On 18 May 2017, the EDPS is hosting a workshop on Data Driven Life (digital ethics) in Brussels.

With the support of the Ethics Advisory Group, the workshop will explore the positive and negative consequences of data-driven changes on society and on individuals to pursue their own life choices.

Today, at the last Plenary Meeting of the Europol Joint Supervisory Body (JSB), the EDPS, represented by our Director, Christopher Docksey, and María Verónica Pérez Asinari, the Head of the EDPS Supervision and Enforcement Unit, attended the ceremony which marked the beginning of a new era in the data protection supervision of Europol.

Under the new Europol Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/794), the EDPS will take over responsibility from the JSB for the data protection supervision of Europol. The new Regulation will be fully applicable from the beginning of next month.

A new generation of data protection standards is being promulgated by the European Union. Almost one year ago, the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Directive for the police and justice sectors represented the most ambitious endeavour of the EU legislator so far to secure the fundamental rights of the individual in the digital era.

If you believe the words sometimes attributed to Gandhi, law is codified ethics. But effective laws and standards of ethics are guidelines accepted by members of a society, and these require a social consensus. I believe that technology is changing or at the very least influencing our ethics and it’s a phenomenon we need to urgently address.