Established in March 2021, the GPA Reference Panel is a contact group of varied external stakeholders. They support the Global Privacy Assembly (GPA) and its members by providing expert knowledge and practical expertise on data protection and privacy, as well as on data protection related issues and developments in information technology, thereby equipping the GPA with the ability to identify cross-disciplinary policy solutions to privacy and data protection issues.

The independent panel of 16 members provides expertise from around the world from relevant civil society organisations, academic institutions and think tanks with a keen interest in the vision and mission of the GPA.

The Reference Panel is chaired by Ulrich Kelber, member of the GPA Executive Committee, and Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information.

GPA Reference Panel members

Bojana Bellamy President of the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL), a global privacy and data policy think tank based in London, Brussels, and Washington, D.C.
Colin J. Bennett Department of Political Science, University of Victoria. Author and researcher on global privacy protection.
Eduardo Bertoni Representative and Coordinator of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, South America Regional Office. Former Director of the AAIP Argentina (a GPA Executive Committee Member Authority).
Franziska Boehm Law Professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and FIZ Karlsruhe — Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure, head of two research groups on Data Protection, IT and IP law.
Anne Cheung Professor and Co-Director of the Law and Technology Centre, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong. Member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Humboldt Institute for Internet & Society. Member of the Working Group on Data Regulation of the Ada Lovelace Institute. Editorial board member of the Privacy Studies Journal, University of Copenhagen.
Elizabeth Coombs Independent consultant whose most recent work has been with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy and chairing the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy’s Taskforce on ‘Privacy and Personality’ whose most recent work includes ‘Privacy and Children’ and ‘Privacy: A Gender Perspective’.

Appointed Affiliated Associate Professor at the University of Malta in 2021. Immediate past Privacy Commissioner of New South Wales, Australia (2011–2017).

Elizabeth has held CEO roles in the New South Wales (Australia) Department of Fair Trading, Department of Juvenile Justice, and Department for Women. Additional independent, statutory roles held have been Commissioner for Fair Trading and Commissioner, Local Government Grants Commission. Elizabeth is based in Malta.
Bertil Cottier Professor Emeritus, University of Lausanne. Consultant for the Council of Europe and for the Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces. Member of the Federal Media Commission and the European Commission against racism and intolerance. Former Professor of Communication Law and Vice-Director of the Swiss Institute of Comparative law.
Cécile de Terwangne Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Namur (Belgium). Research Director at the Research Centre in Information, Law and Society (CRIDS) of the Namur Digital Institute. Expert to the Council of Europe for the modernisation of Convention 108 and expert to the European Commission for adequacy studies and transborder data flows.
Clarisse Girot Senior Fellow at the Asian Business Law Institute (ABLI). Leader of ABLI’s Data Privacy Project on the convergence of laws and regulations on cross-border data flows in Asia.
Masao Horibe Professor Emeritus at Hitotsubashi University. Managing Director of the Japan DPO Association. Former Chairman of the Personal Information Protection Commission (PPC) Japan. Recipient of the Louis D. Brandeis Privacy Award in 2015. Vice-Chair of the Working Party on Information Security and Privacy of the OECD (1996-2008).
Estelle Massé Senior Policy analyst and Global Data Protection Lead at Access Now.
Valeria Milanes Executive Director of Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (Association for Civil Rights – ADC) in Argentina & representative of Al Sur consortium (cross-border organisation).
Andreas Mundt President of the Bundeskartellamt, the independent competition authority whose task is to protect competition in Germany.
Marc Rotenberg Director of the Center for AI and Digital Policy.
Amber Sinha Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, India.
Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna Director for Global Privacy at the Future of Privacy Forum.