The DPO Office participates in the "1st DPO Networking Meeting" hosted by the APDCAT

Last Thursday, 3 October, the “1st DPO Networking Meeting” was held at the Palau de Pedralbes in Barcelona, hosted by the APDCAT. The DPO Office of the TIC Salut Social Foundation had an active participation. The event was structured through presentations and thematic working groups to generate debate on data protection issues.

The meeting is part of the activities of DPO Online Forum, created at the initiative of the APDCAT, to build a virtual space where data protection officers from the public sector of Catalonia can debate and share knowledge on topics of professional interest.

Among the most relevant speakers was Dr. Emese Savoia-Keleti, DPO of the EU Diplomatic Service, who explained the role of the DPO in the public sector. As for Dr. Alessandro Mantelero, CEPD expert and professor of Law at the Polytechnic University of Turin, he presented the first results of the working group on Human Rights Impact Assessment and data processing with AI (AIHR). From the APDCAT, Xavier Urios, Head of Legal Advisement, spoke about the latest pronouncements on data protection. And Josefina Valls, Head of the Technical Inspection Area, reviewed the most common infringements that lead to the opening of disciplinary proceedings.

The contributions of the DPO Office

There was a notable intervention of the DPD Health Office in the thematic working groups. Its participation in the working group European Health Data Space (EHDS): how does the new regulation impact Catalonia? saw the participation of Rafael Guerrero as moderator and in charge of presenting the conclusions reached. Based on the assumption of secondary use of health data, this debate has emphasised the complexity of the new EHDS regulation. In this regard, attention was brought to aspects such as the possible compatibility of the new secondary data use system with the one currently in use according to data protection regulations: the application of fees for data access; accessing pseudonymised data; the implementation of technological requirements in the centres that must prepare the data catalogues available to the data access bodies; the quality of the datasets and the quality and usefulness label; or the impact on people’s rights to “opt out”. A set of issues that highlight the challenge posed by the deployment of the EHDS in the unique context of the Catalan Health System.

It is expected for the discussions on the different working group topics to continue in the virtual space of the DPO network forum and the APDCAT considers including the conclusions of the session in a results report.