Paul De Hert is professor of law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is the Director of the research group on Fundamental Rights and Constitutionalism (FRC) and senior member of the research group on Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS). Paul De Hert is also associated-professor Law and Technology at the Tilburg Institute for Law and Technology (TILT).

Dara Hallinan is a legal academic working at FIZ Karlsruhe. His specific focus is on the interaction between law, new technologies – particularly ICT and biotech – and society. He wrote his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel on the better regulation of genetic privacy in biobanks and genomic research through data protection law. He is also editor of Data Protection Insider.

Thierry Vandenbussche is the Art & Event Director of Privacy Salon in Brussels. He's co-coordinating CPDP and its side events. Thierry has been organizing events and curating thought provoking exhibitions since the turn of the century when he launched Courtisane, a platform for film and audiovisual arts and later arts organisations like Outlandish (photography), stilll gallery and stilll office. In 2019 he co-curated the exhibition 'Festival of Control', a show actually dealing with issues like privacy and data control. He reinforces the team with vivid enthusiasm and a healthy sense of urgency.

Barbara Lazarotto is a legal researcher at the Law, Science, Technology and Society Research Group (LSTS) of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the Managing Director of the Brussels Privacy Hub, an academic research center associated with LSTS. From 2021 to 2024, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the LeADS MSCA ITN project at LSTS. Her research centres on the intersection of data protection and data governance, particularly the secondary use of personal and non-personal data within the EU regulatory framework.

Dara Hallinan is a legal academic working at FIZ Karlsruhe. His specific focus is on the interaction between law, new technologies – particularly ICT and biotech – and society. He wrote his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel on the better regulation of genetic privacy in biobanks and genomic research through data protection law. He is also editor of Data Protection Insider.

Paul De Hert is professor of law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is the Director of the research group on Fundamental Rights and Constitutionalism (FRC) and senior member of the research group on Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS). Paul De Hert is also associated-professor Law and Technology at the Tilburg Institute for Law and Technology (TILT).

Luca Belli, PhD, is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Law School, where he heads the Center for Technology and Society and the CyberBRICS project. Luca is also one of the Editors of the OUP International Data Privacy Law journal and the Director of CPDP LatAm, the Latin American edition of CPDP.

Prof.dr. Ronald Leenes (1964) is full professor in regulation by technology at Tilburg University and director of the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT).. His primary research interests are techno-regulation, conceptual issues with respect to privacy, data protection in practice, data analytics, accountability and transparency, regulatory failure, robotics and human enhancement. He has been involved as lead and principal investigator in several EU, EC and Dutch privacy and data protection projects and has co-edited several of the CPDP book volumes.

Dennis Hirsch is a Professor at The Ohio State University where he holds a joint appointment in the Moritz College of Law and the Department of Computer Science and is a core faculty member of the Translational Data Analytics Institute. He directs the OSU Program on Data and Governance which focuses on the governance of advanced analytics and AI, and co-directs the OSU Responsible Data Science Community of Practice, a community of over 100 researchers focused on the ethical and just use of advanced analytics and AI. Professor Hirsch teaches courses on privacy law, property law, and on the law, policy, ethics, and management of AI.

Omer Tene is a partner in the Goodwin's Technology group and Data, Privacy & Cybersecurity practice, based in Boston. He is also an Affiliate Scholar at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and Senior Fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum.

Malavika is the Executive Director of the Digital Asia Hub, Hong Kong, and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She practised law at Allen & Overy, London, and was Vice President and Technology Counsel at Citigroup. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). She was previously a member of the Executive Committee of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, and an Associate Fellow with Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs). She taught India’s first course on IT & Law in 1997.

Achim Klabunde has followed the development of data protection for more than 50 years. After graduating in computer science from Bonn University, he worked for 30 years in industry and public sector, eventually with the European Commission and the EDPS. He contributed to the work of data protection authorities on technology at EU and global level. Currently, Achim is working in civil society roles, as a lecturer and as author of essays and commentaries. He is a Board Member of German Data Protection Association (DVD e.V.) and member of the German Computer Society’s Committee on Data protection and IT Security.

Adriana Schnyder is a lawyer by training. She holds a law degree, obtained in Costa Rica in 2019, and an LLM in International and European Law from the VUB, Brussels, from which she graduated
with distinction in 2023.

Adriana has built a solid career working for over eight years with top-tier law and consultancy firms like Deloitte, gaining invaluable expertise in the legal field and working with international clients in
matters related to data protection.

