© Catharina Frank

In the first case, the court fined a father 7,200 euros for regularly posting photos and videos of his underage children on a social media platform, thereby infringing upon their most private sphere of life. In the second case, a cyber security researcher was ordered to pay €2,750 in damages after a port scan, carried out using a plugin from the dark web, had caused significant IT disruptions at a company.
A detailed account of the cases heard, along with the judges’ rulings in the mock trials, will be published towards the end of the year in the book series ‘Legal Framework for Cyber­security and Privacy’ by Springer-Vieweg for the port-scan case, and in the November issue of the journal ‘Data Protection and Data Security’ (DuD) for the sharenting case.

Since 2024, ATHENE has been conducting simulation trials involving realistic cases in which real judges hand down judgements, with the aim of strengthening legal certainty in the field of IT law – particularly in cybersecurity research. Information on previous simulation studies, past judgements and how to submit a case yourself can be found at: https://www.athene-center.de/leap-simulationsstudien.

Press release