Clemens Koja was born on 19 July 1960 in Vienna. Raised and educated in Vienna and later in Salzburg, where he finished a classical gymnasium in 1978, he served in the Austrian army as a reserve officer. From 1979 -1983 Koja studied law at the Universities of Salzburg and Vienna, obtaining a Dr.iur. In the following years he studied Catholic theology in Rome and Salzburg, obtaining a Master’s degree in 1993. In 1989 he joined the Austrian Foreign Service; his first postings abroad were at the Austrian Embassies in Warsaw, Rome and the Vatican. In the Foreign Ministry he worked mostly in the Southern European Department, of which he was the Director between 2003 and 2008. Later he served as Deputy Head of Mission in Madrid and as Ambassador in Belgrade (2008-12) and Ljubljana (2012-16). Since 6 July 2016 he is the Permanent Representative of Austria to the OSCE.

Roland Faber, 1975, born in Istanbul; 1992-1994 Violoncello studies at the Mozarteum University Salzburg; 1994-2004 Vienna Law School (1998 Master, 2004 Doctorate); 2001-2002 Yale Law School (Fulbright Fellow; 2002 Mater of Laws); 1998-1999 Teaching and Research Assistant at the Institute for Constitutional and Administrative Law, Vienna University of Economics and Business Vienna; 2001-2002 Head of Research Project for the Austrian Historical Commission; 2003-2005 Parliamentary Secretary at the Austrian Parliament; 2005 law clerk at the Austrian Supreme Administrative Court; 2005-2007 law clerk at the Austrian Constitutional Court; since 2008 Constitutional Service of the Federal Chancellery, (2011 Head of Department for International Affairs and General Administrative Affairs, 2016 Deputy Director General); Member of the Human Rights Advisory Council of the Austrian Ombudsman Board.

Richard Kadlčák (Czech Republic) was appointed as the Special Envoy for Cyber Space at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2016. Prior to this position, Kadlčák served as the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Estonia from 2012 to 2016. He has previously held different positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic at the Strategy, Analysis and Planning Office as well as at the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union.

Jan Kleijssen was born in 1958 in Almelo (The Netherlands). He studied International Law at Utrecht State University (LLM in 1981) and International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa (MA 1982). Jan joined the Council of Europe in 1983 as a Lawyer with the European Commission of Human Rights. He was Secretary to the Parliamentary Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee from 1990 to 1999. Jan then served as Director of the Secretary General's Private Office and afterwards as Director and Special Advisor to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly. Jan is currently the Director of Information Society and Action against Crime, Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law, of the Council of Europe. His Directorate carries out standard-setting, monitoring and co-operation activities on a wide variety of issues, including freedom of expression, data protection, internet governance, cybercrime, terrorism, money-laundering and corruption. Twitter: @JKleijssen

Prior to his appointment as the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media on 18 July 2017, Harlem Désir (France) was French Minister of State for European Affairs, attached to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, starting from April 2014. Harlem Désir was a Member of the European Parliament for three consecutive terms from 1999 to 2014. He was a member of the Committee on Industry, Energy and Research, the Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Development. In October 1984, Harlem Désir co-founded the French not-for-profit association “SOS Racisme”, whose objective is to fight against racism, anti-Semitism and all other forms of discrimination. In 1989, he also co-founded the international federation of “SOS Racisme”. Désir was President of both “SOS Racisme” France and of the eponymous international federation. Harlem Désir holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from the Paris I Sorbonne University. He has been awarded the Olof Palme Prize (Sweden, 1990) and the Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix (Greece, 2016).

Dr. Tarlach McGonagle is a senior researcher/lecturer at the Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam. He regularly advises and writes expert studies for various branches of the Council of Europe, the OSCE and other IGOs and NGOs on different aspects of the right to freedom of expression, minority rights and international and European media law and policy. Current and recent focuses of his work include the safety of journalists and other media actors and the challenges of regulating (online) hate speech.

After my studies in Law, I kicked off my career being part of iBazar, one of the first e-commerce websites in Europe. From 2002 to 2007 I was Head of Legal and Trust & Safety at eBay, the leading online marketplace. In 2007 I joined Google as Policy Counsel in charge of government relations for Italy. Since 2011, I have been a member of the Google policy team in Brussels, where I am in charge of the relations with the European Institutions, as Director for Public Policy. My main area of interest is understanding the impact of the Internet and technological developments on our society and economy.

Elena Sherstoboeva is an associate professor in the Department of Media at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow. She earned two PhD degrees - in Journalism (Moscow State University, Russia) and in Communication (Ramon Llull University, Spain). Her specialized field of research is media and entertainment law and policies in post-Soviet countries. Elena is a founder and CEO of a company providing legal services for Russian performers, actors, authors as well as for media businesses. Elena is also an expert of the Committee on Information Policy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation.

