Statement on European Data Protection Day

This years European Data Protection Day on January 28th, marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the European Data Protection Convention (Convention 108) on January 28th 1981. This international treaty set rules for the automated processing of personal data and data transfers for the first time and is still the foundation for current European data protection laws, such as the GDPR. The amount of data processed and technological developments over the past 40 years have increased dramatically, and so have the challenges for data protection. "The right to data protection was first established on a European level in 1981. Since then, technology has developed quickly, but the principles of data protection stayed true until today. Even more than that, most legal principles have proven to be surprisingly forward-looking. For example: At times where digital storage was extremely expensive, a principle like data minimization was the factual norm, today the law ensures that companies and go