As an Italian, I cannot but start off by congratulating fellow Italian Giovanni Buttarelli on his appointment as European Data Protection Supervisor. The EDPS has played an extremely influential role in shaping the global privacy landscape in the past few years, and Mr. Buttarelli’s appointment comes at an unprecedented time, so I’d like to wish him a big in bocca al lupo!

Next week, the new European Commission, led by Jean-Claude Junker, will also take office, and so the changes that we were expecting 2014 to bring are all—or mostly—unveiled.

At the IAPP, we are getting ready to wrap up an important year the only way we know how: by putting together the biggest and most thought-provoking Data Protection Congress to date. I am thrilled to see that there is a bigger-than-ever buzz around the Congress and unsurprisingly so, considering that we expect a bigger-than-ever gathering in Brussels next month.

The Data Protection Congress general session stage will host some of the top thinkers and influencers of European data protection: from Article 29 Working Party Chair Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin to F-Secure Chief Research Officer Mikko Hypponen to Europe vs Facebook Founder Max Schrems.

Among the breakout sessions in the programme, we have recently added one that I’d like to highlight. Entitled From Privacy by Design to Privacy as a Business Driver, it features two young European entrepreneurs who made of privacy their core business model: Maciej Zawadziński from open source web analytics platform Piwik PRO and Alexis Gavoty from personal cloud platform Cozy Cloud. Who said privacy is boring?

Have a lovely weekend and—to those of you who celebrate it—a scary Halloween!