Nowadays, Adriana is based in Madrid, Spain, and she’s the founding partner of Digitus Legal, a boutique consultancy on data protection and privacy matters focused on guiding companies to
navigate the complex data-driven ecosystem between Europe, the U.S., and Latin America.

Andrés Chomczyk Penedo is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Law and Technology (IDT) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). In 2024, he obtained a PhD in Law at the Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS) Research Group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, where he remains as an Affiliated Researcher. From 2019 to 2023, he was a Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the PROTECT MSCA ITN project at LSTS. Moreover, he is also an academic fellow of the Brussels Privacy Hub.His research activities and interests are focused on the intersection between data protection and financial services.

Birte Vingerhoets joined Privacy Salon as an intern while pursuing her Masters degree in Digital Media in Europe at VUB. After graduating, she became a full-time team member, contributing her expertise and enthusiasm to the organisation. Birte is the creative face behind our newsletters and social media channels. With a strong interest in privacy and data protection, Birte is committed to raising awareness about these critical issues through engaging and accessible communication. During her internship, she co-coordinated the Avatar.fm radio show at the CPDP.ai conference, a role she continues to expand by supporting similar initiatives at Privacy Salon.

Carissa Anderson is a master's student at the VUB pursuing her degree in Digital Media in Europe. She has worked with different companies in Europe and the United States to work towards making online spaces safer for everyone, particularly children and vulnerable populations. She has spoken about AI ethics, safe social media, and youth advocacy in responsible technology at different events and on channels, such as Bosch ConnectedWorld, Jubilee, and All Tech is Human. She is incredibly passionate about ensuring technology upholds public values, and is very excited to have joined the Privacy Salon team to work towards advancing data protection through multistakeholder events and initiatives.

Dara Hallinan is a legal academic working at FIZ Karlsruhe. His specific focus is on the interaction between law, new technologies – particularly ICT and biotech – and society. He wrote his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel on the better regulation of genetic privacy in biobanks and genomic research through data protection law. He is also editor of Data Protection Insider.

Francesca Tassinari is a Juan de la Cierva (JDC) postdoctoral researcher at the University of Basque Country (UPV/EHU), under grant agreement JDC2022-048217-I, focusing on sensitive and big data from an international law perspective. She got a double PhD in international and EU law from the University of Granada (UGR) and the University of Ferrara (UNIFE) in 2022, with a dissertation on The External Reach of the Interoperability of Large-Scale IT Systems in the AFSJ, under grant agreement FPU18/00497. She is a member of the Research Group IT 1541-22 in Social and Legal Sciences applied to New Technologies (CISJANT), Accademia di Diritto dell’Immigrazione (ADiM), and Pool of Expert Group in support of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).

Guillermo Lazcoz is a legal researcher at the CIBER of Rare Diseases (CIBERER/CEDEM) and a member of the Research Ethics Committee of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII). PhD in Human Rights, Public Authorities and the European Union: Public and Private Law, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). His doctoral thesis focused on the human oversight of automated decision-making based on profiling. And he is currently working on data protection law for genetic data sharing and other areas of biomedical research in the IMPaCT-Genomica programme.

Director of the Privacy & Data Protection department at Global Alumni. She is an International Postgraduate in Artificial Intelligence and its Regulation at the University of Lisbon. She also holds a Master’s degree in Digital Law and Business Technology from the School of High Studies of the Chamber of Commerce of Granada, with a thesis focused on the application of AI in earthquake prediction, data protection, and associated risks.

With a background in Law and Political Sciences from the University of Sussex and the University of Granada, Isabel has developed her career in the technology sector as a consultant for digital solutions in HR, research laboratories, and other domains.
 

Lately, she has focused on developing her expertise as an AI Governance Strategist through deepening her engagement with the ethical, regulatory, and policy dimensions of AI. Her professional and academic work is driven by a strong interest in the geopolitical and societal implications of emerging technologies and how they intersect with ethics, governance, and global regulatory frameworks.

Isabela Xavier Gonçalves is a LL.M Candidate in International and European Law at the Brussels School of Governance/Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her Master Thesis focuses on the information and transparency enforcement in Digital Service Act, in particular to content moderation in Very Large Platforms. She also conducts research on Fundamental Rights and New Technologies, with book chapters published. Prior, Isabela worked as a researcher in Technology and Society in China. Besides this, she is also a Data Protection Specialist Lawyer in Brazil.

