Introduction
The volume of interest at the recent IAPP Europe Data Protection Congress 2022 came as no surprise, as high-profile data protection professionals from far and wide joined together in Brussels for its 11th year.
An expansive set of topics included; policy and governance, ePrivacy implementation, artificial intelligence, GDPR enforcement, mergers and acquisitions, data transfers and privacy in technology. You’ll find links to a selection of presentations below for further reading.
The role of Artificial Intelligence and the AI Act continued to be at the top of the minds of privacy professionals in attendance. Nina Schick the Author of “Deepfakes: The Coming Infopocalypse” gave a fascinating presentation on the main stage, on AI & its unprecedented and accelerating pace. She emphasised the importance of assessing now, how we can incorporate verification models to clearly identify and tag AI vs’ Real’ digital content. She anticipates that within just a few years the majority of online video, text and audio, will be AI generated content.
Given that World Cup season is in full swing, the eagerly anticipated keynote panel event had Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon moderating a lively discussion covering Data Collection & Biometrics in Sports.
The Head Data Protection and Cybersecurity Risk for FIFA, Jorge Oliveira e Carmo, joined virtually from Qatar and responded to privacy questions on what “will be the most technological World Cup ever”. Focus areas included the importance of transparency and consent mechanisms, in data collection for players across the world.
The final day of the Conference included a ‘Schrems II’ & the EU-US DPF: Stakeholders Volley session that was packed with privacy professionals eager to witness the debate between Eduardo Ustaran, CIPP/E, Partner, Hogan Lovells and Max Schrems, Honorary Director, noyb.eu.
Skilfully moderated by Caitlin Fennessy, CIPP/US, Vice President & Chief Knowledge Officer, IAPP, the proposed EU-US Data Privacy Framework was assessed and critiqued. Schrems made clear his view that much work had still to be done to build a satisfactory data transfer mechanism between the EU and US. In particular, he saw a fundamental difference on how the two parties define the meaning of ‘proportionality’.
(As an aside, at another session, Didier Reynders, EU Commissioner for Justice, shared that the EU-US data transfer adequacy decision is due in spring 2023.)
Aside from the varied and attention-grabbing session topics, this year’s Congress had plenty of opportunities to network and to view demonstrations on privacy technologies and vendor offerings. This year’s event was the biggest to date and next year’s promises even more!
Data Protection Through Ethical AI
Smile, You Are on Camera — Face Detection as Audience Measuring Technology
The Impact of War on Data Protection
