The course was opened by Jānis Rozenbergs, board member of the Latvian Bar Association and Yelena Kvjatkovska, HELP info point, gathering 30 participating lawyers (18 women and 12 men). The EU/CoE 'HELP in the 28' Programme was presented including its methodology as well as the content of the course.
 
The HELP in the 28 course on "Data protection and privacy rights" will help lawyers identifying violations and apply remedies in specific areas of data protection and privacy rights. It therefore aims at protecting individuals from violations, which in the current digital area, may come from both private and public actors. The course covers in an interactive way the key concepts, the legal framework of the Council of Europe (CoE) including its Convention 108 and the EU as well as the case law or the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
 
One of the key reference materials to develop this course has been the Handbook on Data Protection developed jointly by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and the CoE together with the Registry of the ECtHR. The course takes into account the EU Reform adopted in April 2016.

Some thematic areas covered are media, medical data, e-communication, modern technologies (i.e., GPS, CCTV, drones) and privacy at the workplace.

See here a presentation video of the course.
 
Lasma Liede, senior lawyer of the ECtHR exposed the massive and varied jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court ranging from cases of storage of DNA sample, storage and use of personal data or communication surveillance, including confidential conversations of lawyers with clients.

The course will be moderated by Kristine Dupate, who, apart from being HELP certified trainer has been recently appointed member of the European Committee of Social Rights. 
 
The course will be moderated online by the national tutor over three months, after which it will be publicly available on line (in Latvian and adapted to the Latvian legal order). In the meantime, the English version is accessible at the 'HELP in the 28' website to any user who opens a HELP account.