Last week saw more than 3,000 people descend on Brussels to
attend the IAPP's Data Protection Congress 2023. Spending the
week at a conference is a bit like going to a music festival:
choosing between sessions, catching up with friends, and not
getting much sleep, but it's undoubtedly time well spent.
And much like Glastonbury, Primavera or Coachella, it's
impossible to see everything and everybody that one wants. For that
reason, this article contains impressions of and takeaways from
my DPC23. If you had a different experience, I'd love
to hear about it.
*****
Unsurprisingly the headline act was AI — but it was
impossible to avoid the topic du jour wherever you went. Besides a
continued interest in generative technology, the focus of numerous
sessions was AI governance — what it means and how to do it.
Interestingly, I overheard a few attendees discussing the need to
move beyond buzzwords — "ethics",
"innovation", "harm" — and towards
concrete and practical
