The Workshop was attended by 24 participants, including researchers, research managers, lawyers and law specialists, representatives of civil society organizations, of United Nations, of European Research Council. The participants, coming from Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Slovenia, UK, were experts and practitioners in the fields of privacy, surveillance and covert research methods. The workshop – chaired by Alfonso Alfonsi (K&I) – was opened by the welcome addresses of Joseph Cannataci, United Nations Special Rapporteur on privacy, and Marie-Sophie Peyre, Sector Ethics review and Monitoring of the European Research Council Executive Agency, followed by three introductory speeches on privacy, surveillance studies and covert research, held respectively by Jeanne Mifsud Bonnici, Professor of European Technology Law and Human Rights, University of Groningen (NL); Emmeline Taylor, City University of London (UK), Representative of the Surveillance Studies Network, and Paul Spicker, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen (UK).
In the afternoon, the discussion of the first draft of the PRO-RES guidance ethical framework was introduced by Ron Iphofen, AcSS, partner and responsible of WP3 of the project. The discussion was intense and fruitful. It will continue also during the next months through the various PRO-RES initiatives already planned, such as other workshops, online consultations, a mid-term conference.