New European Data Protection Supervisor Announces Five-year Plan

On 2 March 2015, the European Data Protection Supervisor ("EDPS") announced his action plan for the next five years. Appointed as EDPS in December 2014, Giovanni Buttarelli presented the main objectives and the actions of his office during his mandate. Mr Buttarelli's stated goal is for the EU to speak on data protection with a single, credible, informed and relevant voice. The EDPS's 2015-2019 Strategy lays down three main objectives and ten actions to achieve these objectives.

The first area of focus is the digitalisation of data protection. The EDPS is of the opinion that data protection in the digital era should be achieved through: (i) promoting technologies to enhance privacy and data protection; (ii) identifying cross-disciplinary solutions by initiating a dialogue amongst EU bodies and regulators, academics, industry, the IT community, consumer protection organisations and others; and (iii) increasing transparency, user control and accountability in big