Joe Cannataci

Professor Joe Cannataci is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy, Head of the Department of Information Policy & Governance and Deputy Dean at the Faculty of Media & Knowledge Sciences of the University of Malta. He is also Full Professor, holding the Chair of European Information Policy & Technology Law and co-founder as well as co-director of STeP, the Security & Technology e-Privacy Research Group within the Faculty of Law, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He is additionally a Full Professor (adjunct) at the Security Research Institute & School of Computer and Security Science, Edith Cowan University Australia. He holds a Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Malta Faculty of Law, the Spesialfag in Computers & Law from the University of Oslo Faculty of Law, and the Diploma of Notary Public from the University of Malta Faculty of Law. A UK Chartered Information Technology Professional & Fellow of the British Computer Society, he also continues to act as Expert Consultant to a number of international organisations. His past roles have included: Vice-Chairman/ Chairman of the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Commmittee of Experts on Data Protection 1992-1998, Working Parties on: Data Protection and New technologies (1995-2000); Data Protection & Insurance (1994-1998); CoE Rapporteur on Data Protection and Police (1993; 2010; 2012); CoE Expert Consultant on Data Protection and Cybercrime (2012- 2014); UNESCO Expert Consultant on Privacy & Transparency on the Internet (2015); Scientific Co- ordinator of multiple EU FP7 & H2020 research projects focussing on privacy, surveillance, consent and other aspects of security science. Decorated by the Republic of France as Officier de l’Ordre de Palmes Academiques (2002), his first book on Privacy was published by the University of Oslo in 1987 and, over the past thirty years since then he has been the author of several peer-reviewed scientific papers and book chapters in many areas of Technology Law . His latest books include The Individual and Privacy (Routledge Ashgate 2015), Privacy, Free Expression & Transparency (UNESCO co-editor 2016-2017) and Handling and Exchanging Electronic Evidence across Europe (co-ed. Springer 2018). In 2015 he was appointed as United Nations' first-ever Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy and in 2018 his mandate was renewed to 2021.