think.BDPST: Regulations following the technological development

The think.BDPST conference has been organised for the fifth time, and the main topics were the future of education, regulating how tech giants operate, the possible effects of 5G’s spreading and data protection issues raised by the pandemic.

Minister of Justice Judit Varga was the first speaker, who told: the government didn’t create the Digital Freedom Committee to censor Facebook, but to protect the rule of law guarantees on the internet.

Digital education with social awareness raising

One of the panel discussions was focusing on the role of education during COVID and afterwards, in the ‘new normal’. Andrej Bederka from the Slovak National Coalition and Andreas Riepl from the Austrian National Competence Centre agreed that the availability of the right technology is important in improving the situation of towns and villages lagging behind.

Gergő Nádori, one of Tanárblog’s founders added teachers need training and they must be made more sensitive socially. In connection with data protection, Dr Attila Péterfalvi stressed the importance of the GDPR in regulating the usage of new technologies. European Data Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski said: the most important thing is that tech companies should only collect essential user data and for a limited period of time only.

Scientific knowledge necessary for regulating tech giants

Another panel discussion was about regulating tech giants. Moira Gilchrist, vice president of strategic and scientific communication at Philip Morris International and Joerg Buaer, CEO of Tungsram both stressed that regulators must understand scientific processes, as new regulation must be based on research. István Csatári, the founder of Hello Tomorrow Hungary explained that today the key thing isn’t stopping global corporations, but making them operate in the right legal framework. //