On 28 January 2025, the Restena Foundation and the University of Luxembourg co-organised the 8th edition of the Data Privacy Day dedicated to data protection. In a new format spread over a full day, the hybrid event saw no fewer than 190 interested parties riding the waves of new data protection challenge.

After the opening speech by Olivier Micol from the European Commission, speakers from SupDPO - the network of DPOs for higher education and research in France, the National Commission for Data protection (CNPD), the Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS), the University of Luxembourg, the Association pour la Protection des Données au Luxembourg ((APDL) and the Togouna & Tome Avocats law firm follow one another on Data Privacy Day 2025 stage.

Numerous challenges to face

The event opened with an update on the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which defines the main framework for personal data processing within the European Union since May 2018, six years after its entry into force. Then, numerous challenges were discussed throughout the day.

• The RGPD compliance management ecosystem in French higher education.
• The importance of close collaboration between Data Protection Officers (DPO) and Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) in data protection risk management; cyber security and data protection being closely linked.
• The Artificial Intelligence (AI) daily challenges that DPOs and CISOs face, particularly in terms of risks, ethics and controls.
• Privacy and promoting access to data under the European Data Act that set rules on access, use and sharing of data generated from a broad range of products and services, including connected objects.
• The need to assess risks to achieve and demonstrate compliance with the various existing data protection laws. In research, a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) is therefore recommended when a project is being developed or when changes are made to the processing of personal data.
• Data protection awareness tools specifically set up in Luxembourg by the CNPD. Those are, to name a few, ‘Data Protection basis’ and ‘AI and Data Protection’ training sessions, ‘DaProLab’ workshops and the interactive e-learning and compliant tool DAAZ.

A European initiative

Data Privacy Day is organised since 2018 for the European Data Protection Day and held on 28 January. Across Europe, various initiatives are being organised to raise awareness of data protection.

In Luxembourg, this important date was celebrated in 2025 by Restena and the University of Luxembourg as part of Data Privacy Day, and by the CNPD as part of a conference dedicated to Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT).