DATA PROTECTION DAY

Data Protection Day (28 January 2022) Message From the Co-Directors

Prof. Christopher Kuner, Prof. Gianclaudio Malgieri

Publication Date: 25 January 2022

Data Protection Day – A message from the Co-Directors

Data Protection Day is a an annual opportunity to reflect about the important legal and policy achievements with which we have been confronted in terms of privacy and data protection over the last decades, as well as the open challenges that we still face.

On a theoretical level, the concepts that we still need to elucidate – not only as scholars, but as the privacy community – are those of power, individual vulnerability, and fairness (in data protection and beyond). These open concepts can be the conceptual keys to understanding and developing a sustainable and desirable digital environment for the next decade. We are also very aware of the long-standing challenges that data protection law continues to face in other areas such as international data transfers.

The EU is leading the legal efforts toward trustworthy AI, fairer digital platforms and a safe environment for the flow of data. Conceptual intersections between them have long been essential, and will be even more so in coming years. To face the unfair imbalance between big tech and vulnerable individuals, we need greater interaction between data protection law, consumer law and competition law. To face the threats of ubiquitous AI we have to promote an essential dialogue between data protection law and computer science and other technical disciplines. To learn from COVID-19 pandemic, we need to understand the importance of balancing scientific research with personal data protection.

The Brussels Privacy Hub has taken these challenges very seriously in these last eight years since its founding, and has fought for the protection of privacy and personal data in a fair digital environment while promoting intense academic and policy discussions on these key topics. In the last few months we have been increasing our efforts, thanks to several important additions to our team (including our new Managing Director, the Programme and Dissemination Coordinator, the Training Coordinator, and the Education Coordinator) and strengthening our engagement in three key pillars of activity, namely programming events, education & training, and conducting research.

Data Protection Day is an opportunity to never take for granted our achievements in the field of privacy and data protection and to strive to strengthen those achievements against the new challenges we face.

The Co-Directors

Christopher Kuner and Gianclaudio Malgieri

Copyright © Brussels Privacy Hub

Copyright © Brussels Privacy Hub