INTERVIEW WITH GIOVANNI BUTTARELLI, EUROPEAN DATA PROTECTION SUPERVISOR

"THE GDPR IS A RADICAL UPDATE OF THE RULE BOOK FOR THE DIGITAL AGE!"

Giovanni Buttarelli (61) has been the European Data Protection Supervisor since December 2014. Before this, the native Italian spent five years in the post of Deputy European Data Protection Supervisor. Between 1997 and 2009, Buttarelli was Secretary General at the Italian Data Protection Authority. Sven Lilienström, founder of Faces of Democracy, spoke with Giovanni Buttarelli about the GDPR, ePrivacy and Democracy 2.0.

MR. BUTTARELLI, THE FACES OF DEMOCRACY INITIATIVE WANTS TO SUPPORT A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF DEMOCRACY AROUND THE WORLD. HOW SIGNIFICANT ARE DEMOCRACY AND DEMOCRATIC VALUES TO YOU PERSONALLY?

Giovanni Buttarelli: Protecting democratic values has rarely been a more pressing agenda, of importance to me personally and more critically, to all of us collectively. Of late, it is becoming more and more apparent that democracy is threatened by the excessive market power of the dominant players and their abuse thereof.

Online opinion manipulation and political profiling pose great challenges to the maintenance of democracy!

Online opinion manipulation and political profiling pose great challenges to the maintenance of democracy as they make it harder for people to understand each other and their shared experiences. This breaking down of social cohesion and loosening of the glue of society not only undermines democracy but also other fundamental rights and freedoms.

A diverse ecosystem of information is an indispensable layer of democratic foundations!

Democratic values rely by...