenning , Chairman (University of Düsseldorf, Chair for Business Administration, especially Marketing)
  • Christa Liedtke (from July 15, 2019, Professor of Sustainability Research at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and Head of Department for Sustainable Production and Consumption at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy)
  • Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz (European University Institute, Florence)
  • Sven Scharioth (consumer practice representative, federal consumer association, project manager market watchdog digital world)
  • Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider , Deputy Chairwoman (University of Bonn, Chair for Civil Law, Information and Data Law)
  • Gert G. Wagner (Emeritus, Research Associate at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society Berlin, Max Planck Fellow at the MPI for Human Development (MPIB) Berlin, Senior Research Fellow in the longitudinal study of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at the DIW)
  • Nicola Jentzsch (from December 10, 2018 to March 14, 2019)

Act

On January 19, 2016, the Expert Council presented its work results and recommendations on the digital world, according to which the quality of information should be improved, the competence of consumers strengthened and the legal protection of personal data guaranteed. In the press, these work results were sometimes rated as "very general" and in one case referred to as "platitudes". According to a research by Spiegel, the expert council falls short of the expectations of a panel of experts: "The experts meet every four to six weeks in the ministry for advice Not too much came out of it. Ministeriale meanwhile consider the consumer wise men to be more of a self-promoter who use their office to make themselves important. "

On December 1, 2016, the Council published an opinion on “Consumer Rights Policy 2.0 - Consumers in the Digital World”. In it, the Council of Economic Experts calls for consumer law to be adapted to the digital age in order to create legal clarity and legal certainty when using digital services. The Council of Economic Experts proposes a total of eleven measures to protect consumers. These range from changes in the law to the redefinition of legal relationships, a law regulating algorithms and new research approaches. The opinion was positively received by the public; it contained "a whole series of concrete proposals of how effective regulation should look like". Building on this, the Expert Council drew up an expert opinion on the subject of "Digital Sovereignty", which it presented on June 29, 2017. The report deals with aspects of consumer competence, regulation and consumer-friendly technology in the digital world and contains recommendations for action for politics. This includes, among other things, the requirement for a data portal that should give consumers the opportunity to get an overview of the individual data flow and also to delete or change the personal data used by the providers.

At the end of its first term of appointment, the Advisory Council published an expert opinion on “Consumer-friendly Scoring” on October 31, 2018. This deals in depth with credit scoring, telematics tariffs in motor vehicle insurance and discounts for certain health-related behaviors in health insurance.The recommendations of the experts for the regulation of scoring algorithms aim to make scoring transparent and understandable for consumers (disclosure of influencing characteristics ), To make scoring non-discriminatory, to ensure the quality of scoring procedures and to strengthen state supervision.

Federal Minister Katharina Barley appointed the members of the second appointment period on December 1, 2018. On December 10, 2018, the Expert Council elected Peter Kenning as Chairman and Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider as Deputy Chairman.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b SVRV - Expert Council for Consumer Questions. In: svr-verbrauchfragen.de. June 17, 2020, accessed June 19, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Christoph Strünck, Kornelia Hagen, Hans-W. Micklitz, Andreas Oehler , Lucia A. Reisch : What use is consumer policy to consumers? Plea for a systematic evidence-based consumer policy , Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (April 2013), accessed on October 13, 2014
  3. ↑ New impetus for consumer policy: Expert council for consumer issues starts. In: bmjv.de. November 7, 2014, accessed June 19, 2020 .
  4. ↑ A new departure for Europe A new dynamic for Germany - A new cohesion for our country , Handelsblatt , February 7, 2018, line 6413, accessed on February 8, 2018
  5. ^ New Council of Experts - Experts in Consumer Questions , Federal Government, November 7, 2014, accessed on December 17, 2014
  6. ↑ Focus topic 2015. (No longer available online.) In: www.svr-verbübersetzungen.de. Archived from the original on January 3, 2017 ; Retrieved January 3, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.svr-verbübersetzungen.de
  7. ↑ Topics for 2016. (No longer available online.) In: www.svr-verbübersetzungen.de. Archived from the original on January 3, 2017 ; Retrieved January 3, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.svr-verbübersetzungen.de
  8. ↑ a b Verwaltungsrat , test.de , accessed on December 17, 2014
  9. ↑ http://www.svr-verbrauchfragen.de/berendung-von-frau-helga-zander-hayat-in-den-sachverstaendigenrat-fuer-verbrauchfragen/
  10. ↑ Gert G. Wagner appointed to the Expert Council for Consumer Questions , German Institute for Economic Research , November 7, 2014, accessed on December 17, 2014
  11. ↑ New Advisory Council for Consumer Issues appointed. Retrieved August 21, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Change in the SVRV: Prof. Dr. Christa Liedtke appointed to the Advisory Council for Consumer Issues. Retrieved August 21, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Consumer Policy in the Digital World - Viewpoints of the German Advisory Council on Consumer Issues. Expert Council for Consumer Issues at the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, January 19, 2016, accessed on March 16, 2016 .
  14. ↑ Axel Kannenberg / dpa: Advisory Council calls for better consumer protection on the Internet. heise.de, January 19, 2016, accessed on January 27, 2016 .
  15. ↑ Dominik Rzepka: Embarrassing platitudes for Heiko Maas. (No longer available online.) ZDF / heute.de, January 19, 2016, archived from the original on January 27, 2016 ; accessed on January 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.heute.de
  16. ↑ Melanie Amann and Alexander Neubacher: Experts: Painting with Maas . In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 2016 ( online - December 3, 2016 ).
  17. ↑ Consumer Law 2.0 Consumers in the Digital World Expert opinion of the German Advisory Council on Consumer Issues, svr-verbübersetzungen.de from December 2016, accessed on January 3, 2017
  18. ↑ Government advisors call for more consumer protection on the Internet . ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed on January 3, 2017]).
  19. ↑ The German Advisory Council on Consumer Questions presents an opinion on “Consumer Law 2.0”. Retrieved January 3, 2017 .
  20. ↑ Clear boundaries for the digital economy: experts call for the Algorithms Act & Co. In: netzpolitik.org . December 15, 2016 ( netzpolitik.org [accessed January 3, 2017]).
  21. ↑ The German Advisory Council on Consumer Issues presents the “Digital Sovereignty” report. Retrieved July 12, 2017 .
  22. ↑ See at a glance who has my data . ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed on July 12, 2017]).
  23. ↑ The German Advisory Council on Consumer Issues presents a report on consumer-friendly scoring. Retrieved November 21, 2018 .
  24. ↑ The risk of valuation . ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed on November 21, 2018]).
  25. ↑ Scoring: Government advisors warn against glass consumers . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed November 21, 2018]).