The aim of this thesis is to uncover the historical construction of the data protection problem, of data protection as its (abstract) solution, as well as the architecture of its legal implementation, in order to critically assess this construction and to draw conclusions for the design of ICT systems. The thesis reveals which concepts of humankind and society, organizations, information technology and information processing, which informatics, information science, sociological and jurisprudential concepts, schools of thought and theories, and which scientific and pre-scientific assumptions and premises underlie the analysis of the data protection problem, and how they have influenced the specific solution of this problem. Based on a critical assessment of this construction the thesis concludes that data protection must be re-derived as a solution for the information power problem, which is generated by the industrialization of social information processing, and presents an abstract, state-of-the-art data protection attacker model, an analytical framework for a data protection impact assessment as well as a procedural operationalization approach illustrating the sequence as well as the substantive issues to be examined and addressed in this process. The thesis then draws conclusions for the design of data protection friendly—and not necessarily just legally compliant—ICT systems.
