The data protection authorities of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania held their annual cooperation meeting to address common challenges and future priorities in data protection.

During this meeting on September 22 and 23 in Tallinn, the Baltic authorities observed similar trends in their respective countries. They face an increase in the number and complexity of complaints, a situation exacerbated by the growing use of artificial intelligence, including for drafting requests. This increased workload requires prioritizing high-impact cases. At the same time, national security and defense issues are gaining importance, as are prevention and awareness-raising actions, particularly among children and young people.

The discussions also focused on the application of Article 16 and 17 of the GDPR, notably for data rectification in public registers, as well as exceptions related to national security. The authorities shared examples of significant national cases: Lithuania presented cases on the responsibility of the controller and the security measures of Article 32 of the GDPR, Latvia on the use of data relating to criminal convictions in employment, and Estonia on the application of Article 10 of the GDPR concerning a private website publishing data on persons convicted of sexual offenses and crimes against minors. The impact of artificial intelligence, the use of new control tools such as anonymization tools, the monitoring of large-scale information systems of the European Union, and the management of complex cross-border cases were also discussed.