Arne Semsrott

He is the director of the freedom of information NGO FragDenStaat and founder of the political initiative Freiheitsfonds that campaigns for decriminalisation of fare-dodging.

Since 2014, he has been director of the freedom of information initiativ FragDenStaat at the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, for which he received the Otto Brenner Award in both 2015 and 2016.

He is co-initiator of the OpenSCHUFA initiative, which was nominated for the Grimme Online Award, and has been on the board of lobby watchdog LobbyControl [de] since October 2018.

[4][5] The organisation raises funds to free prisoners who have been incarcerated under the substitute imprisonment law, which allows judges to impose custodial sentences for unpaid public transport fares.

[6] It also advocates decriminalising the act of riding on public transport without a ticket, which was made an offence by the Nazi party in 1935.