On 7 February, more than 40 judges and prosecutors from Latvia and Portugal attended the launch of the Council of Europe HELP course on Data Protection and Privacy Rights.

The cross-border event, held at the premises of the Latvian Judicial Training in Riga, was organised in the framework of the EU-CoE project “HELP in the EU III”, funded under the European Union’s Justice Programme (2021-2027).

The launch began with introductory remarks from Solvita Kalniņa – Caune, Director of the Latvian Judicial Training Centre and Diogo Ravara, HELP’s focal point for Portugal.

The participants got acquainted with the Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) programme and its online platform, which offers more than 45 courses on human rights in a self-learning format. Afterwards, the course "Data Protection and Privacy Law", contextualised for both Portuguese and Latvian lawyers, was presented.

During the launching event, the participants could benefit from different thematic panels. Peter Kimpian, from the CoE Data Protection Unit gave a comprehensive overview of the Council of Europe Convention 108+, which aims to protect individuals against abuses that may accompany the collection and processing of personal data. Lasma Liede, senior lawyer at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights, presented some of the relevant case law of the ECtHR on data protection and the right to privacy, with a focus on cases concerning Latvia and Portugal. 

The event concluded with the meeting of the two national groups of participants with their respective tutors, namely Ivo Krievs for the Latvian group and Fernando Duarte and Leonor Mascarenhas for the Portuguese group. The tutors gave a more detailed presentation of the course, explaining its structure, the additional materials provided and the main aspects of its implementation over the next weeks.

After the launch event, all participants will be registered on the dedicated national course pages and will start the tutored course. HELP certificates, issued by the Council of Europe and their respective national training institutions, will be awarded to those who successfully complete the course.

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The HELP course on Data Protection and Privacy Rights offers a comprehensive curriculum which covers in an interactive way the key concepts, the legal framework of the CoE and the EU, the case law or the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and specific areas of data protection. One of the key reference materials to develop this course has been the Handbook on Data Protection developed jointly by the EU FRA and the CoE together with the Registry of the ECtHR.

Existing case law on data protection and privacy rights covers topics such as medical sector, media (traditional and non-traditional), development of new technologies (i.e. GPS, drones, CCTV), e-communication and marketing, and workplace surveillance.

The online course is freely available on the Council of Europe HELP e-learning platform, in self-learning format. It has been updated in2019 with EU support and has been translated in 19 languages. The overall length of the online course is approximatively 12 hours and those who complete it online can obtain an electronic ‘Statement of accomplishment’.