Rainer Rehak is part of the research group “Digitalization, Sustainability, and Participation” and "Technology, Power, and Domination" at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, he is an associated researcher at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and is currently doing his PhD on systemic IT security and societal data protection at the TU Berlin.

He studied computer science and philosophy in Berlin and Hong Kong and has been working on the implications of the computerization of society for over 15 years. His research fields include data protection, IT security, state hacking, computer science and ethics, fictions of technology, digitization and sustainability, convivial and democratic digital technology, epistemological foundations of digitalisation, and the implications and limits of automation through AI systems.

He is the Co-Chair of the Computer Professionals for Peace and Societal Responsibility (FIfF) and also publishes regularly in non-scientific outlets. He is an expert witness for parliaments (e.g., the German Bundestag) and courts (e.g., the German Constitutional Court). Together with other digital policy and environmental organizations, he initiated the "Bits & Bäume" conference for digitization and sustainability.