April 2018
GDPR: The Challenge and Opportunity
The European Centre for Government Transformation convened the High-Level Roundtable on Tax and Revenue Collection in the Era of Data Protection: How Agencies Can Make Challenge an Opportunity. In a series of thought-provoking keynotes and interactive breakout sessions, top European policymakers, chief information officers and information- and communication-technology directors from six leading European Union member state tax and revenue collection agencies discussed the steps their organisations are taking to be ready for the 25 May 2018 implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – and the challenge and opportunity that the world’s most ambitious law on data protection holds for public policy and European revenue collection agencies. Wojciech Wiewiórowski, assistant supervisor for the European Data Protection Supervisor and former vice-chair of the Working Party Article 29 Group, walked participants through the key components of the coming transition – and discussed the difficult trade-offs involved in adopting such an ambitious law in so many complex social and economic situations. His presentation is available below. Later, Stephen Quest, director-general for taxation and customs at the European Commission, delivered a fascinating keynote on the main technological trends reshaping the tax and revenue collection environment, and Peter Green, head of the Secretariat of the Forum on Tax Administration at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, discussed the emerging trends – and the range of policy responses it has inspired. Dimitri Devlamminck, head of regulatory affairs of the data department at BNP Paribas Fortis, gave some insight from the private sector, discussing how his bank had dealt with implementation of the complicated law from a financial-sector perspective. The high-level roundtable was hosted by the European Centre for Government Transformation, a tri-partite collaboration by the Lisbon Council, the College of Europe and Accenture.