Posted on 23.12.2025
Given CPDP’s important role within the data protection community, sponsorship arrangements and the involvement of sponsored speakers must be governed by clear, publicly accessible rules that safeguard scientific independence and limit undue influence on the programme. CPDP has long sought to ensure transparency in its sponsorship policy, to promote diversity of perspectives on panels, and to clearly identify panel organisers so that participants can understand how each discussion is shaped. Recent adjustments to CPDP’s sponsor approach have understandably prompted questions within the community.
CPDP is neither a disciplinary conference limited to law or computer science, nor a trade fair or an activist forum. It is an engaged, multistakeholder conference with a primary commitment to the field itself: mapping key developments in digital society and bringing together a broad range of relevant voices. These include academics, lawyers, practitioners, data protection and other public authorities, policymakers (including at EU level), industry representatives, and civil society actors from across the world.
Panels are expected to be both relevant and genuinely diverse, with particular attention to gender balance, geographical representation, and disciplinary plurality. CPDP is also guided by the core values underpinning the field. Speakers are invited to examine technologies through the lens of privacy, data protection, and other fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, using these shared reference points to support dialogue across disciplines and perspectives.
Because these concepts can be interpreted differently in concrete contexts, CPDP understands public debate as a space for comparing viewpoints, refining understandings, and addressing the democratic questions raised by technological change. These include questions about topic selection, the diversity of parliamentary and policy voices, and whether all contributions that deepen reflection on technology and fundamental values are meaningfully welcomed.
In this context, scrutiny of sponsorship policies is both legitimate and necessary. At the same time, we recognise that programming choices inevitably involve challenges and trade-offs. We are grateful for the critical feedback received from the scientific community and other stakeholders, which helps CPDP remain an open, reflective, and values-driven forum.
When CPDP was launched in 2007 as a public debate platform initiated by universities and research institutes, sponsorship was limited and provided primarily by deBuren, the Flemish-Dutch House of Debate. As the conference grew, its sponsorship policy evolved accordingly. CPDP published a detailed and transparent policy on its website, setting out sponsor roles, selection criteria, and safeguards for scientific independence. Sponsored sessions and speakers were clearly identified in the programme and online, enabling participants to understand when and how sponsors were involved.
Panel organisers were actively supported in meeting diversity requirements relating to gender, stakeholder position, and nationality, and CPDP committed to regularly reviewing its sponsorship policy in light of experience and feedback. This approach generally resulted in high-quality sponsored panels, and sponsor engagements were discontinued where concerns were raised by reference groups.
In the current call for panels, a new element was introduced, replacing the previous sponsorship-based panel organisation system. The aim was to preserve editorial independence while supporting financial sustainability and maintaining a broad diversity of perspectives. A key feature of this approach was the creation of the CPDP Speaker Pool, intended as a practical tool to connect panel organisers with experts affiliated with sponsoring organisations and to give CPDP a clearer overview of the programme as a whole.
Reactions to this approach have been mixed. Some organisers appreciated the Speaker Pool and CPDP’s intermediary role, while others expressed concerns that the new model could affect perceptions of independence or create uncertainty about the role of sponsors in programme formation.
In response, CPDP has updated the website to clarify that there is no obligation for panel organisers to select speakers from the sponsor pool where this is not appropriate for the panel. CPDP reaffirms its established practices to ensure diversity of perspectives and reiterates its commitment to reviewing and refining its sponsorship and sponsored-speaker policies in light of experience and feedback from participants and the wider scientific community.
Paul De Hert