In May 2016, after almost five years of negotiations between European Parliamentarians, Member States’ representatives, Commission experts, and intense interactions with the business community, civil society and international actors, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) entered into force. In May 2018, the GDPR became applicable in all EU Member States. The GDPR, often criticised for its far-reaching practical implications, is today the common law of data protection in Europe, has inspired the new Council of Europe Convention 108+ and has generated a so-called “Brussels effect” as it triggered a series of data protection laws and regulations in other parts of the world that all draw more or less on provisions and principles of the GDPR.
Now, after 6 years of application, it is time to assess whether the GDPR has stood the test of time. Have the visions of the lawmakers been fulfilled? Are data subjects today efficiently protected in their rights wherever they live in the EU or are there gaps in the system? Have Member States made good use of the GDPR when specifying it in their national legal systems or are they undermining its harmonising effect? Has the EU over- or underregulated the emerging European data space? And does the GDPR serve as a model for or a warning to new EU Digital Acts such as the AI Act? These issues will be at the heart of discussion among policymakers, supervisors, data protection activists, business representatives, attorneys and academics at our conference GDPR@6 organised at the occasion of the 6th anniversary of the GDPR’s applicability by the Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law of the University of Vienna.
- Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2024, 3:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
- Location: The event will take place on the top floor of the Juridicum, Faculty of Law of the University of Vienna, Schottenbastei 10 - 16, 1010 Vienna.
