Meeting of the supervisory authorities (SA) of the Baltic States (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon, Datu valsts inspekcija, Valstybinė duomenų apsaugos inspekcija) took place on October 20 and 21, 2022 in Vilnius continuing the annual meeting tradition. During the meeting, representatives of SA prepared information and discussed the most relevant topics of this period.
Raimondas Andrijauskas, Head of Lithuanian SA says: “We appreciate the opportunity to have these meetings with colleagues from other countries. Our cooperation helps to find a better way to deal with various issues, when everyone discusses, shares experiences, compares the practices of different countries”.
This year Lithuanian SA has given special attention to topics such as: implementation of judicial practice in the field of video surveillance, amicable settlement, changes of Law on Legal Protection of Personal Data.
According to the Head of the Latvian Supervisory Authority Jekaterina Macuka: “Meetings with colleagues of the Baltic States data protection supervisory authorities are always filled with meaningful discussions and are goal orientated. We have similar challenges, and we use comparison of differences in our approach to learn and improve. After every meeting we can take home new ideas how to reach our own goals and fulfill our mission objectives in a digital age”.
In this meeting Latvian SA drew attention to regulation on retention data in Electronic Communications Law, regulation and approach towards data protection officers, interaction between E-privacy directive and GDPR and SA powers.
Pille Lehis, the Head of the Estonian Supervisory Authority, adds: “In many cases, a systematic approach is the best solution for preventing problems affecting the protection of personal data. Closer cooperation between supervisory authorities contributes to more efficient and consistent supervision of personal data processing in the Baltic States. More importantly, the good relations created at those meetings and a closer network with colleagues from our neighboring countries also help to overcome the obstacles of our everyday work.”
The Estonian supervisory authority also presented its main focus topics for this year and gave an overview of video-surveillance cases, guidelines, video-surveillance signs, of background and plans for supervision actions on publication of payment defaults and introduced new guidelines for publication of payment defaults.
Special focus of the meeting this year was on data breaches investigation and key complaint handling cases. All three supervisors presented interim results of coordinated inspection in the field of short-term vehicle rental, final reports are currently being prepared. It was also agreed to monitor the situation in each country in order to decide which sector to choose for next year’s coordinated inspections.