To promote better understanding and application of the national data protection legislation and that one regulating access to public information, with reference to the latest European tendencies and case law of the European Court of Human Rights, to exercise responsibility for protecting the rights and privacy of individuals as well as handling conflicts between the two human rights -privacy v. freedom to information, the Council of Europe in the framework of the Joint EU/CoE Programme “Strengthening Implementation of the European Human Rights Standards in Ukraine” jointly with the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights and Ukrainian Catholic University twice per year organises a School of Data Protection in Lviv.

The 1st School of the year 2017 that was organised on 12-14 June gathered 26 officials of the village, district, city and region councils representing different regions of Ukraine. The School provides for 3-day intensive and more profound format of training with an overview of the EU’s and the CoE’s applicable legal frameworks as well as national legislation on personal data protection and access to public information, summarising major standards of the Council of Europe and rulings of the European Court of Human Rights as well as providing clear guidance on implementation of these standards into the practical activity of the public official bodies.

Efficient combination of both topics on personal data protection and access to public information that proved to be really the “two sides of the same coin” being strongly interconnected and equally interesting for the audience allowed participants to better understand and based on practical examples to find the proper balance between the right to privacy and right to freedom of information, to obtain knowledge on basic data protection terminology, main aspects of the concept of personal data, key principles of data processing, etc.

The positive feedback from the participants, dealing with the enormous amount of personal and public data in everyday activities, has proven the necessity of awareness raising and capacity building activities that will be further supported and promoted by the Council of Europe within the current and further Programmes.