Announcement

Commissioner meets with U.S. officials and global privacy regulators to discuss priority privacy issues

April 4, 2024 

Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne participated in an international conference in Washington D.C. this week, where he met with senior U.S. government officials and global regulators to discuss privacy and data protection matters of mutual interest, including concerns related to data scraping.

The IAPP Global Privacy Summit is a major international forum for exploring privacy and data protection law, regulation, policy, management, and operations. The Summit brought together privacy professionals from around the world, including privacy regulators, as well as thought leaders and privacy innovators from different sectors.

“International cooperation is increasingly important as data knows no borders and collaboration amongst global stakeholders, including industry, is essential to protect individuals’ fundamental right to privacy in this digital era,” said Commissioner Dufresne.

During the event, Commissioner Dufresne met with senior representatives from the Federal Trade Commission to share experiences in international privacy regulation, and with senior U.S. government officials, including from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which hosted a discussion on U.S. privacy priorities.

Commissioner Dufresne participated in a panel discussion on data scraping that focused on his role as co-chair of the Global Privacy Assembly’s International Enforcement Working Group, which issued a joint statement on the issue last year.

The joint statement set out steps that social media companies and other websites that host publicly accessible personal information should take to prevent unlawful data scraping, which involves the automated extraction of data from the web.