Philippe Dufresne

Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Philippe Dufresne was appointed Privacy Commissioner of Canada on June 27, 2022. A leading legal expert on human rights, administrative and constitutional law, he previously served as the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons. In this capacity, he was the chief legal officer of the House of Commons and led the office responsible for the provision of legal and legislative drafting services to the House of Commons, its Speaker, Members and committees, the Board of Internal Economy and the House Administration.

Prior to his appointment as Law Clerk of the House of Commons in 2015, he was the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s Senior General Counsel, responsible for legal services, litigation, investigations, mediations, employment equity and Access to Information and Privacy. During that time, he successfully represented the Commission before all levels of Canadian Courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, in a number of key human rights and constitutional cases over the last two decades. He has appeared before the Supreme Court on 15 occasions, on issues ranging from accessibility and equal pay for work of equal value, to the balancing of human rights and national security. As lead counsel for the Commission in the landmark parliamentary privilege case of House of Commons v. Vaid, he helped reinforce and clarify some of the country’s fundamental constitutional principles as they apply to the House of Commons and Parliament.

A member of the Bars of Quebec, Ontario, and Massachusetts, he has served his profession and community in several different capacities, including as president of the constitutional and human rights law section of the Canadian Bar Association (Quebec Branch) and as a member of the editorial board for the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association’s CCCA Magazine. In 2014, he served as president of the International Commission of Jurists, an organization devoted to the protection of the rule of law and judicial independence in Canada and internationally.

Kaori Inui

Senior Fellow, Global, FPF

Kaori Inui is the Managing Partner in S&K Brussels LPC (Tokyo Office). She specializes in data related legal matters including data protection, data utilization, privacy and AI regulation and advises global corporations regarding their data practice. She is admitted to practice law in Japan and is a member of the Dai-ichi Tokyo Bar Association. In addition, she serves as a Director and Board Member of the Japan DPO Association.

Inui has gained extensive international exposure and resultant muti-lingual communication skills, as well as inter-cultural sensitivity/awareness through her professional career as a researcher, a lawyer, and a diplomat. Prior to joining S&K Brussels, she was based in Germany for about nine years and most recently worked as an analyst/researcher for a leading Japanese think tank writing monthly analytical reports on political/economic issues in Europe. She began her legal career as an associate at Sidley Austin in Tokyo where she advised corporations on regulatory matters, securitization deals, mergers and acquisitions transactions, debt collection, crisis management, and litigations. Prior to her time at Sidley Austin, she was a diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan covering multilateral international treaties in the field of criminal affairs, nuclear technologies and disarmament in Tokyo, after she came back from Washington DC, where she worked on bilateral Japan-US economic relations.

She is a graduate of the LL.B program at Kyoto University and received a MS degree in political science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

OHSHIMA Shuhei

Commissioner , PPC Japan

Mr. OHSHIMA Shuhei was appointed as Commissioner of the Personal Information Protection Commission of Japan in 2019. Prior to be appointed as Commissioner, he served as Commissioner for International Cooperation of the Personal Information Protection Commission of Japan from 2017 to 2019. He participated in many meetings and international forums, and contributed to the Japan-EU mutual adequacy arrangement by building relationships with Data Protection Agencies of 31 EEA countries.

He holds B.A. in Economics from Keio University. In 1978, he started his career in Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. From 2002 to 2005, he worked as Managing Director, Idemitsu International (Asia) Pte. Ltd. in Singapore. In 2010, he was appointed as Managing Director, Idemitsu Tanker Co., Ltd. After that, he served as President of Idemitsu Tanker Co., Ltd. from 2013 to 2015.

Josh Lee Kok Thong

Managing Director for APAC, FPF

As a driver of the tech of law, Josh is the first Chairperson of the Asia-Pacific Legal Innovation and Technology Association (https://alita.legal), a pan-regional industry platform driving legal innovation and technology initiatives in the region. Josh also co-founded LawTech.Asia (https://lawtech.asia) and etpl.asia, organizations that advance thought leadership on law and technology in Asia. In 2019, Josh was identified by Asia Law Portal as one of Asia’s Top 30 Persons to Watch in the business of law.

In addition, Josh is a member of Singapore’s Law Reform Subcommittee for Robotics and AI, where he authored a law reform report on “Criminal Liability, Robots and AI Systems”. Josh was also a chapter co-author of Law and Technology in Singapore, which was edited by Professor Simon Chesterman, Professor Goh Yihan, and Judge of Appeal Andrew Phang. Given his keen interest in new technologies like AI and its potential impacts on society and governance, Josh is also a voting member of the IEEE P2863 Working Group on Organisational Governance of AI Systems, and holds research roles in the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Management University. He speaks regularly at conferences and dialogues in the law of tech and tech of law ecosystems.

Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna

Vice President for Global Privacy, FPF

Gabriela is a contributor-author to ‘The EU General Data Protection Regulation – A Commentary’, edited by C. Kuner, C. Docksey and L.A. Bygrave, Oxford University Press, 2020 (on Articles 13, 14, 15, 21 and 82). She is also the author of the volume ‘Protecția Datelor Personale. Drepturile Persoanei Vizate’, C.H. Beck, Bucharest, 2015.

Author: Selected Work

2021 forthcoming: “Data Protection and Competition Law: The Dawn of ‘Uberprotection’“, Chapter in Research Handbook on Privacy and Data Protection Law: Values, Norms and Global Politics, G. González Fuster, R. van Brakel and P. De Hert (eds.), Edward Elgar Publ’g, co-authored with Sinziana Ianc.

2021: “China’s new comprehensive data protection law: Context, stated objectives, key provisions”, co-authored with H. Dorwart and C. Girot for the Future of Privacy Forum’s Blog.

2021: Article 16 TFEU – Commentary, in “The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. A commentary”, H.-J. Blanke and S. Mangiameli (eds.), Springer, co-authored with Christopher Docksey.

2020: co-author of “The EU General Data Protection Regulation: A Commentary” edited by C. Kuner, L. A. Bygrave, C. Docksey, Oxford University Press (Articles 13, 14, 15, 21 and 82).

2020: “America’s ‘Privacy Renaissance’: What to expect under a new presidency and Congress’”, Ada Lovelace Institute’s Blog.

2018: “Data Protection by Design and by Default: Framing Guiding Principles into Applicable Rules”, co-authored with I. Kamara, L. Jasmontaite and S. Leucci, European Dara Privacy Law Review 2.

2016: “A missed opportunity: The Amazon case that almost made data subjects into consumers”, in European Data Protection Law Review, Volume 2, Issue 4.

2015 (volume): “Protecția Datelor Personale. Drepturile persoanei vizate” (Personal data protection. The rights of the data subject), C.H. Beck, Bucharest.