Joren is the CPDP Manager bringing appreciation to the CPDP community and support and multidisciplinary knowledge to the privacy, data protection and technology movement. He has studied philosophy (Leuven) and comparative politics (LSE) and has a strong technological focus in his professional endeavours. He is the running buddy of his border collie and a research fellow at KU Leuven.

Josipa is a data protection and privacy law specialist with a strong academic background and hands-on experience in the field. She holds a Master's degree in Law from the University of Rijeka in Croatia and a postgraduate degree in International and European Law from Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Josipa has three years of experience working as a Privacy and Legal Officer helping organizations navigate complex privacy regulations and implement effective data protection strategies. Furthermore, she is an IAPP-designated Certified Information Privacy Professional for Europe (CIPP/E).

Lucas is an internationally experienced MSc Physics student at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, specializing in AI and Quantum Computing. Alongside his studies, he works as a Research Assistant on quantum machine learning projects at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Holding a BSc in Physics from the University of Groningen and multiple Machine Learning certifications, he is committed to continuous learning and to exploring the intersection of AI, Quantum Computing, and Physics, focusing on its potential to drive societal progress and technological innovation in a safe, responsible, and ethical manner.

PhD Candidate at the Technological University of Dublin, researching the Labour Implications of the Use of AI-powered Data-gathering Devices in the Workplace. She is part of a team of Early Stage Researchers working in a HORIZON 2020-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (ITN) project called Collaborative Intelligence for Safety Critical Systems (CISC). While pursuing her PhD, she also worked at the European DIGITAL SME Alliance (Brussels) supporting the Focus Group on AI and the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, as well as other relevant policy work on upcoming European legislation in the realm of digital and tech. 

Nonso Anyasi is a Privacy Consultant in Brussels. He has an LLM in International & European Law from the Brussels School of Governance/Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He conducts legal research on the regulation of AI systems, digital platforms and competition in the digital markets. He has also contributed to policymaking on digital rights and has been actively involved in the enforcement of consumer rights and fundamental freedoms on digital platforms in Africa as a Nigerian Legal Counsel.

Wenkai Li is a PhD researcher at the Health and Ageing Law Lab (HALL) and Law, Science, Technology and Society Research Group (LSTS) of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Wenkai's research centres on the intersection of law, technology, and health, with a focus on data protection issues involving health data and health research, in particular, the secondary use of electronic health data under the framework of the European Health Data Space (EHDS). He is also engaged with the FACILITATE project funded by the Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI), which aims to develop solutions for the return and secondary use of clinical trial data of study participants.

Prof. Dr. Gloria González Fuster is a Research Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)’s Faculty of Law and Criminology, and the Director of the Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS) Large Research Group. She holds a research position on ‘Digitalisation & a Europe of rights and freedoms’, and teaches privacy and data protection law. She is also a Professorial Fellow at the United Nations University – Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS)

Rocco Bellanova is a Research Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (interdisciplinary research group Law, Science, Technology & Society-LSTS). He is the PI of the ERC Starting Grant project DATAUNION - The European Data Union: European Security Integration through Database Interoperability. His work sits at the intersection of politics, law, and science and technology studies. He studies how digital data become pivotal elements in the governing of societies. His research focuses on European security practices and the role of data protection therein.

Franziska Boehm is a law professor at the Leibniz-Institute for Information Infrastructure in Karlsruhe (FIZ) and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technologies (KIT). Before she was an assistant professor at the University of Münster (Germany). She mainly teaches IT-Law, IP-law, data protection and media law. She studied law in Germany and in France and holds a 'Licence en droit' (University of Nice, France), a Master in International Law (MJI, University of Giessen) and the German 'Staatsexamen'. After her studies, she completed her PhD at the University of Luxembourg in April 2011. The topic of her PhD relates to the EU-information sharing and data protection in the area of freedom, security and justice. It was published as a book by Springer in 2012. Her research interests currently relate to data protection, IP- and IT law.

Professor Eleni Kosta is full Professor of Technology Law and Human Rights at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT, Tilburg University, the Netherlands). Eleni obtained her law degree at the University of Athens (Greece) in 2002 and a Masters degree in Public Law at the same University in 2004. In 2005 Eleni completed an LL.M. in legal informatics at the University of Hannover (Germany) and in 2011 she was awarded the title of Doctor of Laws at the KU Leuven (Belgium) with a thesis on consent in data protection. Eleni is conducting research on privacy and data protection, specialising in electronic communications and new technologies, as well as on health law and intellectual property. She has been involved in numerous EU and national research projects.

Prof.dr. Ronald Leenes (1964) is full professor in regulation by technology at Tilburg University and director of the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT).. His primary research interests are techno-regulation, conceptual issues with respect to privacy, data protection in practice, data analytics, accountability and transparency, regulatory failure, robotics and human enhancement. He has been involved as lead and principal investigator in several EU, EC and Dutch privacy and data protection projects and has co-edited several of the CPDP book volumes.

Paul De Hert is professor of law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is the Director of the research group on Fundamental Rights and Constitutionalism (FRC) and senior member of the research group on Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS). Paul De Hert is also associated-professor Law and Technology at the Tilburg Institute for Law and Technology (TILT).

Claudia Diaz is Chief Scientist of Nym Technologies SA as well as a part-time Associate Professor at the COSIC research group of the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT) at the KU Leuven. She holds a Master's degree in Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Vigo (Spain, 2000) and a Ph.D. in Engineering at the KU Leuven (Belgium, 2005). Her work is focused on the design, analysis, and applications of technologies to protect online privacy and in particular technologies that offer protection for metadata to prevent traffic analysis, tracking, localisation, or behavioral profiling. Detailed information is available here: https://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~cdiaz/

Kristina Irion is Associate Professor at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam. Until 2017, Dr. Irion had been Associate Professor at Central European University (CEU), then in Budapest. She obtained her doctorate from Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg, and holds a Master’s degree in IT and Telecommunications Law from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. In her research Dr. Irion focuses on EU digital and data law in relation to the governance of transnational digital technologies and data flows. More recently, her research analyses EU law and policy of data centres’ sustainability. She frequently provides expertise to EU institutions, the Council of Europe, the OECD, national governments as well as civil society organizations. She is a member of the governing board of the Amsterdam Center of European Studies (ACES), the advisory board of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (epic.org), the Steering Committee of the Data Protection Scholars Network (DPSN) and the scientific committee of CPDP.ai conferences.

Doctor in Law (Complutense University, Madrid). Professor of Administrative Law. Former Vice-Rector of International Relations at San Pablo-CEU University of Madrid. Former Dean of the Faculties of Law in the Universities of Castilla-La Mancha and San Pablo-CEU. Former Director of the Spanish Data Protection Agency (2002-2007). Former Vice-Chairman of the “Art. 29 Working Party” (2003-2007), Founder and first President of the Ibero-American Data Protection Network (2003-2007). President of the Public Law Section of the “Spanish General Commission for Codification”. This Section drafted the new Spanish Data Protection Law. Vice President of the Section on Law and Information and knowledge technologies, Spanish Jurisprudence and Legislation Royal Academy. He has published numerous works on Data Protection Law, Transparency, Administrative Law and European Law. Director of the Digital Law and Innovation Review (Wolters Kluwer).Director of the Master’s Degree on Data Protection and Head of the Google Chair on Privacy, Society and Innovation (San Pablo-CEU University). He was member of the Advisory Council to Google on the Right to be Forgotten.

Professor Emeritus Charles Raab, University of Edinburgh: Fellow, Alan Turing Institute (ATI), co-Chair, ATI Data Ethics Group; co-Director, CRISP; Biometrics & Forensics Ethics Group (Home Office); Digital Identity Scotland Expert Group (Scottish Govt); Indep. Ethics Advisory Panel (Police Scotland). Research: privacy, data protection, surveillance, regulatory policy/ practice, data ethics, identification, security, democracy. Publications include The Governance of Privacy (2006); A Report on the Surveillance Society (2006); Specialist Adviser, House of Lords Constitution Cttee for Surveillance: Citizens and the State, 2009; FAcSS, FRSA.

Michael Friedewald is senior researcher and head of the ICT research unit at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research. The focus of his work is on the social and economic impact of emerging technologies and their implications for policy making. He was coordinator of the FP7 projects PRESCIENT, SAPIENT and PRISMS, all dealing with privacy aspects of new technologies and surveillance systems. He is currently co-cordinator of the German "Forum Privacy and Self-Determined Life in the Digital World" (http://www.forum-privatheit.de)

Dr Michael Veale is Associate Professor in digital rights and regulation, and Vice-Dean (Education Innovation) at the Faculty of Laws, University College London. His research focusses on how to understand and address challenges of power and justice that digital technologies and their users create and exacerbate, in areas such as privacy-enhancing technologies and machine learning. This work is regularly cited by legislators, regulators and governments, and Dr Veale has consulted for a range of policy organisations including the Royal Society and British Academy, the Law Society of England and Wales, the European Commission, the Commonwealth Secretariat. Dr Veale holds a PhD from UCL and degrees from U Maastricht and LSE. He tweets at @mikarv.

