Global Privacy Assembly

Organisation of the GPA and the BfDI

The first international conference was held in Bonn in 1979 at the invitation of the then Federal Commissioner for Data Protection. Since then, the conference has been held annually at different locations, including Berlin in 1989 and Strasbourg/Baden-Baden in 2008. At the conference 2019 in Tirana, Albania, it adopted the new name of "Global Privacy Assembly (GPA)". After two virtual conferences in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the GPA Annual Conferences resumed the traditional format "on site" and with participants meeting in person, which helps enable an in-depth exchange of information and opinions - most recently at the 46th GPA Annual Conference in the Channel island Jersey in the fall of 2024.The next or 47th Annual Conference of the GPA will take place in September of 2025 in Seoul, South Korea.

The BfDI is a founding member of the GPA and also participates in its working groups.

The GPA’s work

The GPA regularly discusses globally relevant issues relating to data protection policy and data protection law and develops pertinent resolutions and recommendations. These are aimed at data processing companies, authorities or organisations around the world. At the same time, these documents have an influence on national legislators and thus contribute to good data protection. The documents published as joint positions of the data protection supervisory authorities gathered in the GPA receive great worldwide attention.

In the extended part of the annual conference, the GPA deals with current social, legal and technical developments that have a global impact on the right to privacy. Representatives of international organisations and non-governmental organisations as well as from science and industry also participate in this event. The Conference thus provides impetus at international level for the further development of data protection and the right to privacy – with the aim of safeguarding them even under changing conditions.