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The director of the Catalan Data Protection Authority, Meritxell Borràs; the president of the Catalan Association of Municipalities (ACM), Lluis Soler; and the president of the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia (FMC), Olga Arnau, signed an agreement this Tuesday to work together to improve the knowledge and awareness of the staff at the service of local bodies in matters of data protection.
The initiative responds to the will of the three organizations to promote the integration of this subject, with a high technical and specialized content, among the people who work in the local world and may regularly process personal data of citizens as a result of the ordinary administrative activity. Especially, taking into account the progressive implementation of increasingly digital services in public management and care and the impacts associated with the use of new technologies in the processing of personal data.
Workshops, exhibitions and a new guide
The collaboration that has now materialized through the signing of this agreement includes the joint design and development of activities, workshops, exhibitions, communication campaigns and other dissemination and actions, aimed at consolidating knowledge of the protection of the privacy and security of information among the staff of local bodies. It includes the training and awareness-raising of both elected officials and the rest of the staff of local entities, so that they incorporate data protection in the development of the functions assigned to them.
The APDCAT, with the support of the ACM and the FMC, will draw up a new practical data protection guide intended for local entities, which will answer frequently asked questions and provide practical examples to correctly apply the regulations. The APDCAT will review and update the content of the training activities currently promoted by local organizations (postgraduate courses, training classes, seminars, etc.).
The director of the APDCAT, Meritxell Borràs, described this agreement as a "step forward" that "intends to accompany the local world in order to strengthen the application and integration of data protection in this particularly sensitive area in terms of volume of citizen data that it manages". "We work to offer tools that make it easier for entities to respect data protection rights and freedoms, and this guide that we promote in collaboration with the local world is an example," he added.
For his part, the president of the ACM and mayor of Deltebre, Lluís Soler, emphasized that "with this new guide we want to give new tools and support to the councils on their way to diagnosing, protecting and improving the privacy, which also benefits all citizens".
Finally, the president of the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia and mayoress of Vilanova i la Geltrú, Olga Arnau, has assessed this collaboration as "very satisfactory to be able to continue providing a good service to the municipal world, helping above all government operators local authorities, politicians and public employees, training them and sensitizing them in this matter, as well as the increasingly aware public. We need the staff of local bodies to consolidate their knowledge of privacy protection and the security of the information".
The Catalan Data Protection Authority, the Catalan Association of Municipalities and the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia have signed an agreement to collaborate in the training and awareness-raising of staff at the service of local bodies in Catalonia and elected officials, as well how to design actions and activities to consolidate knowledge about data protection in this area, including the development of a new guide.