Category: Uncategorized

A “Swiss approach”? Data sharing in the Swiss Confederation

Post author By Konstantin Schönfelder
Post date 6. January 2026

Data sharing is no longer a marginal issue, but a central pillar for many forms of innovation. Switzerland is well aware of this and has been systematically pursuing the goal of profitable and trustworthy “multiple use of data” since 2024 with the establishment of a “data ecosystem.” In this episode, we are talking to a Swiss data expert to find out how this is being achieved, whether Switzerland’s approach is consistent with or diverges from European regulations, and present a use case from the agricultural sector. We also discuss whether Switzerland’s size offers a strategic advantage for the efficient development of infrastructure, or whether it makes scaling up in global competition more difficult.

ShareCast Episode 10 – A “Swiss Way”? Data sharing in the Swiss Confederation. January 5, 2026.

transcript

Guests

André Golliez is a computer scientist and president of the Swiss Data Alliance.

Noémie Zink is the deputy head of the Digitalization and Data Management Division of the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture.

all ShareCast episodes

Episode 10: A “Swiss approach”? Data sharing in the Swiss Confederation

In this episode, we discuss the Swiss data ecosystem and ask whether Switzerland’s approach to European regulations is consistent or divergent, and to what extent the country’s manageable size offers a strategic advantage for the efficient development of infrastructure. | listen now

Episode 9: The Big Limitation? On Data Protection

We encounter data protection modules everywhere. Whether we accept or reject cookies when browsing, sign a consent form at the doctor’s office, or agree to the new terms and conditions when updating our smartphones – we are constantly dealing with data protection consents. On the one hand, data protection sets limits on the sharing of data. On the other hand, it can also be seen as a pull factor for data sharing. In our ninth episode of ShareCast, we take a closer look at the limits and potential of the GDPR. | listen now

Episode 8: Digital Sovereignty: Deciding how to share

Digital sovereignty is one of the key concepts in the debate on digital policy – and is often used to highlight the lack of sovereignty in the digital sphere. This lack did not arise suddenly, but in times of intensifying geopolitical conflicts, these dependencies now appear threatening. What are these dependencies and how do they affect data sharing? And what are the prospects for developing greater digital sovereignty? That’s what episode 8 of ShareCast is all about. | listen now

Episode 7: A dream of open knowledge: data sharing in science

The seventh episode deals with an entire area of modern society: science. We explore the significance of sharing digital data for scientific work and discuss the opportunities and challenges currently being debated in this field. | listen now

Episode 6: Open source software: shared or closed?

Open source software is software under free licences that grants its users four freedoms: to run the software for any purpose, to examine how it works and thus also its source code, to adapt it to their own needs, and to redistribute the software, even in modified versions. This distinguishes it from software that the open source movement refers to as ‘proprietary’ or ‘closed source software,’ which does not offer these ‘fundamental freedoms.’ But how exactly is collaboration and sharing carried out here? What interests determine the open source world, and what conflicts exist? | listen now

Episode 5: Data, Forests, and Timber

The fifth episode of ShareCast focuses on the data generated in the forest and forestry and timber industries. How is this data created? What is it used for? Who has an interest in it? Why is this data not shared? What stands in the way of this? What potential could be realized if this were to succeed? And how could the obstacles to data sharing in forestry and the timber industry be removed? | listen now

Episode 4: Connected Cars: Improvement or Data Hogs?

Having your own car was once a great promise of freedom. Getting into the car and being able to drive wherever we wanted. And keep to yourself: With your partner or family. This image of the car is still there – and yet another one is slowly taking over. Cars are now highly networked, high-performance machines that are constantly filming, recording and measuring. The manufacturer is virtually at the wheel. | listen now

Episode 3: Smart City: Data Overload?

In the third episode of ShareCast, we talk about the interplay between data and urban development. We take a look at what is associated with the term smart city and discuss the potential and challenges that smart city concepts entail. | listen now

Episode 2: Health Data: Just for Me or Donation?

On the one hand, the sharing of data is intended to provide a major boost to innovation in medical research and help improve healthcare. On the other hand, health data is extremely sensitive data, i.e. data with a clear personal reference that can cause great harm in the wrong hands. This difficult balancing act is illustrated very clearly when it comes to so-called rare diseases. | listen now

Episode 1: Data: Nothing (easier) to share?

