Piotr Drobek

Counsellor, Personal Data Protection Office, Poland

Mr Piotr Drobek graduated from the University of Warsaw, Faculty of Law and Administration in 2000. Then he worked in several departments of the Personal Data Protection Office. Afterwards he fulfilled the function of the Deputy Director of the Social Education and International Co-operation Department. He also fulfilled the function of the Director of the Analysis and Strategy Section in the Personal Data Protection Authority. For now, he is the advisor of the President of the Personal Data Protection Office. He is a Chair of the Joint Supervisory Authority Customs and a Chair of the Customs Information System Supervision Coordination Group. He is also a lecturer at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw.

Anna Kobylańska

Partner, Kobylańska Lewoszewski Mednis, Poland

Anna Kobylańska is an advocate, member of the Warsaw Bar Association. Prior to establishing her own law firm, for more than ten years she practiced Intellectual Property, New Technologies and Personal Data Protection Law in international law firms.
Anna specializes in legal counseling in the field of personal data protection, copyright, industrial property rights, media and advertising law, and the law of new technologies. She has many years of experience in leading projects relating to Internet domain names protection, use of new technologies to collect and process personal data (IoT, Big Data, behavioral targeting) and IT systems implementation. She also participated in projects concerning the assessment of the potential of technology startups in the context of the intellectual property generated by them. As regards the implementation of the EU GDPR requirements, she has worked for clients in the financial, media, automotive, retail, pharma and business consulting sectors.

She is the author of one of the first book publications in Poland on “Protection of Trademarks on the Internet” and the co-author of “Data Protection in Business Practices” and “Protection of Trademarks: Online Use and Anticybersqautting. A European Perspective”. She lectures at the Grotius’ Center for Intellectual Property. For a number of years, she has been involved in the works of the International Trademark Association (INTA) committees, including, in 2016-2017 in the Personal Data Protection Committee. She is a member of the European Commission multistakeholder expert group to support the application of Regulation (EU) 2016/679.

In 2017, Anna’s data protection law practice was distinguished in the regulatory law firms ranking published by Polityka Insight. Since 2012, Anna has also been ranked each year in the Chambers and Partners Europe in the “TMT: Data Protection” area.

Marcin Lewoszewski

Partner, Kobylańska Lewoszewski Mednis, Poland

Marcin Lewoszewski is a legal advisor and a partner of Kobylańska Lewoszewski Mednis law firm in Warsaw, specializing in data protection. Before joining the firm, he worked for over seven years as part of the TMT team with one of the leading international law firms based in Warsaw. Earlier, for two years, he worked for the Polish Data Protection Authority (GIODO). He is recognised by Chambers and Partners as one of the leading data privacy lawyers in Poland (Band 3).

Currently, he represents before the court a party to the proceedings ended with the imposition of the first financial penalty in Poland by the Polish Data Protection Authority on an controller whose activity is based on the processing of data from publicly available registers (Bisnode vs the DPA case).

In 2016 and 2020 he was selected by the International Association of Privacy Professionals as the IAPP KnowledgeNET Poland co-chair.

He is the author of several dozen articles on the subject of personal data protection - he published, among others, in the Polish edition of Harvard Business Review, in Rzeczpospolita, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, and abroad - in BNA Bloomberg, IAPP PrivacyTracker or DataGuidance. He is the co-author of the chapter in the book on Polish regulations on the protection of personal data "The Law Reviews: the Privacy, Data Protection and Cybersecurity". He was quoted many times by the professional press in Poland and abroad, including the opinion-forming Politico. Regardless of his work in the office, he is the editor-in-chief of the quarterly Information in Public Administration, published by C.H. Beck.

For years, Marcin has been advising clients whose personal data is the most valuable asset. Recently, he has been helping the Polish computer game producer operating globally in adapting business processes to the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation. To a similar extent, he supported one of the largest CRO entities in Poland. He also advised a large capital group operating on the financial market in connection with breaches of personal data protection. He assisted one of the largest corporations in the world in the process of accepting binding corporate rules (BCR) in proceedings before the Polish data protection authority.

Cathal McDermott

Senior Legal Counsel, Privacy and Regulatory Affairs, Microsoft, Ireland

Cathal McDermott is a Senior Legal Counsel on the Privacy and Regulatory Affairs team at Microsoft, where he provides privacy advice to internal business groups around global privacy compliance, online search and services, and cross-border privacy issues. Previously, he worked on the privacy legal teams at Dropbox and Red Hat and practiced privacy law in Dublin. Cathal holds a BCL from Trinity College, Dublin and an LLM from University College, London.

