Hendrik Sievers

Meet our lecturer, Hendrik Sievers. Hendrik leads the courses on data protection at the hsp Academy.

My name is Hendrik Sievers. I am a solicitor and a partner at the law firm beck rechtsanwälte.

Please introduce yourself.

I work at the firm’s Hamburg office and advise companies on IT and media law. My practice focuses on contract law, e-commerce, data protection and reputation management. I am also TÜV-certified as an external data protection officer and work with a range of companies across various sectors. This gives me the advantage of not only understanding the legal challenges faced by businesses, but also recognising just how difficult it can be to implement data protection in practice.

What is your professional background?

I am a specialist solicitor in information technology law and a TÜV-certified external data protection officer. Fortunately, throughout my professional career, I have been able to pursue my personal interests – particularly my technical aptitude – to a great extent. I started programming websites and assembling or repairing computers very early on at school. I was then able to incorporate these technical subjects into my law degree. I entered the field of data protection at a very early stage and subsequently undertook a great deal of work in this area at my first law firm, particularly for insurance companies. This allowed me to gain a very good understanding of data protection even before the GDPR came into force, and I was certainly able to approach the subject with a little more composure than many companies that only began dealing with data protection once the GDPR was introduced. All in all, I’m delighted that I can now make the most of my technical aptitude in my profession.

What made you want to get involved in this course as a lecturer?

The idea put forward by hsp of bringing together various topics into an e-learning course for digital consultants really appealed to me right from the start. And, of course, I thought to myself: „Data protection simply must be included in a series like this.“ For me, therefore, there was absolutely no question that I would seize this opportunity to present the topic of data protection – which I’m very passionate about – as part of this course. Believe me, it’s not as daunting a topic as you might think.

What can participants expect from your course, and what makes your course special?

I hope that, through this course, I can help participants see the topic of data protection – which, unfortunately, carries very negative connotations – in a positive light. It’s important to me that participants realise it doesn’t actually involve that much effort. Many topics are, of course, fraught with misunderstandings. That has to be said, naturally. I don’t view e-learning as a way of resolving every single question afterwards. However, participants will gain an overview of the issues that need to be addressed, both from a company’s perspective and from an employee’s perspective. What makes this course special is that we’ll dispel the biggest misconceptions and look at the misconceptions surrounding data protection – some of which hold people back, whilst others result in a great deal of extra work.

Learn about data protection from a new perspective and is currently taking the course with Hendrik Sievers.