The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers has approved the modernisation of Treaty No. 108, Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data. The amending protocol will be formally adopted next week by the  Committee of Ministers  during their annual ministerial session on 18 May 2018 in Elsinore (Denmark).

In it’s Summary Report on co-operation between the Council of Europe and the European Union dated 9 May 2018, the CoE declared that, “Concerning data protection, the EC pursued active participation in the negotiation process regarding the modernisation of Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (ETS No.108). The EC furthermore continuously encourages accession by third countries to the data protection Convention as being the only binding multilateral instrument in the area of data protection. It also stresses that the modernised text will reflect the same principles as those enshrined in the new EU data protection rules and that both frameworks contribute to the convergence towards a set of high data protection standards.“