21 Nov 2019
On 15 December 2019 the conference and first General Assembly of the EADPP European Association of Data Protection Professionals (EADPP) was held in Maastricht, the Netherlands with the participation of delegates from all across Europe representing over 1000 members.
The EADPP Cyprus Branch was represented by its Chairwoman, Privacy Minders’ founding partner, Ms Maria Raphael, its Secretary, Mr Constantinos Tsiourtos and its third board member, Mr George Touloupis. Ms Raphael also participated as the moderator of an oxford style debate on the topic of the primary responsibilities of data protection professionals.
The First General Assembly resulted in the election of the Board and the members of the EADPP four committees, namely the General Affairs, Strategy & Policy, Certification and Events & Communications. All three board members of the EADPP Cyprus Branch were elected in Committees, whereas Ms Maria Raphael was elected in the Strategy & Policy Committee, having received the highest number of votes out of all candidates.
The EADPP is a not-for-profit association of, for and by European data protection professionals founded in Netherlands in November 2018. The primary aim of the organisation is to facilitate, organise, structure, and represent the interests of data protection professionals throughout Europe and work closely with organisations active in the field of personal data protection, such as the EDPB, the European Data Protection Board.
It is envisioned that data protection professionals will, from a position of independence, give true substance to the roles assigned to the them by the GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation and interface with EU organisations with the aim of providing clarity on how the GDPR is to be practically implemented in data processing organisations.
The first two orders of the EADPP is to establish an independent European system of certification for data protection professionals and to secure proper representation at all relevant levels of the European Union.
The 2019 Board and Committee elections have transformed the EADPP into a full-fledge organisation run by team of 30+ Board and Committee members, who will combine their efforts for the growth and further evolvement of EADPP.