Although privacy sounds in the abstract – it can be design like a sports car or a closet. And that is exactly what Lea Kissners Job.

Earlier on Lea Kissners business card, that she is “a professional paranoid”. That was of course meant ironically. In normal life, Kissner is a relaxed contemporary that is fun for everyone. In your Job, however, is a shot of Paranoia is quite advantageous – for example in their function as the long-standing head of a team at Google called NightWatch, to the night’s watch. “Our job is to protect our users from the dark side of the Internet,” she says proudly. This means that hundreds of employees each and every product that comes on the market, and each System that is used internally to check meticulously on privacy and security.

people like Lea Kissner ensure that the protection of the user data in product development. When Software engineers design an application, it shall ensure that the privacy Standards of Google are adhered to and revised the product, together with their colleagues, if that should not be the case. “I want to live in a world in which the privacy of users is respected,” she says. “And this world can I help to shape, by I develop with my Team and appropriate technologies.”

If a project does not meet your requirements, you can Kissner Veto. Developers and product managers of the American precedes therefore the reputation to be scary. When asked about this, she laughs out loud. “I don’t think you have to be afraid of me,” she says and looks at her colleagues in addition to curious. “Stephan”, she asks. “Do I frighten you?”

(photo: Mathew Scott)

Stephan Micklitz, head of development for privacy and security products, shakes his head and smiles. He travelled for a week from Munich to the Google headquarters to California to Mountain View, to meet colleagues and projects. He discussed with Lea Kissner over the privacy Design. Indeed, you need to create privacy as well as a sports car or closet. “I think to myself, what could go wrong and how it could go wrong and find ways that these scenarios occur,” says Lea Kissner.

billions of people around the world use Google products. To take into account the needs of different user groups is therefore said easier than done. “A System, on which millions of people access at the same time, it must be built differently than one for ten thousand users,” says Stephan Micklitz. In addition, the Lea must take into account Kissner, Google’s users move in many different worlds. You tried to make the products in such a way that all user groups feel comfortable and in case of doubt, decide for themselves, what they share and what is not.

In 2011, during the Arab spring, for example, many activists of the YouTube Videos uploaded, where opponents of the regime and protesters were the end of. Without knowing it, played by the activists, their opponents in the hands. Under Lea Kissners technical line, a Feature was developed, with the faces in the YouTube pixellation Clips. Moreover, it allowed the user to delete the unverpixelte Original. “For dissidents in the Middle East is an important Option,” says Lea Kissner. “A fashion blogger in Germany might want to keep the unedited Video. That is why both is on YouTube.”

data privacy and security is a complex research area that is constantly changing. The NightWatch Team has therefore for the most important sub-areas of its own experts: cryptography, biometrics, data anonymization, or privacy for artificial intelligence. Software developers work side-by-side with former journalists, activists, or neuro-scientists. Some of the employees have studied Economics, and examine the incentive structures of cyber criminals. “The actions of criminals to predict, one must understand how they make their money,” says Lea Kissner.

(photo: Mathew Scott)

Not only in this respect, the Team is diverse. Aware, Lea has taken to Kissner that their employees come from all over the world. Men and women hold the balance, some employees see as a “non-binary” or “genderqueer” – i.e., no gender can be clearly allocated. For Lea Kissner the Name NightWatch is also available for this variety. “To me, the great Fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett, a fall in the NightWatch, a night watchman troop of trolls, vampires, werewolves, and Zombies to protect a town,” she says. “Just the mixture of different types makes the group successful.”

Although the NightWatch is grown to the heart, Lea Kissner Recently, a new role at Google. It is now for the privacy-Design of the infrastructure that underlies all applications of Google. “I had a desire to deal intensively with technical solutions,” says Lea Kissner. Professional suspicious of you is not, but even if that is now your business card.

Infobox, article 4 short biographies

Lea Kisser initiated over the years, a Google Team is called NightWatch night guard, which checks all the products and the internal processes of Google on data security and privacy. Recently you is for the technical Design of the security and privacy of applications from Google. She received her PhD at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) in computer science, joined in 2007, to Google and works at the headquarters in Mountain View, California. the

Stephan Micklitz is as head of development worldwide in the areas of security and privacy at Google responsible. He studied at the Technical University of Munich, computer science, and since the end of 2007 at Google in Munich, Germany.