The Deputy Secretary General Bjørn Berge participated in Venice, Italy, in the 2023 Privacy Symposium (from 17 to 21 April) at a special programme devoted to the Council of Europe privacy and data protection treaty Convention 108. In a ceremony during the opening of the special programme event, Argentina became the 23rd state to ratify the protocol modernising the treaty Convention 108+.
Deputy Secretary General Bjørn Berge emphasised that this convention would help citizens and governments safeguard their human rights, privacy and data protection in the digital age, with big data, algorithms, social networks and artificial intelligence.
“The Privacy Symposium is a great opportunity for the Council of Europe to present its latest work in protecting personal data globally, most notably through its data protection treaty, “Convention108” and its modernised version “Convention 108+”, not yet in force. Convention 108 remains the only legally binding international instrument with a worldwide scope of application, open to any country, as will the revised treaty. Those countries that ratify Convention 108+ will have a higher level of data protection, recognised at the international level, he said in his opening remarks.
On the sidelines of the Symposium, the Deputy Secretary General met also with Ms Nataša Pirc Musar, President of the Republic of Slovenia. He commended her for her pioneering work on data protection, privacy issues and how to improve access to public information by the general public. They also discussed challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence to data protection and agreed on the importance to combat violence against women.
The sessions at the Privacy Symposium will take stock of progress made towards the entry into force of the protocol, which will happen when 38 states ratify it. In addition to the 23 states which have ratified the protocol, another 21 states have signed it with a view to ratification.
The Privacy Symposium, hosted by the University of Ca’Foscari and patronised by the Garante (Italian Data Protection Authority), will gather high-level representatives from government and international organisations, experts, academics and data protection authorities over the globe.
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