Professor Joe Cannataci, Head of the Department of Information Policy and Governance at the University of Malta, has been appointed special rapporteur on privacy by the UN's Human Rights Council.
This is the first time that the UN has appointed a special rapporteur for privacy.
The rapporteur was appointed following world-wide concern about surveillance and privacy in the wake of the Snowden revelations.
Prof. Cannataci is expected to lead new global initiatives on improving the level of privacy on-line and elsewhere in an increasingly digital world.
Prof. Cannataci has a long and distinguished career in privacy-related issues. Between 1992 and 1998 he was first vice-chairman and then chairman of the Council of Europe's Committee of Experts on Data Protection. He has held or currently holds research grants from the British Academy, the Council of Europe, COST, UNESCO and the European Commission.
He has written books and articles on data protection law, liability for expert systems, legal aspects of medical informatics, copyright in computer software and co-authored various papers and textbook chapters on self-regulation and the Internet, the EU Constitution and data protection, on-line dispute resolution, data retention and police data.
Prof. Cannataci has designed and won several bids for privacy-related research projects, attracting over two million euro in European Union’s 7th Framework and Horizon2020 programme funding to the University of Malta.