Council of Europe

Council of Europe

An enabling environment for Internet freedom

The Council of Europe is an intergovernmental organisation of 47 European countries, bringing together 820 million people. The Organisation is the guardian of the European Convention on Human Rights and its aim is to defend and promote human rights, democracy and rule of law.

The focus of this year’s forum will be on Internet-policy developments and other Council of Europe activities aimed at constructing an enabling environment for Internet freedom. In particular, the Council of Europe will present the work of the Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe on mass surveillance, policy guidelines on Internet freedom currently being prepared under the authority of the Committee of Ministers and its Internet-based Platform on Safety of Journalists.

Mr Patrick Penninckx – Head of Information Society Department, Council of Europe
Mr Dirk Van Eeckhout – Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representation of Belgium to the Council of Europe
Mr Matjaž Gruden - ‎Director of the Policy Planning Directorate, Council of Europe
Mr Günter Schirmer – Secretariat of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Mr Maximillian Schrems, europe-v-facebook.org
Ms Lidia Brito, UNESCO Director for Montevideo Office
Ms Gabrielle Guillemin, Article 19, Member of Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on cross-border flow of Internet traffic and Internet freedom
Ms Eleonora Rabinovich, Google Senior Policy Advisor for Latin America (tbc)
A representative of the Brazilian community of journalists (IFJ), name to be confirmed