Dr. Thorsten Wetzling
Head of Research, Surveillance and Democratic Governance, Berlin
Thorsten Wetzling

Thorsten Wetzling heads the research of the Berlin-based think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV) on basic rights, surveillance and democracy. His work focuses on the generation of new ideas and solutions for more efficient and democratic intelligence governance in Germany and Europe. Inthis capacity, Thorsten directs the European Intelligence Oversight Network (EION) and is Principal Investigator in a collaborative multi-year academic research project (GUARDINT.org), designed to address and to redress the gap between increasingly transnational surveillance practices and still largely national accountability mechanisms. In 2019, Thorsten launched aboutintel.eu – a new multi- stakeholder platform for pan-European conversations on all things intelligence.

Thorsten is a member of the scientific committee of the Cyber and Data Security Lab at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the advisory board on Europe/Transatlantic of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin. Thorsten holds a doctorate degree in political science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.