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Konrad Kollnig (K.A.S.)

Konrad Kollnig is an associate professor at Maastricht University's Law & Tech Lab (Faculty of Law), one of the few computer scientists working inside a law faculty (PhD, Oxford). He measures what apps and AI actually do with our data – and whether the laws that govern them work in practice. He leads the Comp4Good research initiative, an interdisciplinary team focused on auditing AI and other digital systems. His studies of hidden tracking and consent across two million Android and iOS apps won the Council of Europe's Stefano Rodotà Award and underpin privacy tools used by millions. He is the author of The App Economy (Bristol University Press, 2026, free & open access) and has been a mobile app developer for fifteen years.

Key questions. The problems I work on, across computer science, law, and society.

What's going on inside our apps? Is iPhone really better for privacy? Most apps quietly track us. I built TrackerControl (200,000+ downloads) to make that visible — an open-source Android tool grounded in the analysis of some two million apps. Its blocking approach was adopted by DuckDuckGo for their App Tracking Protection, now used by millions every day. Selected work: FAccT '22 · PETS '22 · SOUPS '21.

Europe has the world's most ambitious tech laws. Do they actually work? AI regulation is ambitious on paper, but does it work in practice? In RegTech4AI (AiNed Fellowship), I develop regulatory technologies to make the EU AI Act and GDPR work in practice. I also co-lead REGULAIRE (€4.7M EU Horizon MSCA), a European doctoral network helping regulators keep pace with technological change. In CoCoDa (€1.2M SNSF), I build techno-legal methods to access platform data, with partners across the UK, Switzerland and the EU. Highlights: The App Economy (Bristol UP, 2026) · Beyond the EU: China's data laws (Best Paper, ConPro '23).

Should we ban social media – or build technology that people control? Rather than waiting for bans, we build tools that put people back in control. As CTO of the Centre for Digital Habits (formerly Reduce Digital Distraction), led by Oxford psychologist Ulrik Lyngs, I develop open-source, privacy-first software grounded in ten years of research on how people actually regain control of their attention. Related work: Right to repair for apps (FAccT '23), GreaseDroid (CHI '21), ReDD Focus Android, and ReDD Block Android.

Policy reach. Research cited by the European Parliament, European Commission, OECD, US FTC, Nordic Council, Bundeskartellamt, UK CMA, and the Italian DPA. He has served on the European Data Protection Board's Pool of Experts and the UK ICO's Technology Advisory Panel, and has briefed regulators including the UK CMA, CNIL, and the Council of Europe.

Media. Featured in Forbes, Wired, Vox, TechCrunch, New Scientist, Der Standard, La Stampa, and Le Temps.

Awards.

Team. I lead the Comp4Good initiative with a growing interdisciplinary team. Meet the team →

Elsewhere on the web.