The 9th edition of Data Privacy Day took place on 28 January 2026, in a new format but still for the European Data Protection Day. The new organization committee and venue and the return to the original format (in person and in the morning) did not dampen the interest of professionals interested in the topic. Thanks to the Restena Foundation and the Digital Learning Hub, more than 120 participants learned about the challenges of artificial intelligence and quantum computing for institutions at the age of new digital technologies.

The 2026 edition of Data Privacy Day opened with a common speech by Bert Verdonck and Camille Alegre, respectively Chief Executive Officer and Senior ELSI Associate at the Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS). Together, they highlighted how to build privacy-friendly AI in a regulated environment marked by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) and new data regulatory frameworks. This was followed by insights and expertise from several specialists. The law firm Togouna & Tome, the Centre Hospitalier Emile Mayrisch (CHEM) and the National Commission for Data Protection (CNPD) shared their perspectives, as did Maastricht University, whose contribution brought a European dimension to the topics discussed. These topics included:

• the use of mapping and categorisation as a common infrastructure to best reconcile the GDPR and the AI Act;
• the relevance of using AI or not and how its use intersects with the GDPR in practice;
• the medico-legal challenges of AI in medical imaging;
• the main points for data controllers and processors, and the oversight priorities of the competent authorities to protect data as AI accelerates and quantum capabilities emerge.

In parallel, the Commissariat du Gouvernement à la souveraineté des données (CGSD), known until early 2026 as the 'Commissariat du Gouvernement à la Protection des Données auprès de l’Etat', presented its new missions under the AI Act and the Data Governance Act (DGA) in its first public statement.