We shed light on some of the things behind buzzwords such as sharing economy, data silo, platform economy and open science. And we examine the heterogeneous understandings that are associated with sharing: voluntarily giving away data for a specific purpose, sharing data with a counterpart, passing on data in a group or making data openly available to everyone – these are very different things. | listen now

Episode 0: ShareCast – starting July 1, 2025

| listen now

More about the ShareCast project

All ZEVEDI Podcasts

Uncategorized

3.2. Secure Money – What can blockchain do?

Post author By eFin & Demokratie
Post date 17. December 2025

Cover der Folge 3.2_Sicheres Geld - Was kann die Blockchain?

Blockchain is seen as a beacon of hope for secure, transparent, and privacy-friendly digital payments. But how justified are these hopes?

In this episode of Digitalgelddickicht, we take a closer look at Bitcoin, Ethereum, and DeFi. We look at how blockchains function as distributed ledgers, how consensus is achieved without banks or other central authorities, and why transparency is not a voluntary extra, but a fundamental principle of blockchain. Other topics include high energy consumption, the difference between proof of work and proof of stake, and the innovation potential – and risks – of Smart Contracts.

The focus is on the issue of privacy and payment security: contrary to widespread belief, public blockchains do not enable anonymity, but usually only pseudonymity – which can often be dissolved retrospectively. The episode shows what privacy coins are and how additional cryptographic solutions work, how investigative authorities are achieving success, and what unavoidable trade-offs exist between autonomy, convenience, regulation, and security. Maximum privacy does not come automatically when paying on the blockchain, but requires knowledge, effort, and discipline. Instead of hype or demonization, the episode argues for seeing the great innovation potential of blockchain as a young, fascinating basic technology, but also for not falling for false promises and researching into possible and necessary optimization, structural limitations, and risks of the technology.

Digitalgelddickicht Season Secure Money – What can the blockchain do? (German only) | 17 December 2025

Guests

Dr. Clara Schneidewind is a computer scientist and leads the Heinz Nixdorf Research Group for Cryptocurrencies and Smart Contracts at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy. In her research, she aims to develop solutions for the meaningful, secure, resource-efficient and privacy-preserving use of blockchain technologies. She is also a principal investigator in the CASA (Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries) Cluster of Excellence at Ruhr University Bochum. In her research, she develops solutions for the sensible, secure, resource-efficient, and privacy-preserving use of blockchain technologies. The aim is to create strong theoretical foundations to ensure a high degree of reliability in financial processes.

Jana Ringwald is a senior public prosecutor at the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Frankfurt/Main. In this role, she has been involved in internationally renowned investigations, such as the seizure of illegally obtained cryptocurrencies worth hundreds of millions of euros. In addition, she represented the Federal Ministry of Justice in the European Judicial Cybercrime Network at Eurojust in The Hague until 2024. She describes her experiences, including the case of the darknet marketplace WallStreetMarket discussed here, in the book “Digital. Kriminell. Menschlich – Eine Cyberstaatsanwältin ermittelt”.

Thomas Moser holds a doctorate in economics and is an Alternate Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank. Previously, he was an executive director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He is also a visiting professor at the University of Lucerne and works and conducts research primarily on CBDCs, crypto assets, and other forms of digital money.

Marek Jessen was a member of the ZEVEDI project Money as a Data Carrier and now works as a consultant for strategy and business of the digital euro at the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV). He has also worked for the Association of German Banks (BdB) and the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS).

Sources

Chainalysis: How Chainalysis Helped Uncover an NCA Officer’s Theft of Seized Bitcoin, 16. Juli 2025.

Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak, Marshall Pease: The Byzantine Generals Problem, ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), Vol. 4 (1982), 3, Seiten 382–401.

All Episodes of the Digitalgelddickicht

All ZEVEDI Podcasts

Uncategorized

3.1. Secure money – Who sees our payments and how they use them

Post author By eFin & Demokratie
Post date 17. December 2025

Digital payments have long been part of everyday life—whether we pay by card, cell phone, or PayPal. But every time we make a payment, we leave behind data tracks. In this opening episode of the season “Secure Money” we ask: Who actually sees this data? Why is payment data so much more sensitive than other data tracks? And how is it used, in particular by the current players in the payment market? Is a vague unease or indifference justified – because proper knowledge about what happens in the background is no given.

The episode discusses the difference between security and privacy, and which players use payment data for personalized offers, services, or other purposes. It highlights the data usage and business models of PayPal, Klarna, Mastercard, Visa, Google, and Apple Pay, traditional commercial banks, and the Wero initiative, and asks which payment options are more “data-light” and which are more “data-intensive.” Finally, we ask what risks could arise from the concentration of payment and user data at Big Tech – and why the handling of payment data is not only relevant on an individual but also on a societal level.

Digitalgelddickicht Season Secure Money – Who sees our payments and how they use them (German only)| 30 October 2025

Guests

Carolina Melches is an economist and consultant for digitalization and financial innovation at the Finanzwende Recherche. Among other things, she has addressed the risks and regulatory gaps associated with Big Tech in Finance in the study More Money, More Power: Big Tech in Finance (2024). Otherwise she is concerned with digital payments and banking, and digital central bank money. She was previously a research assistant in the German Bundestag.

Markus Montz is an editor at c’t (Heise), where he focuses on financial IT, electronic payments, online banking, and payment fraud.

Antonia Steigerwald is a research assistant at the Sociology Department of the University of Lucerne and a doctoral candidate in the SNF project Digital payments: Making payments personal and social. In this project, she is investigating how value is created from retail and payment data and what social consequences this has for users.

Dr. Markus Unternährer is a postdoctoral researcher at the Sociology Department of the University of Lucerne and a member of the SNF project Digital payments: Making payments personal and social. Having already dealt with the digital economy in his doctoral thesis, he is now researching the convergence of money and data transfers, the role of fintechs and payment infrastructures, and the negotiation processes between banks, payment providers, and users.

More literature

Marek Jessen: Teilt Paypal meine Daten, nur nicht mit mir? Eine Datenabfrage und die Grenzen des Auskunftsrechts, eFin-Blog, 6 November 2024 (German only).

Carolina Melches: Big Techs im Finanzwesen. Warum wir klare Regeln für Alipay, Apple Pay und Co brauchen, eFin-Blog, 10 July 2024 (German only).

Carolina Melches and Michael Peters: More Money, More Power: Big Techs in Finance, Finanzwende Recherche, Berlin 2024.

Alle Folgen der dritten Staffel des Digitalgelddickichts

Kategorie nicht gefunden.

All Episodes of the Digitalgelddickicht

All ZEVEDI Podcasts

Tags Big Tech

podcast-en podcast-sharecast-EN Uncategorized

Connected Cars: Improvement or Data Hogs?

Post author By Konstantin Schönfelder
Post date 2. September 2025

Your own car – that used to be a great promise of freedom. Climb into your car and go wherever you like, on your own terms. And do it all in private: with your partner or your family. This image of the car still exists – yet slowly, a new one is taking its place. Cars have now become highly connected, high-performance machines that constantly record, measure, and monitor their surroundings. In a way, the manufacturer is virtually in the driver’s seat, through hundreds of sensors, microphones, cameras, and also devices connected to the car, such as your smartphone and the vehicle’s app. And in the future, cars are expected to become even more independent – for example, capable of driving fully “autonomously.” This shift from mechanically driven to software-driven vehicles requires one thing above all: data. That’s why, in the fourth episode of ShareCast, we discuss the present and future of connected cars, their insatiable appetite for data, and the latest approaches to data management currently being explored in the automotive industry.

ShareCast Episode 4 – Connected Cars: Improvement or Data Hogs? 02 September 2025

Guests

Mysha Rykov, works as an independent researcher, previously with the Mozilla Foundation and Big Tech.
Paul Hannappel, Head of Mobility & Logistics at Bitkom.

Michael Zrenner and Michael Minich, Data Scientist and Project Manager for Connected Car Data at HUK-Coburg.

More information

The Mozilla study “Privacy Not Included” on connected cars can be found here.
The investigative report by Wirtschaftswoche on Catena-X can be read here.

all ShareCast episodes

Episode 10: A “Swiss approach”? Data sharing in the Swiss Confederation

Episode 9: The Big Limitation? On Data Protection

Episode 8: Digital Sovereignty: Deciding how to share

Episode 7: A dream of open knowledge: data sharing in science

Episode 6: Open source software: shared or closed?