 

Arwid Mednis

Partner, Kobylańska Lewoszewski Mednis, Poland

Dr hab. Arwid Mednis is a legal advisor, an expert in the field of personal data protection law, telecommunications law and broadly understood administrative law. He is recognized by international ranking of lawyers - Chambers and Partners, as No.1 data protection lawyer in Poland. Similarly, the prestigious ranking of the Rzeczpospolita daily indicates him as a leader in this field in Poland. Before joining our law firm as a name partner, for many years he was associated with international law firms as a partner and head of TMT practice.

He has been dealing with the protection of personal data since 1991. In the years 1991–2000 he represented Poland in the Personal Data Protection Committee at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and was its chairman for 2 years. He co-founded the Polish act on the protection of personal data, participated in the work of parliamentary committees preparing draft legislative changes, among others in telecommunications law and in parliamentary work on the act adapting Polish provisions to the GDPR. He co-created the first act on access to economic information and exchange of economic data, and also participated in works on its amendment.

Dr Mednis advised and participated in the implementation of the GDPR for the companies from the banking, telecommunications, financial, media as well as in public entities (including the Polish Central Statistical Office). Supports the banking sector in the preparation of a code of good practice under the GDPR as an expert. He has advised business information bureaus and business intelligence providers on numerous occasions in matters related to the processing of personal data. For many years he has been advising on matters related to the protection of personal data, including in relation to creating information exchange platforms for the purposes of preventing crime. He also advised on the creation of anti-fraud systems in the telecommunications sector. He advised several dozen entities on matters related to marketing and electronic communication. For years, he has represented various entities in disputes with the Polish DPA (GIODO, currently PUODO) and other proceedings regarding the protection of privacy and personal data. One of the last wins is the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court annulling the judgment of the Provincial Administrative Court regarding registration numbers entered into parking meters (Dr. Mednis represented the Council of the Capital City of Warsaw in it).

Maria Owczarek

Head of the International Cooperation Division, International Cooperation and Education Department, Personal Data Protection Office, Poland

Maria graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw, and completed postgraduate studies on the Protection of Personal Data and Confidential Information at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. She is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Before joining the Personal Data Protection Office, for several years she advised on the new technologies and intellectual property law in the IP&TMT Practice, one of the largest Polish law firms.

Maria is the Head of the International Cooperation Division, International Cooperation and Education Department in the Polish Supervisory Authority. She also represents the Personal Data Protection Office in the expert subgroups of the European Data Protection Board, where she contributes to the guidelines, recommendations and best practices on the GDPR issued by the EDPB.

Leslie Shanklin

Vice President, Privacy Office, Discovery Inc, USA

Ms. Shanklin leads the global Privacy Office for Discovery, Inc., a media and entertainment company headquartered in New York with operations in over 200 global markets. Included in Discovery’s global portfolio is TVN, the leading broadcaster in Poland, which operates the top-rated news channel in Poland as well as scripted and non-scripted film and television entertainment brands carried on both digital and linear broadcast platforms.

In her role, Ms. Shanklin leads a team of lawyers and privacy professionals located in the US and Europe who are responsible for building and managing Discovery’s global data protection compliance program and advising the business on the data protection aspects of Discovery’s global operations.

Prior to her position with Discovery, Leslie acted as lead global intellectual property, privacy and data security counsel for the media and entertainment company Scripps Networks Interactive, and prior to that position, Leslie was a Partner with the law firm Holland & Knight LLP.

Leslie is a Certified Information Privacy Professional in the US and Europe.

Stewart Dresner

Chief Executive, Privacy Laws & Business

Stewart graduated from the University of Lancaster in Politics and Marketing. In 1975 Stewart pioneered a research project on Open Government at the UK Consumers’ Association. He then visited the USA and Canada, meeting consumer advocates, politicians and journalists researching the emerging Freedom of Information and privacy legislation. His subsequent publication was financed by the Outer Circle Policy Unit, titled Open Government: Lessons from America, and a new career was born. Consumer research and working for The Economist as a business journalist honed his skills as an investigator and writer.

He launched the Privacy Laws & Business Newsletter in February 1987. In October 1988 he organised PL&B’s first international conference. Stewart co-founded and chaired the UK’s Data Protection Forum, and has spoken at conferences around the world. He lives and works in Pinner, has a beautiful wife, who wrote this, and 3 adult sons.