The IAPP Global Privacy Summit 2022 is just around the corner, and we made sure to include prominent European Union voices. EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders will deliver a keynote (one can imagine he will address the EU’s response to the war in Ukraine, the EU privacy agenda at large as well as multilateral cooperation); Chairwoman of the European Data Protection Board Andrea Jelinek, and European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski, will exchange thoughts on “Policy and Progress.” On a more modest level, yours truly will host a panel discussion on “The EU’s Data Strategy: What Privacy Professionals Should Know Now” with representatives from EDPS, industry and academia.

Elsewhere:

• Data Governance Act. On April 6, the European Parliament formally adopted the final text of the DGA. The Council of Member States will soon do the same, paving the way for the text to become applicable 15 months after its publication to the EU Official Journal, i.e., around summer 2023. The DGA will set the foundation for boosting data sharing in the EU, including by creating the possibility to create “European data spaces,” notably for health data. 
• Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework approval process: If you are wondering what happens following the agreement in principle stroke late March, check out IAPP’s infographic on the EU’s approval process. The EU will start the process once the necessary steps on the U.S. side and legal texts are completed, most likely after the summer. Shortly before we went to press, the European Data Protection Board adopted a statement welcoming the agreement "in principle" on the Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework between the EU and the U.S. 
• The Hamburg Data Protection Authority released its 2021 annual report (in German only). It provides an overview of cases the Hamburg DPA has worked on over the past year, on contact tracing, IT forensics and data protection, dark patterns and inevitably data transfers, among many others.
• EDPB Support Pool of Experts. The European Data Protection Board is looking for external experts with a range of legal and/or technical skills, to assist DPAs and help them increase their capacities on different stages of their investigation and enforcement activities of significant common interest.

And if you feel like hanging out with privacy pros in The Hague, 8 and 9 June, you are in luck! Registration for our next IAPP Data Protection Intensive: Nederland 2022 is open. Come and join us!

Comments, suggestions, complaints? I am just an email away: iroccia@iapp.org

Photo by Yannis Papanastasopoulos on Unsplash