International Cooperation & Cooperation with Other Authorities

We cooperate with international organisations and the supervisory authorities of countries outside the EU, to support the effective enforcement of the law and to share best practices.

We do this by working within a number of international frameworks, either as the EDPB or via our individual members. We also promote common training programmes and personnel exchanges.

International cooperation frameworks

Here is a non-exhaustive list of International cooperation frameworks working on privacy and data protection matters.

  • Council of Europe (CoE) international institution which promotes human rights, including data protection. The Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (Convention 108) is open to accession by both European and non-European countries
  • Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - international organisation which promotes the improvement of economic and social lives of people around the world. Their Working Party on Security and Privacy in the Digital Economy (SPDE) works on policies which ensure that digital security and privacy protection support the development of the digital economy
  • Global Privacy Assembly (GPA) – global conference (successor of the ICDPPC)
  • Spring Conference of European Data Protection Authorities
  • Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN) - network of privacy enforcement authorities
  • Berlin Group - International Working Group on Data Protection in Telecommunications (ICDPPC)
  • French-speaking Association of Personal Data Protection Authorities (AFAPDP);
  • Central and Eastern Europe Data Protection Authorities (CEEDPA);
  • Asia Pacific Privacy Forum (APPA) - network of Asian privacy authorities
  • Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
  • Common Thread Network (CTN)
  • Ibero-American data protection network (RIPD)

Cooperation with other authorities

Since 2017, the Commission organises annual joint workshops for consumer and data protection authorities of the EU Member States to discuss topics of common interests for the CPC network and the EDPB. During the joint workshop in July 2020, the authorities decided to set up a group of volunteers from both networks with the objective of exchanging and establishing best practices to facilitate the cooperation and exchange of information across both networks where cases affect EU consumer and data protection laws at the same time.