About the IAPP

Joe Cannataci is Co-Director of the STeP (Security, Technology & e-Privacy) Research Group and holds the Chair in European Information Policy & Technology Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Prof Cannataci also heads the Department of Information Policy & Governance, Faculty of Media & Knowledge Sciences, University of Malta and is (Adjunct) Professor at the Security Research Institute and the School of Computer and Security Science at Edith Cowan University Australia.



A considerable deal of Joe's time is dedicated to collaborative research while he also continues to act as Expert Consultant to a number of international organisations. He is presently managing over12 million Euro worth of externally funded projects in which he currently co-ordinating the research work of over 107 researchers organised within 33 teams across 29 institutions in 25 countries carrying out projects across Europe, Kenya, India, Malaysia, Australia and the Americas.These projects (e.g. CONSENThttp://www.consent.law.muni.cz/ SMART http://www.smartsurveillance.eu/, RESPECT http://respectproject.eu/,COUNTER-SPACEand SET-DEV http://www.set-dev.eu/)focus on his main-stream research interests in privacy, data protection law, cybercrime, on-line activities and surveillance.



During 2012 he was engaged by the Council of Europe to develop a concept paper on the application of data protection regulations in relation to transborder private/public information sharing for (a) network security purposes and (b) criminal justice purposes. For the period 2013-2016, he is a domain-expert as well as a member of the Management Committee of the EU-funded COST ICT 1206 Project De-identification for privacy protection in multimedia content. In 2010 Joe was External Consultant for the Impact Assessment of policy options for data protection law in Europe contracted by the European Commission to GHK International. During 2010-2013, he was also Expert Consultant engaged by Council of Europe's Consultative Committee (T-PD) and Directorate for Legal Affairs and Human Rights to review provisions of the European Data Protection Convention and Recommendation (R(87)15 on police use of personal data.



While originally - and still principally - a specialist in information policy and technology law, for the past several years Joe has also been researching and carrying out fieldwork on the impact of ICT and the notion of privacy amongst indigenous peoples within Kenya (Ogiek, Samburu,, Turkana), since expanding this work to Australia, Brazil and Malaysia. Some of this work has evolved as part of the process of development of technology policy in emerging economies, with particular focus on India and Kenya http://www.set-dev.eu/ where he led the efforts to take into account the privacy needs and information traditions of indigenous peoples. This work continues to be taken forward within the PAPAC-PACIT and inCONNECTS projects.