The Council of Europe’s Police Network hosted its annual conference on 19-21 March 2024 in Strasbourg (France).

This event was dedicated to “Police data processing - How to harmonize police efficiency with data protection and Human Rights”. It brought together high-ranking representatives of Ministries of Interior and national police services, academia, IPCAN (Independent Police Complaints Authorities’ Network), and CESP (the European Council of Police Trade Unions), representatives of INTERPOL and the European Commission.

Police data processing, police information system, analysis tools and data protection are at the core of police work today, and thus the objectives of the conference were:

• to learn and exchange best practices on the implementation of the Council of Europe standards affecting the police and data protection
• to explore the state of play and future developments concerning information sharing and analysis mechanisms in Europe
• to understand better the link between police data processing and human rights in democratic societies
• to emphasise importance of the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (Convention 108)
• to learn more about data protection from supervising bodies existing in Council of Europe member states and at the European level
• to disseminate the ECtHR case law regarding police data processing and human rights
• to get familiar with the Council of Europe work on a convention on Artificial Intelligence

The conference was organised within the German Chairmanship for the police Network.

A new Chair was elected during the conference.