The International Conference held in Strasbourg on 17 June 2016 gathered over a hundred participants, from more than 60 countries, to notably welcome the accession of Mauritius to Convention 108.

Mauritius will become the 49th country to join the Convention. Other will follow soon and the unique forum of exchange and cooperation offered by the Committee of the Convention will continue to expand, and gather more and more countries from all regions of the world. 

You missed the event ? Regrettable indeed,  but here are some of the highlights of the day :

• Relying on the importance of the Convention, Giovanni Buttarelli, European Data Protection Supervisor, encouraged to “make Convention 108 principles digital and not to water them down”
• Karolina Mojzesowicz from the European Commission recalled that “Convention was the source, the mother of the European EU data protection rules” and that it “was and will remain the key compass in the European and global privacy legal landscape”
• Graham Greenleaf from UNSW Australia spotted the visual spread of Convention 108 : out of the 110 countries in the world with data protection laws, nearly half of them are already members of Convention 108!
• Marc Rotenberg from EPIC recalled how his organization has been calling for the US accession to the Convention and how as part of the 2016 political campaign, it called on people running for public office in the US to support accession as a “common framework, based on law and fundamental rights, is an absolutely essential requirement for our digital age”
• Joseph Cannataci, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to Privacy, recalled that the “Council of Europe spent more than 25 years providing a lead”. So much of a lead that the European Union took it on.

Finally, the Conference also witnessed the deposit of the ratification instrument of Mauritius by Drudeisha Madhub, Privacy Commissioner and the signature of a cooperation agreement between the Data Protection Authorities of Belgium and Tunisia.

• Programme

Presentations and speeches:

• Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Convention 108: from a European reality to a global treaty
• Joseph A. Cannataci, Convention 108 and Security: perspectives from the UN SR mandate on privacy
• Giovanni Buttarelli, Convention 108 and the EU data protection framework
• Marc Rotenberg, Need for International Privacy Framework
• Cécile de Terwangne, La Convention 108 et le cadre législatif de protection des données de l'UE
• Graham Greenleaf, Accession to Convention 108: benefits and commitments
• Jörg Polakiewicz, Joining Convention 108: when and how?
• Cécile Barayre, Data Protection Regulations and International Data Flows: Implications for Trade and Development
• Jean Chartier, La Convention 108, l'AFAPDP et les perspectives d'avenir
• Chawki Gaddes, Bénéfices et engagements de la Tunisie
• Faustino Varela Monteiro, The Importance of adding Cape Verde to the Convention on Cybercrime and the Convention on Data Protection
• Drudeisha Madhub, Accession to Convention 108