A Look Back at Privacy Days: What Experts from the Office for Personal Data Protection Had to Say

In its 2024 opinion, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) adopted a position that some might describe as restrictive, at least compared with stakeholders’ expectations. The discussion also featured Polish lawyer Urszula Góral, currently Meta’s privacy manager for Central and Eastern Europe, and Andrew Carroll, deputy commissioner at the Irish Data Protection Commission. “Exchanging information can help prevent, for example, disproportionate interference with citizens’ privacy and, consequently, the risk of violating the fundamental principles of the GDPR.” In another Thursday panel, “New European Approach to (De)regulation,” ÚOOÚ Vice-Chairman Josef Mička spoke, among other things, about the need for a cautious approach to amendments to the GDPR. Lawyer Jana Pattynová, ÚOOÚ Vice-Chairman Josef Mička, Zuzana Valková, Chairwoman of Slovakia’s Office for Personal Data Protection, and Marek Vrbík, a member of the Council of the Czech Telecommunication Office / photo: Association for Personal Data Protection. On Friday, considerable attention focused on the panel discussions “Live Facial Recognition at Stadiums: Not Only from the Perspective of the GDPR and the AI Act” and “Digital Regulation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.” The panel on facial recognition at stadiums offered not only experts’ perspectives on the GDPR and AI, but also insights from football fans. In this context, it was also noted that more general regulation could make it even more difficult for those wishing to operate biometric screening to introduce it while meeting all the necessary requirements imposed by the GDPR. During the “Digital Regulation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia” panel, Vice-Chairman Mička warned that the performance of duties related to AI would depend fundamentally on the resources available to the authority, which are currently seriously insufficient.