Becoming independent: An interview with Dr Waltraut Kotschy: Episode 3 of the 'Oral history of data protection' video series

Dr Waltraut Kotschy has been at the forefront of Austrian data protection since the 1970s, and actively involved in multiple European fora (e.g. at the Council of Europe, or the Article 20 Working Party) for decades. In this interview, Dr Kotschy revisits a life of data protection. She comes back to her early work for the Austrian government, and to her contribution to Austrian Data Protection Commission, among other subjects. Detailing the circumstances that led to the crucial judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in European Commission v Republic of Austria (C‑614/10) in 2012, she provides invaluable information on the evolution of the meaning of the ‘independence’ of data protection authorities. The mini video series is a collaborative project of the European Data Protection Supervisor and LSTS Research Group at the Vrije Universitet Brussel. This series features in-depth interviews with leading experts in data protection who shed light on how the landscape of data protection has transformed over time and what lies ahead.