The governance of the digital world is fragmented and faces difficult challenges. Technologies that shape our lives develop faster than the means – or even the will – to regulate them for the protection of privacy and other fundamental rights.  

What We Owe the Future invites reflection on this contribution. Building on this, it looks ahead to what the future demands of us. What will the next twenty or more years need, and how should we help to build it? What do we owe to those who will inherit the world we shape today? Which principles must endure, which protections cannot be bargained away even when the pressure to relax them is strong, and what responsibilities do the custodians of the present bear towards the future? 

The year 2027 marks the twentieth anniversary of CPDP. For twenty years, the conferences have stood at the forefront of efforts to understand and contribute to improving the prospect for governance in this fast-moving digital age. As a community of academics, regulators and policymakers, civil society, industry and legal practitioners, CPDP has cast a bright light on issues, practices and rules, and has offered a forum for debate and the exchange of knowledge across a global landscape. What is worth celebrating is not the annual conference itself, but twenty years of bringing this community together and sustaining it through a period of momentous change.   

The people whose lives will extend far into that future should help to design the way forward. CPDP 2027 therefore launches CPDP 20: The Next Generation, which include a team of early-career researchers from across disciplines who will co-curate the programme and help identify its most pressing questions. This team will identify connections across fields and help to explore issues on the horizon, bringing knowledge and fresh perspectives to bear on developments and their likely consequences that will need to be addressed by policy, governance and other action.