Enforcing Europe

09 June 2021

Webinar Series

Overview

Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union enumerates the values the European house is founded upon. Some of those values, like democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights are reflected in principles such as the equality of Union citizens, the Union citizenship, or the binding effect of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. These principles and rights are then further developed in Union's secondary law, such as the General Data Protection Regulation.

However, without proper enforcement, EU law risks becoming a dead letter. When the foundations are weakened, the entire building becomes shaky. This webinar series will, therefore, be interested in how does (or does not) the EU protect its foundations and make sure that the values, principles, and rules of primary law are respected and enforced in the secondary law and in the Member States.

Webinar 6 - Law enforcement access to financial data – off the beaten track

In the sixth and final webinar of Series 1, we will speak about the law enforcement access to financial data and the related (and somewhat unknown) data protection intricacies. How long, and why, are our bank records retained? What kind of inferences can we make out of them? What is the difference between the Financial Intelligence Units and law enforcement authorities? Does the GDPR or the LED apply to them? How widely are our financial data being exchanged in EU and worldwide? What is the role of Europol in all that? And many, many other questions.

Moderator​:

• Juraj Sajfert (VUB/University of Luxembourg)

Speakers:

• Chiara Bacci (European Commission, DG FISMA, Financial Crime)
• Representative of a FIU (TBC)
• Maxime Lassalle (postdoctoral researcher, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law)
• Mario Guglielmetti (European Data Protection Supervisor, Policy and Consultation Unit)

Date & Time: Wednesday 9 June 2021, 12:30 - 14.00 (Brussels time)

Registration: The event is free to attend but registration is required.

More information and Registration

Previous Webinars

Previous sessions in this series:

Webinar 5 - Fifth anniversary of the EU PNR Directive – la route vers la CJUE

In the fifth webinar, we will mark the fifth anniversary of the EU PNR Directive (EU) 2016/681. Will this be another Data Retention Directive? Now that most of the Member States transposed it, this Directive is being challenged before the CJEU by NGOs from Belgium, Austria and Germany. How did we get there (again)? Ahead of the hearing, could we, and why, expect a similar outcome to the one in Digital Rights Ireland? Are there any lessons to be (finally) learned?

Moderator​:

• Juraj Sajfert (VUB/University of Luxembourg)

Speakers:

• Catherine Forget (lawyer from Brussels, representing la Ligue des Droits
• Humains in the PNR case before the CJEU)
• Vagelis Papakonstatinou (VUB)

Webinar 4 - EU legislation on e-evidence – what is inside the (Pandora’s) box?

21 April 2021

In the fourth webinar, we will have a closer look at the EU upcoming legislation on access to electronic evidence. The idea behind this legislative reform is to enable the law enforcement authorities to compel online service providers into surrendering personal data of their costumers, even if the service providers are based outside of their jurisdiction. The law enforcement reach to service providers will therefore become direct, without the traditional channels of law enforcement cooperation such as the mutual legal assistance or mutual recognition. Is this a necessity in the digital era, or a game-changer with unforeseen consequences for the basic principles of both criminal procedural law and data protection law?

The legislation is currently in trilogues. What are the main issues on the table? Where are the big differences between the Parliament’s and the Council’s position? What could be the possible compromises, and how will they shift the paradigm as we know it? What about the other pieces of the e-evidence puzzle - the reform of the Cybercrime Convention, US Cloud Act and the potential EU-US agreement?

Moderator​:

• Juraj Sajfert (VUB/University of Luxembourg)

Speakers:

• Anže Erbežnik (European Parliament, LIBE committee secretariat)
• Marco Stefan (Centre for European Policy Studies)
• Luc De Houwer (Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office)
• Elisa Sason (Dutch Permanent Representation to the EU)

Date & Time: Wednesday 21 April 2021, 12:30 - 14:00 (Brussels time)

Webinar 3 - How to exercise data subject rights under the Law Enforcement Directive (EU) 2016/680?

5 March 2021

Event summary of the webinar

In the third webinar, we will focus on the Law Enforcement Directive (EU) 2016/680 (LED), who has lived a somewhat shadowed existence. Its ‘beautiful sister’, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), took all the limelight and resources. To counterbalance this trend, we will take a deeper look at one aspect of the LED that seems the most revolutionary compared to the previous regime under the Council 2008 Framework Decision: the rights of the data subject.

We will discuss both the recent empirical research on exercising the rights under the LED, and experiences from the perspective of data protection authorities, active on the national and the EU level.

The webinar will take an interactive approach with two rounds of questions with participation possibilities for the audience after a short setting the scene by the moderators.

Reading material:

Plixavra Vogiatzoglou, Katherine Tavárez, Stefano Fantin, Pierre Dewitte, From Theory To Practice: Exercising The Right Of Access Under The Law Enforcement And PNR Directives, 11 (2021) JIPITEC 274 para 1.

Moderators​:

• Laura Drechsler (FWO/VUB)
• Juraj Sajfert (VUB/University of Luxembourg)

Speakers:

• Plixavra Vogiatzoglou (KU Leuven)
• Stefano Fantin (KU Leuven)
• Clara Guerra (Portuguese Data Protection Authority)

Webinar 2 - Does the EU need to urgently adopt the Interim Regulation on the processing of personal and other data for the purpose of combatting child sexual abuse online?

8 February 2021

Event summary of the webinar

The second webinar will discuss the September 2020 Proposal of the European Commission for an Interim Regulation on processing personal and other data for the purpose of combatting child sexual abuse online, which was supposed to be adopted by the end of 2020.

The discussants will tackle the following questions:

• What is Interim Regulation? What are its objectives?
• What kind of technologies service providers use in the fight against child sexual abuse online? How have they been affected by the entry into force of the recast European Electronic Communications Code on 21 December 2020?
• What are the practical consequences of the non-adoption of the Interim Regulation by 21 December 2020? How do we move forward? Does the Interim Regulation set a precedent?

Moderator​:

• Juraj Sajfert (VUB/University of Luxembourg)

Speakers:

• Cathrin Bauer-Bulst (European Commission, DG HOME, Cybercrime Unit)
• Michela Palladino (Facebook, EU Public Policy)
• Alan Butler (EPIC)

Webinar 1 - The CJEU judgments in Privacy International and La Quadrature du Net and others - the return of the walking dead?

19 November 2020

Event summary of the webinar

Hosted in cooperation with the Faculty of Law, Antwerp University.

The first webinar will discuss the judgements rendered by the CJEU on data interception/retention matters in relation to Case C-623/17, Privacy International, and to Joined Cases C-511/18, La Quadrature du Net and Others, C-512/18, French Data Network and Others, and C-520/18, Ordre des barreaux francophones et germanophone and Others (referred to as La Quadrature du Net and Others)

Speakers:

• Juraj Sajfert (VUB/University of Luxembourg)
• Catherine Van de Heyning (Antwerp University)
• Christian Viese Svanberg (data protection officer of the Danish Police)