Since 2015 Marit Hansen has been the State Data Protection Commissioner of Land Schleswig-Holstein and Chief of Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz (ULD). Before being appointed Data Protection Commissioner, she had been Deputy Commissioner for seven years. Since her diploma in computer science in 1995 Marit has been working on privacy and security aspects. Her focus is on “data protection by design” and “data protection by default” from both the technical and the legal perspectives. She often gives talks and has been lecturing at various universities and academies. Marits contribution to education and research on privacy-enhancing technologies has awarded her an honorary doctorate from Karlstad University, Sweden.

Marc Rotenberg is Director of the Center for AI and Digital Policy. He is one of the world's leading experts on data protection, open government, and AI policy. He has served on many advisory panels, including the OECD AI Group of Experts. Marc helped draft the Universal Guidelines for AI, a widely endorsed policy framework for the regulation of Artificial Intelligence. Marc is the author of several textbooks on privacy law, open government, and AI policy, including the 2020 AI Policy Sourcebook and Privacy and Society (West Academic 2016). He teaches privacy law and the GDPR at Georgetown Law. Marc has spoken frequently before the US Congress, the European Parliament, the OECD, UNESCO, judicial conferences, and international organizations. Marc is a graduate of Harvard College, Stanford Law School, and Georgetown Law. He has previously led International comparative law studies on privacy and human rights, and cryptography and liberty.

Mireille Hildebrandt is a Research Professor on 'Interfacing Law and Technology' at Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB), appointed by the VUB Research Council. She is co-director of the research group on Law Science Technology and Society studies (LSTS) at the Faculty of Law and Criminology. She also holds the part-time Chair of Smart Environments, Data Protection and the Rule of Law at the Institute for Computing and Information Sciences (iCIS), Science Faculty of Radboud University in Nijmegen. She is PI of the ERC ADG project on ‘Counting as a Human Being in the era of Computational Law’ and co-founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cross-disciplinary Research in Computational Law (CRCL) and published e.g. Smart Technologies and the End(s) of Law (2015) and Law for Computer Scientists and Ohter Folk (2020).

Dr. Ivan Szekely, social informatist, is an internationally known expert in the multidisciplinary fields of data protection and freedom of information. Former chief counsellor of the Hungarian Data Protection ombudsman, and associate professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Szekely is at present Senior Research Fellow and Counsellor of the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at Central European University. His research interests and publications are focused on information autonomy, openness and secrecy, privacy, identity, surveillance and resilience, memory and forgetting, and archivistics.

Dennis Hirsch is a Professor at The Ohio State University where he holds a joint appointment in the Moritz College of Law and the Department of Computer Science and is a core faculty member of the Translational Data Analytics Institute. He directs the OSU Program on Data and Governance which focuses on the governance of advanced analytics and AI, and co-directs the OSU Responsible Data Science Community of Practice, a community of over 100 researchers focused on the ethical and just use of advanced analytics and AI. Professor Hirsch teaches courses on privacy law, property law, and on the law, policy, ethics, and management of AI.

Gus Hosein is the Executive Director of Privacy International. He has worked at the intersection of technology and human rights for over 20 years. He has held visiting fellowships at Columbia University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the American Civil Liberties Union. He holds a B.Math from the University of Waterloo in Canada and a PhD from the University of London. Gus is also a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA).

Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius is professor ICT and law. He works at the iHub (part of Radboud University), the interdisciplinary research hub on digitalization and society. His research mostly concerns fundamental rights, such as privacy and non-discrimination rights, in the context of new technologies. He regularly advises policymakers. His team and he are part of the EU-funded project FINDHR.

Els J. Kindt is a senior legal researcher and associate professor with respectively the Centre for IT and IP Law (CiTiP) of KU Leuven and eLaw of Universiteit Leiden and is recognized as a specialist on legal aspects of biometric technologies. She published with Springer a monograph on legal privacy and data protection issues of biometric applications, and various articles and book chapters on the topic. She gained her expertise by close collaboration with engineers and technical experts and policy makers in several European and national research projects. Since 2012, she teaches European Privacy and Data Protection law in the Manama IP and ICT law of the KU Leuven in Brussels. She is also an attorney at the Brussels Bar, Belgium.