Ingrid Brodnig is an Austrian author and journalist. In 2017 her third book „Lügen im Netz“ (English translation: „Lies on the internet“) about fake news and other types of political manipulation online was published. In 2016, she published the book „Hass im Netz“ (English translation: „Hate on the Internet“) about online abuse and how to fight it. She has received several awards, e.g. the Bruno Kreisky Sonderpreis for political books and the EU Young Journalist Award. In 2016 the German magazine „Edition F“ named her one of "25 women who will make the world a better place". Her current work focuses on populists and how they benefit from digital tools. Since April 2017 she is Austria’s Digital Champion for the EU Commission, an honorary position that focuses on promoting digital skills within Europe. More information: brodnig.org .

Maximilian Schubert after working for ISPA – the Austrian Association of Internet Service Providers as a legal expert he became General Secretary of ISPA in 2012. He earned his doctoral degree in the field of Intellectual Property Law at the Karl-Franzens University of Graz after obtaining an LL.M. degree in “Innovation, Technology and the Law" at the University of Edinburgh. He is working as a part time lecturer at the FH BFI Wien and has published a number of articles on IT-related topics in Austrian as well as in UK journals (http://austrotrabant.wordpress.com/publications/). His main fields of expertise are telecom regulation law, ISP liability law as well as data retention matters. Schubert has served as chairperson of the EuroISPA Cybercrime and Cybersecurity committee for a number of years, coordinating the association’s activity on priority dossiers such as the EU Network and Information Security Directive. In 2016 he was elected EuroISPA Vice-President.

Gabrielle Guillemin, ARTICLE 19, leads the organisation’s work on digital rights policy issues, including intermediary liability, privacy, intellectual property, telecommunications and cybercrime. She has led interventions or advised on cases before the European Court of Human Rights, the French Conseil d'Etat, the Supreme Court of Canada, the UK and Kenyan courts among others. She has given evidence before the UK House of Lords Committee on social media and criminal offences. She was a member of the Council of Europe Expert Committee on Crossborder flow of Internet Traffic and Internet Freedoms (MSI-INT) and a member of the UK Multistakeholder Advisory Group on Internet Governance (MAGIG). She regularly speaks at public events and conferences on digital rights and Internet freedom issues around the world. Prior to joining ARTICLE 19, Gabrielle worked as a registry lawyer at the ECtHR. She holds an LLB – Maitrise de droit français from Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne – King’s College London and an MSc Human Rights (Distinction) from the London School of Economics.

Joe McNamee is Executive Director of European Digital Rights (EDRi), an association of privacy and digital civil rights organisations from across Europe. He has worked on internet-related topics since 1995, having started his online career as a technical support advisor for an internet provider in 1995. He was responsible for three independent studies for the European Commission. Mr McNamee has worked with EDRi since 2009. He led EDRi’s work on the data protection package and worked on various international data protection initiatives. He has a particular interest in the trend to devolve online law enforcement to internet intermediaries and its effect on privacy, legal certainty and free speech.

Judge Robert Spano was elected to the European Court of Human Rights in 2013 with respect to Iceland. Before taking up his judicial office he served as Parliamentary Ombudsman of Iceland from 2009-2010 and again in 2013. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Iceland, from 2010-2013, and was appointed professor of law in 2006. He was chairman of the Standing Committee of Experts in Criminal Law in the Ministry of Justice from 2003-2009 and from 2011-2013. He was also the Icelandic delegate to the European Committee on Crime Problems and an Independent Expert to the Lanzarote Committee of the Council of Europe. He was appointed an ad hoc judge of the EFTA Court in 2012. Judge Spano is a graduate of the University of Iceland and of the University of Oxford.

Daniel Holznagel is working as a Legal Officer at the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection. He was involved in drafting the German Act to Improve Enforcement of the Law in Social Networks (Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz), which defines statutory standards for effective complaint management regarding illegal content in social networks. Daniel Holznagel has worked as a judge in civil matters. He holds a PhD in Media Law (notice and take-down mechanisms as part of provider liability rules).

Irene Roche-Laguna is Team Leader for intermediary liability in the Unit dealing with E-commerce and Platforms, and coordinates the legal enforcement of the E-commerce Directive in DG CONNECT. She worked as an Assistant Professor of European and Constitutional Law at the University of Valencia (Spain) before joining the European Court of Justice in 2002 and the European Commission in 2004. She has worked in the areas of State Aid, online and postal services and on the coordination of Single Market Governance issues in Directorate General Internal Market.