Professor Brian Valerius

Professor Brian Valerius took up the Chair of Artificial Intelligence in Criminal Law at the University of Passau in October 2022. In his research, he focuses on the entire gamut of criminal law and of criminal procedural law. More specifically, he studies the challenges that come with digitalisation and notably with artificial intelligence. Further priorities include medical criminal law as well as international and intercultural issues.

"The University of Passau is a young and dynamic institution. Among other things, it advocates internationalisation, digitalisation, sustainable development as well as diversity and thus embodies values that I can completely subscribe to. The Faculty of Law, in particular, enjoys an excellent reputation in Germany (and beyond), also on account of its interdisciplinary research in digitalisation and its exquisite study programmes. I hope to be able to contribute to the research and teaching in this subject area from the perspective of criminal law, especially regarding questions relating to artificial intelligence. What I find particularly interesting are the legal requirements for the transparency of artificial intelligence, the standards that generally need to be observed in AI programming and the various applications of algorithms in the practice of prosecuting authorities and the courts."

More about his research

Professor Brian Valerius’s primary research concern became fairly clear early on in his two academic qualification papers. The first paper is about inquiries conducted by prosecuting authorities in communication services of the internet involving state investigations in a cross-border medium (doctoral thesis of 2004 entitled "Ermittlungen der Straffverfolgungsbehörden in den Kommunikationsdiensten des Internet. Hoheitliche Recherchen in einem grenzüberschreitenden Medium")" and the second about the consideration of cultural values in German criminal law dogmatics ("Kultur und Strafrecht. Die Berücksichtigung kultureller Wertvorstellungen in der deutschen Strafrechtsdogmatik“, habilitation thesis of 2009). In addition, his list of publications includes numerous contributions to academic as well as practice-oriented commentaries, academic articles on fundamental and topical themes as well as instructional materials in the form of textbooks, exam collections and essays on education.

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