Episode 5: Data, Forests, and Timber

Episode 4: Connected Cars: Improvement or Data Hogs?

Episode 3: Smart City: Data Overload?

Episode 2: Health Data: Just for Me or Donation?

Episode 1: Data: Nothing (easier) to share?

Episode 0: ShareCast – starting July 1, 2025

| listen now

More about the ShareCast project

All ZEVEDI Podcasts

Uncategorized

Digitalgelddickicht. On the political future of currency and values – a teaser

Post author By Konstantin Schönfelder
Post date 22. August 2025

Season 1 of Digitalgelddickicht approaches the topic of the digital euro from as many angles as possible, explaining, trying to understand and asking questions. With the help of interviewees from academia, representatives of commercial banks and the ECB, civil society and the EU Parliament, it sheds light on as many aspects as possible and adopts different perspectives in a total of 10 episodes.

An offer for all those who want to take a closer or random look at the opportunities and problems of a digital euro, the criticism of and hopes for a future digital central bank money.

Digitalgelddickicht – Episode 0 | 4 April 2023

All Episodes of the Digitalgelddickicht

All ZEVEDI Podcasts

Uncategorized

Season 2 – Small money, big impact? – Teaser

Post author By Konstantin Schönfelder
Post date 22. August 2025

In the second season, we look at small digital money. There are a large number of digital payment transactions that we hardly notice. The reason for this is that the sums involved are small. Small and tiny amounts: a subscription here, a tip, a one-off payment for a service there. In this podcast, we examine the weight of small money along different modes of digital payment. On the one hand, small digital money is expensive as soon as it starts moving, as the technical and transactional costs are relatively high compared to a giro transfer or handling coins. However, digital payments, for example by simply “holding on” to a smartphone or online by credit card, also give the impression of being particularly easy, instant and convenient. It is even marketed as particularly inclusive and democratic. A small amount for the individual can have a big impact – a justice-friendly idea. But for whom, and how? Does it correspond to the truth?

Digitalgelddickicht Season Small Payments – Teaser (German only) | 17 December 2024

Alle Folgen der zweiten Staffel des Digitalgelddickichts

Kategorie nicht gefunden.

All Episodes of the Digitalgelddickicht

All ZEVEDI Podcasts

Uncategorized

Teaser season 3: Secure money in the digital space?

Post author By Konstantin Schönfelder
Post date 22. August 2025

Cover Digitalgelddickicht Staffel 3- Sicheres Geld

Hackers, data leaks, dark patterns and new forms of money present us with security challenges that go far beyond personal accounts.

Season 3 of Digitalgelddickicht asks: To what extent do technology, politics and market power determine which attack surfaces open up in digital payment and whether and to what extent modern payment solutions protect us better? Who really protects our money and our financial transactions? Which technologies help, which promises are empty? And what do we need as individuals and as a society to remain secure and sovereign? From September here and wherever podcasts are available.

Digitalgelddickicht Season Secure Money – Teaser (German only) | 21 August 2025

Alle Folgen der zweiten Staffel des Digitalgelddickichts

Kategorie nicht gefunden.

All Episodes of the Digitalgelddickicht

All ZEVEDI Podcasts

podcast-DGD-en podcast-en Uncategorized

2.3. Small Money, big Impact? – Microtransactions in Gaming

Post author By Konstantin Schönfelder
Post date 2. July 2025

Already in the 1970s, the success of microtransactions in gaming began with the so-called arcade video games: In public arcades, games like Donkey Kong or Pac-Man could be started by inserting a coin into a machine. Today, so-called free-to-play games – which dominate the market – are initially offered at no cost and financed through microtransactions that allow players to purchase progress, items, or characters within the game.

Parts of the gaming industry have developed particularly sophisticated strategies: Through very small payments – individually negligible – the threshold for making a transaction is reduced to a minimum. And once someone makes a purchase, they are likely to do so again –such is the intelligence (or manipulation) of data-driven algorithms in their search for the small pool of high-spending players. These are often minors and gradually fall deeper into dependence on the game. In industry jargon, they are referred to as whales, whom game developers aim to “catch.”

