The Council of Europe is organising a panel discussion on its wide-reaching data protection convention on Thursday 25 January as part of the 2018 Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) conference in Brussels.

More than 50 countries around the world have already signed up to Convention 108, a legally-binding treaty – based on human rights – which sets out key principles in the area of data protection.

Speakers at Thursday’s event will discuss prospects for further extending the reach of the convention, the benefits that countries get from signing up and how the convention and its on-going reform relate to the European Union’s data protection framework.

Data Protection Day (28 January) marks the anniversary of the launch of Convention 108, which will soon be upgraded after several years of negotiation.