Jutta Croll has graduated from Georg-August-University, Göttingen in political science, media science and German literature in 1991. She does research in national, European and international projects concerning the use of digital media, issues of child protection, Internet safety, data security and privacy, digital literacy focussing especially on disadvantaged groups with a lower level of access to the Information Society, accessibility and usability for disabled people, e-government and the impact of digitisation and social media on democracy.
As of 1992 she has been working as a researcher at the University of Bremen, Telecommunications Research Group in the Dep. of Applied Informatics. Thus she brings forward longstanding experience and knowledge both in regard to political and technical issues of Internet Governance. From 2002 to 2014 she was Managing Director of the German Digital Opportunities Foundation (Stiftung Digitale Chancen - SDC). The foundation is actively campaigning against the digital divide with the mission to counteract the exclusion of disadvantaged groups from the development towards an information society and further their digital competencies. The organisation is dedicated to ensure equal opportunities and aims to empower all people to benefit from digitisation, make conscious decisions on which services they use, whom they entrust their data and how they protect themselves.
From 2014 to 2016 Jutta Croll was Managing Director at the German Centre for Child Protection on the Internet. Since 2017 she advocates children’s right in the digital world as a project manager again at the Digital Opportunities Foundation, where she is also Chairwoman of the Board.
Jutta Croll was engaged in the WSIS process since 2003, she was part of the working group at Heinrich-Boell-Stiftung that elaborated the 1. Charta of Civil Rights for a sustainable Knowledge Society. She is member of two Dynamic Coalitions (Child Online Safety / Access in Libraries) and has attended and organised workshops at every IGF since Rio 2007.
She is a member of several steering groups and advisory boards of European and national projects and works also in close co-operation with the Council of Europe, the European Commission, the UN Internet Governance Forum, UNESCO and further transnational bodies.