Data Protection Day editions

background

On 26 April 2006, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided to launch a Data Protection Day, to be celebrated each year on 28 January.

This date corresponds to the anniversary of the opening for signature of the Council of Europe's Convention 108 for the Protection of individuals with regard to automatic processing of personal data which has been for over 30 years a cornerstone of data protection, in Europe and beyond.

Data Protection Day is now celebrated globally and is called the "Privacy Day" outside Europe.

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Why?

Data protection issues, including their cross-border dimension, are highly present in all of our daily lives – at work, in their relations with public authorities, in the health field, when they buy goods or services, when they travel or surf the internet.

However, the society is generally not really familiar with data protection issues and unaware of the existing rights in this respect.

The objective of the Data Protection Day is therefore to inform and educate the public at large as to their day-to-day rights, but it may also provide data protection professionals with the opportunity of meeting data subjects.

On Data Protection Day, events should be organised in all countries to raise awareness on data protection and inform people as well as administrations, businesses, organisations etc. of rights and good practices, thereby fostering a more effective exercise of these rights.

The Data Protection Day should be a special occasion, a time set aside by each and every one of us to familiarise ourselves with a largely unknown, yet major, facet of our everyday lives.

For whom?

The aim of the Data Protection Day is to give individuals everywhere the chance to understand what personal data is collected and processed about them and why, and what their rights are with respect to this processing.

They should also be made aware of the risks inherent and associated with the illegal mishandling and unfair processing of their personal data.

Participation

Each interested country, national or international body is encouraged to participate. The Data Protection Day is intended to be organised in a flexible and decentralised manner so as to cater for the wishes and resources of each participant.

Interested states or bodies may determine the type of activity they wish to organise. To this end, they may wish to take into account any data protection raising-awareness strategy that they may have at national level.

The Council of Europe has no specific budget for this activity. Therefore, each state and/or interested body has to finance on its own budget any activity it wishes to organise within the framework of this Day.

However, in view of the fact that most data protection supervisory authorities and some public or private sector parties already organise awareness-raising activities, participation in the Data Protection Day would not necessarily entail an additional financial burden.

It would be more a matter of including the 28th of January when planning events in the framework of a State and/or interested body’s awareness-raising strategy.

Further information: [email protected]

previous editions

Back Data Protection Day 2013

As it has been the case for the past years, the Council of Europe has decided on the occasion of Data Protection Day to join forces with one of the key

European actors in the field of data protection, the annual international “Computer, Privacy and Data Protection Conference” (CPDP). This event is organised every year in Brussels prior to the Data protection day celebrations. The theme of the 6th Edition of that CPDP International is “Reloading Data Protection” and the event will be held on 23 - 25 January 2013.

The Council of Europe will be holding a specific session in the framework of this Conference, which will take place in morning of 25 January, on data protection developments in Latin America.

The panel will provide a first-hand and topical overview of the variety of options retained, as well as difficulties faced, in Latin America, considered lately as the fastest data protection normative region of the world. This panel, which will be chaired by the Council of Europe, Sophie Kwasny (Data Protection Unit) and moderated by Artemi Rallo Lombarte (Universidad Jaume I), will explore:

the evolution of the right to data protection and its impact on Latin America: new legislation and institutional developments, as well as reasons for the legislative lacuna in some countries;
the challenges faced in Latin America in the context of data protection : what are the main features of data protection in the region as well as the main obstacles to this right;
the role of the Ibero-American network of data protection in the development of data protection in Latin America and reference models in the emergence of national data protection legislations;
the influence of the European Union's framework as leitmotiv of the South American Development of the right to data protection;
the influence of Convention 108 of the Council of Europe on the current developments of data protection in Latin America.

Brussels 25/01/2013