Thierry Vandenbussche is the Art & Event Director of Privacy Salon in Brussels. He's co-coordinating CPDP and its side events. Thierry has been organizing events and curating thought provoking exhibitions since the turn of the century when he launched Courtisane, a platform for film and audiovisual arts and later arts organisations like Outlandish (photography), stilll gallery and stilll office. In 2019 he co-curated the exhibition 'Festival of Control', a show actually dealing with issues like privacy and data control. He reinforces the team with vivid enthusiasm and a healthy sense of urgency.

Having built a solid and extensive experience in the field of accounting, in 2016 Karin joined the Privacy Salon. She is currently dealing with administrative and financial matters on part-time basis. The rest of the time, Karin is pursuing her and her husband’s dream – the Finca San Vicente Bed & Breakfast in Colombia.

Christel Simons joined Privacy Salon in 2025 as liaison between the board and the organisation. She holds postgraduate degrees in Industrial Business Policy (EHSAL, Brussels) and China-EU Cultural Curatorship Studies (University of Antwerp), as well as a master’s in Drama-Directing (RITCS, Brussels) and a bachelor’s in Intercultural Management (Thomas More, Mechelen). Christel has a strong background in strategy, identity development, and operational management. She gained experience in cultural management at Mu.ZEE, Miet Warlop, iMAL, the European Festivals Association, Peeping Tom and Needcompany, among others. She is also part-time project manager of the TEKHNE Creative Europe project at Q-O2, focusing on sound art, inclusion, and technology. With a keen interest in visual, performance, dance, sonic, and digital arts, Christel values artistic excellence as much as engaging with the social and political issues of our time—motivations that brought her to Privacy Salon.

After achieving his Master in Architecture at Sint-Lucas Ghent, Ferre graduated from the Advanced Master of Research in Art & Design at Sint Lucas Antwerp. Here he has been developing research that investigates how new narratives about ‘surveillance’ are created through character-design within a (non-)fictional magical world. Ferre is fascinated by the impact of technology on society and the additional processing of data. He creates a fictional world where magical creatures help us re-imagine surveillance. 

Birte Vingerhoets joined Privacy Salon as an intern while pursuing her Masters degree in Digital Media in Europe at VUB. After graduating, she became a full-time team member, contributing her expertise and enthusiasm to the organisation. Birte is the creative face behind our newsletters and social media channels. With a strong interest in privacy and data protection, Birte is committed to raising awareness about these critical issues through engaging and accessible communication. During her internship, she co-coordinated the Avatar.fm radio show at the CPDP.ai conference, a role she continues to expand by supporting similar initiatives at Privacy Salon.

FENG Jiao is a Ph.D. candidate at VUB, as well as an independent curator and researcher based between Belgium and China. Her curatorial work explores the politics of aesthetics, the potential of micro-histories, and the complex interplay between place, history, and poetic resistance. Currently, she is conducting a doctoral project titled “Big History, Small Histories – The Urgency to revisit Chinese Contemporary Art”(tbd) at VUB, alongside a survey-based study on artistic practices immersed in the techno-social landscape of the Pan-China region.

Melis is a recent graduate with a Master's degree in Digital Media in Europe from VUB. She has experience as a communications assistant in a media literacy initiative and has worked on a variety of digital projects exploring how people interact in digital environments. Her hands-on experience in digital policies and project communications, combined with her academic mindset and research skills, fuels her commitment to empowering individuals in digital media and helping them navigate it consciously. At Privacy Salon, she provides support in the management of Dedicated Tracks for the CPDP Conference.

Rebeca Bacci is a Brazilian-qualified lawyer with experience advising national and international companies on privacy and data protection and digital law matters. She completed a specialization in Digital Law at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV-SP) and is currently pursuing an LL.M. in International and European Law with a focus on Data and Digitalisation at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

She works with Privacy Salon as a Communication Assistant, supporting communication and coordination activities related to the CPDP conference. Rebeca has experience working with privacy and data protection in both Brazilian and international contexts and is also part of the organizing team of a moot court competition focused on digital law and new technologies. She is excited to contribute to advancing data protection through multidisciplinary events and initiatives.