Moreover, microtransactions have also changed game design itself: if the goal is no longer to promote the game as a product worth buying, but rather to continuously monetize it from within, then the game will be designed in a way that frequently makes transactions seem necessary. A mechanism of manipulation?

Season Small Money – Episode 3 (German only) | 02. Mai 2025

Guests

Lies van Roessel is a media studies scholar at the University of Halle, specializing in game studies and media industry studies. In her doctoral dissertation, she examined the development processes and norms of developers of free-to-play games.

Jörg Luibl worked for 21 years as editor-in-chief of the gaming magazine 4Players. He is now engaged with his own gaming magazine and podcast, Spielvertiefung.

Burak Tergek, a lawyer, works for the Consumer Advice Center in North Rhine-Westphalia (Verbraucherzentrale NRW), where he provides consultation, among other things, in cases of complaints related to gaming.

Further Information

The most recent publications by game, the association of the German games industry, can be found here. Critical reporting on the topic can also be read and watched from outlets such as Der Standard, Vice, or Jan Böhmermann’s ZDF Magazin Royale. The article by the technology blog Every on the topic of “whales” can be found here.

Alle Folgen der zweiten Staffel des Digitalgelddickichts

Kategorie nicht gefunden.

Alle Folgen des Digitalgelddickichts

Alle ZEVEDI-Podcasts

Uncategorized

Luca Neuperti

Post author By eFin & Demokratie
Post date 24. March 2025

Mercator-Journalist in Residence in April 2025

Luca Neuperti is a science slammer and science communicator.

He discusses topics in the fields of sociology, political science and computer science. Luca Neuperti’s focus is on presenting socially relevant intersections between technology and society in an understandable way, without neglecting either the technical or social aspects. With over 70 performances across Germany and as a finalist in the 2024 German Science Slam Championship, he communicates scientific content to a broader audience. At the end of 2025, he will begin studying digital sociology in the United Kingdom.

Project

Luca Neuperti’s focus at ZEVEDI is on the digital euro. His goal is not only to explain how it works technically, but also to examine the various social conceptions of a Digital Euro. Where do the conspiracy theories around it come from? How can different understandings of the Digital Euro be categorized?

To make these questions accessible to a broader public, Luca plans to give lectures in the style of a science slam. He aims to use entertaining but scientifically sound communication to introduce people to the topic and create a broader understanding of the digital euro.

The Residency – Output

■ „Bar und mit Karte, bitte!“ Der Digitale Euro unter der soziologischen Lupe, Science Snack, Science Slam Dortmund, 27.04.2025.

Further information on the programme and application procedure can be found on the German language website.

Back to the Mercator-Journalist in Residence Programme

More about eFin & Democr acy

all ZEVEDI topics

Uncategorized

Dr. Martin Hock

Post author By eFin & Demokratie
Post date 19. March 2025

Mercator-Journalist in Residence, March 2025

Dr. Martin Hock is financial editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

He writes about a variety of topics related to the financial market and personal finances, particularly on issues of asset accumulation and management. The topics the doctor of economics specializes in also include the disruptive potential of blockchain technology and so-called crypto currencies for the monetary and financial system.

He is head of the PRO-Finanzen-Briefing of the F.A.Z. and editor of the F.A.Z. Stock Exchange Encyclopedia. He is also a member of the jury of the European Commission’s European Small and Midcap Award.

Project

At ZEVEDI, Martin Hock is dealing with the question of power in Web3 and DeFi. In Web3, users are to regain control over their data and services. The guiding principle is a network of self-employed people whose services are remunerated directly (cryptomonetary) and through awarding capacities of control in the network. The question is whether this cooperative element is not threatened by internal and external concentration of power (Vermachtung). The tradability of tokens enables the assumption of control; practical developments support the thesis. Since Web3 is not in the focus of authorities regulating the competition, mergers and acquisitions are also not subject to any control.

The Residency – Impulses und Output

■ Podcast How stablecoins are changing the world, 15 July 2025, FAZ Finanzen Podcast

(🔒 The podcast is available with a FAZplus subscription and only in German).

■ Scientific workshop “Web 3”? Token Economy & Democratization, March 20, 2025, TU Darmstadt.

Further information on the programme and application procedure can be found on the German language website.

Back to the Mercator-Journalist in Residence Programme

More about eFin & Democr acy

all ZEVEDI topics