Back Georgian journalists discuss privacy issues with Council of Europe experts

Georgian journalists discuss privacy issues with Council of Europe experts

Over 20 journalists and media professionals attended a training seminar on Privacy and Media Coverage on 8 and 9 July in Kakheti region (Georgia). After a presentation of the international and the national legal frameworks on privacy and data protection, concrete case examples prepared by Council of Europe experts gave participants the opportunity for very active debates on privacy issues in relation with their work practice. Discussions focused on striking a balance between freedom of expression and privacy in various situations  journalists are confronted with: use of pictures, private information to be or not published, investigative journalism, controversial techniques (e.g. hidden cameras, drones, disguised identity,…). The experts assisted participants in finding best practices, mostly on the basis of case laws from the European Court of Human Rights and other examples.

Participants concluded the two days expressing general appreciation for a positive and very instructive seminar that “helped them casting a new look on their everyday work practice”.

The seminar was conducted by Bertil Cottier (professor in Communications Laws at the Universita della Svizzera Italiana), Marie Georges (expert in human rights, data protection and ICT), Tamar Kintsurashvili (Media Development Foundation, Georgia) and Olivier Matter (Solicitor, specialised in privacy and data protection). It was organised by the Council of Europe within the framework of the component “Enhance the right to data protection”  of the CoE/EU joint project Partnership for Good Governance (PGG)  and in co-operation with the Office of the Georgian Data Protection Inspector. Representatives of the five other countries of the programme (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus) were also present.

 Photos

Kakheti region, Georgia 13 July 2017
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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 Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Ukrainian