Three years ago today, the most fundamental piece of legislation for data protection in the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), entered into application. Today, we take a moment to reflect on what the last three years have had to offer.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the priorities of various actors around the world, both public and private. The health crisis has accelerated the pace of digital transformation and has triggered public debate on the legal measures and technical solutions adopted in response to the pandemic.
The debate has not been limited to traditional data protection and privacy concerns. More fundamental questions have emerged, concerning the rule of law, the legitimacy of ‘emergency measures’ and their practical effects on citizen’s everyday lives.
With their creativity, sense of innovation, teamwork and drive, the EDPS and EDPB trainees produced a podcast entitled “Democratic Societies in the Digital Age”, a three-part series in which they invited experts from wide-ranging professional backgrounds to cover a number of pertinent subjects related to data protection.
This blogpost, written by EDPS and EDPB trainees, summarises what they have learned from these insightful discussions.
IPEN workshops bring together privacy experts and engineers from public authorities, industry, academia and civil society to discuss relevant challenges and developments for the technological implementation of data protection and privacy.
Snowflakes are descending from the sky, children are playing outside. It is cold today, and I must remind my daughters to grab their gloves and hats, and their masks, of course. I am dreaming of this period of year as a time when we can reunite with our families and loved ones, but all of my attempts clash with reality. Needless to say, this period of year is far from what it used to be.
The EDPS and the network of DPOs of the EU institutions held its 48th meeting on 11 December 2020. Our second online meeting since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with the second anniversary of the EUDPR and focussed on the issue of international data transfers further to the “Schrems II” Judgement.
Many might associate the month of October with shorter days and all things spooky. But it should also be known as the month of all things cybersecurity.
European Cybersecurity Month is an annual campaign that takes place across Europe every October. Its aim is to raise awareness of the risks, opportunities and the state of art in the technological infrastructures that surround and support us in our daily life.
COVID-19 has absorbed, as normal and justifiable, most of the data protection community’s attention on pandemic related matters, namely contact tracing apps. The judgment of the Court of Justice in the so-called Schrems II case has dominated our discussions this summer. Nevertheless, Artificial Intelligence (AI) occupies a privileged seat among the data protection hot topics of 2020.
“August 20th marks the first anniversary of the saddest day in the history of our institution. It was a year ago when we learned that the European Data Protection Supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli died in hospital in Milan, losing a long fight against a horrible disease. Though a whole year has already passed, and the world in Covid-19 times looks different than it was in August 2019, it is still hard for me to find the words to describe my feelings that day and to summarize somehow our long friendship with Giovanni.
On 3 June 2020, the EDPS organised its first online workshop of the Internet Privacy Engineering Network (IPEN), on the “state of the art in encryption and its role for protection of privacy and personal data ”. With nearly 200 participants, the event attracted strong interest among privacy experts, developers and engineers.