On January 28, 2022, the Day of Personal Data Protection will be celebrated for another year. It is commemorated worldwide and outside Europe, it is known as Data Privacy Day.
In 1981, the Council of Europe adopted the first international treaty dealing with the right of individuals to the protection of their personal data: the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data of the Council of Europe, also known as „Convention 108”.
To this day, Convention 108 remains the only binding international instrument to set standards for the protection of personal data, which is opened for signature to any country and has a potential of becoming a global standard.
The Commission for Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Bulgaria (CPDP), which is the coordinator of the SMEDATA Project, would mark the Data Protection Day with a number of events:
1. On 28 January 2022 (Friday) from 10:00 – 12:00 and 14:30 – 16:00 in the premises of the CPDP experts would welcome data controllers, as well as citizens and would answer all the questions they might have through teleconferencing.
2. Both on the occasion of the Data Protection Day and for the purposes of raising the awareness of data subjects, regarding personal data protection, the CPDP issued two brochures, aiming at educating and advising data subjects, dedicated to:
„Big Data and the related opportunity for profiling” – with informational and educational content and advice to personal data controllers and to citizens.
3. Another traditional Data Protection Day event is the annual award for journalism.
It has been established in 2016 and is awarded for publications, programmes, as well as socially significant events, concerning a journalist or a media, covering the activity of the CPDP for the previous year.
The Data Protection Day was established to fulfil the need for reconciliation of core values, such as the right to privacy and the free movement of data. Moreover, emphasis is put on the significance of the adequate data protection, both in the private and professional lives of the data subjects, as well as the education of the public about the challenges of data protection and how to exercise their rights.