"Dia de los Muertos" (photo by Natalie Curtiss, shot on February 26, 2011).

Two days before the 33^rd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners takes place in Mexico City, The Public Voice, an international coalition of NGO’s, and nonprofit organizations, is organizing this Monday a full-day event to discuss the views of Civil Society representatives from Latin America, Europe and North America, but also with several government officials and industry speakers.  The issues featured are the same as the ones that will be discussed for the following three days in the Mexican capital: privacy and data protection, and how they relate to broader issues such as freedom of expression and consumer protection.

The stated goals of the conference are to:

• review the status of the two Madrid Declarations (Civil Society’s Madrid Privacy Declaration (“Global Privacy Standards for a Global World”) and the Data Protection Commissioners’s International Standards on Privacy and Personal Data Protection.
• assess cultures and privacy perspectives from around the world;
• raise public awareness on surveillance technologies and its consequences to consumers, freedom of expression and human rights;
• explore the ongoing policy and legal issues at stake in Latin America about privacy and freedom of expression.
• establish networking opportunities between Mexican civil society and consumer rights advocates and members of the Public Voice.

The event hosts are the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Federal Institute for Access to Information and Data Protection (IFAI), the Mexican Data Protection Authority.  Some of the government speakers they invited include:

• Marie-Hélène Boulanger, Head of the Data Protection Unit of the Directorate General “Justice” at the European Commission,
• Jacob Kohnstamm, Chair of the European Article 29 Data Protection Working Party,
• Jacqueline Peschard, IFAI’s President,
• Peter Schaar, the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of Germany, and
• David Vladeck, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the United States Federal Trade Commission.

The full list of speakers is available here.

If you wanted to attend the meeting physically, unfortunately at this time it is not possible anymore to register to attend the meeting in person.  If you plan on following the event online, just go to the webcast page at the start of the event: today at 08:00am GMT-6.

Several people have already offered to tweet about the event in several languages (currently English, French, Portuguese and Spanish).  If you want to make comments about the panels or even ask questions directly to speakers, you will be able to do so by using the #tpv11 hashtag in your tweets and the speaker’s Twitter username (speakers list on Twitter).  I will be tweeting in English and French from my Twitter account (@cedric_laurant).

Public Voice event in Mexico City (Oct. 31, 2011)