Today's world implies daily activities, private as well as public, requiring growing processing and flow of personal data which, while offering a wealth of opportunities in all activities of the society, poses risks to fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals, such as their rights to private life, and therefore needs to be addressed with solid protection frameworks.

Conscious that providing protection to individuals in the digital age, while ensuring an uninterrupted flow of data across borders, is a crucial factor for an inclusive growth, a steadily growing number of African countries are wishing to develop legal and institutional framework to ensure that their populations benefit of an appropriate protection of their personal data.

The international scope of Convention 108+ offers a set of common principles and a global framework for such protection. Furthermore, it sets forth important principles for the protection of personal data in the context of transborder flows, which is indispensable for countries’ economic growth.

In the framework of its close relationship with the African Network of Data Protection Authorities since its inception, the Council of Europe co-organises with the Network (for its members and observers and a number of guest countries) a series of monthly on line workshops on a selection of themes of particular relevance to the African region, on the basis of the principles set forth by Convention 108+. With the contribution of recognised data protection experts, the seminars will be a useful source of information and literacy for the data protection authorities of countries in Africa. They will enable the active participation of representatives of the data protection authorities’ members of the Network as well as of observers, and also be open to any representative of national authorities that are interested in advancing data protection in their respective countries. It will support the African Network in the affirmation and strengthening of its important role for its members and observers, demonstrating its active engagement and concrete contribution to the discussions currently underway in the African countries.

The topic of the first workshop, on 5 November, will be ‘The right to data protection in the digital age’. It will be followed by other themes such as transborder data flows; digital identity; facial recognition; political campaigns; enforcement and international cooperation; law enforcement data processing.

These on line workshops are co-organised with the 

Resources

• Convention for the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data  - Convention 108+