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Debating Ethics: Dignity and Respect in Data Driven Life

Giovanni Buttarelli

In March this year, my respected colleague Ventislav Karadjov, Chairman of the Commission for Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Bulgaria (CPDP) and I announced that we will jointly be hosting the 40th annual International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners in October 2018.

The honour and responsibility to deliver this well-established, high-level meeting in 2018 - the first time in the conference’s almost 40 year history that an EU institution has been selected to host it - is a priority for both of our institutions. Indeed, our preparations are underway so that we can deliver a world-class conference.

All regions of the world and all areas of our societies are impacted by digitisation from leisure to learning, from healthcare to governance, from finance to farming.

In light of the global nature of this phenomenon, we will be Debating Ethics: Dignity and Respect in Data Driven Life to explore broadly how data and those controlling that data are influencing our values.

Data protection and privacy authorities are first-hand witnesses of this societal change. With the 2018 conference, we intend to examine the ethical principles that can help sustain digital fairness: What is respect in the digital age? Is our autonomy eroded online? How can we preserve equality and human dignity in this millennium?

We want to raise as much awareness about this important forum and the discussions that will take place there in 2018 as we can; we want to highlight how technology has implications for our fundamental rights - particularly for our privacy and the protection of our personal data.

With this in mind, the EDPS and the CPDP are launching a competition to design a logo for the 2018 International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. While the conference is an important event for policy makers, civil society groups, academics, and industry, we also want to reach out to other groups who do not traditionally join in such discussions.

We believe this contest can help to generate interest among an important group of technology users. We’d appreciate it if you would spread the word.


More information on the design competition

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