Back European law students learn Council of Europe Data Protection and Artificial Intelligence policies

Ⓒ ELSA

Ⓒ ELSA

The Council of Europe took an active part in the Winter School of the European Law Students Association ELSA. Entitled New Technologies and Artificial Intelligence Law, the event was organised by the Université libre de Bruxelles, gathering over 30 participants on January 29 - February 05, 2023. In her presentation, Isabelle Servoz-Gallucci, Head of the Data Protection Unit, underlined the rising importance of protecting privacy in the modern digital world and shared the latest policy recommendations on the matter stemming from Convention 108.

Patrick Penninckx, Head of the Information Society Department, has introduced the latest Council of Europe policies on Artificial Intelligence and in particular the works of the Committee of Artificial Intelligence on the elaboration of new legal instrument.

Brussels 2 February 2023
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Conference on Convention 108 + as the global privacy standard, building a free data transfer area while preserving human dignity

Conference on Convention 108 + as the global privacy standard, building a free data transfer area while preserving human dignity

Conference on Convention 108 + as the global privacy standard, building a free data transfer area while preserving human dignity

For 40 years, the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data - Convention 108 – has been the only international legally binding instrument on the protection of privacy and personal data. Its modernised version, Convention 108+, helps preserving human dignity while providing an enabling and secure framework to free flow of data. Read more and listen to the views of prominent personalities.

Protecting private life

You go somewhere, you buy something, you apply for a job, you pay your bills : you live... and at each of those moments of your life, your personal information is used, collected, processed. In order to protect your right to private life, with regard to the automatic processing of your personal data, the Council of Europe elaborated the "Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data".

Thirty years after its entry into force, this Convention still remains the only binding international legal instrument in the field, with a potential worldwide scope of application.

Convention 108+ Convention for the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data

 Know more on the modernised Convention 108

 Link to the document

Handbook on European data protection law - 2018 edition

Handbook on European data protection law

The rapid development of information technology has exacerbated the need for robust personal data protection, the right to which is safeguarded by both European Union (EU) and Council of Europe (CoE) instruments. Safeguarding this important right entails new and significant challenges as technological advances expand the frontiers of areas such as surveillance, communication interception and data storage. This handbook is designed to familiarise legal practitioners not specialised in data protection with this emerging area of the law. It provides an overview of the EU’s and the CoE’s applicable legal frameworks. It also explains key case law, summarising major rulings of both the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights. In addition, it presents hypothetical scenarios that serve as practical illustrations of the diverse issues encountered in this ever-evolving field.

Download the Handbook 

Available also in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Ukrainian