On 7 March, the Chamber hosted in its premises the conference “Data protection pitfalls – Experiences following GDPR audits”, organised in collaboration with the Chamber’s member company Van Gompel Advocaten.

The speaker was Laura Van Gompel, lawyer in Mexican and Belgian law specialised in data protection and contracts, and during the conference she reviewed various legal-practical cases related to issues such as workplace monitoring, camera surveillance or due diligence in cases of mergers or acquisitions of companies.

The advance of information technologies and the management of increasingly large databases has in recent decades raised several dilemmas regarding the use of sensitive personal and business data that are still being legislated. In this respect, Van Gompel explained that regulation is constantly evolving.

Among the examples given, she spoke about the use of databases after the acquisition of a company by new owners, as well as data protection in roadside assistance and in the agricultural vehicle sales sector.

For each case study, Laura Van Gompel gave a brief overview of the legal framework to be applied, reviewed the complex issues that data protection legislation poses to companies and explained the procedure Van Gompel followed to solve them.