Katarzyna Szymielewicz
LAWYER AND ACTIVIST
Co-Founder and President, Panoptykon Foundation
WARSAW
A lawyer specialized in human rights and technology, Katarzyna is the co-founder and president of Panoptykon Foundation, a Polish NGO defending human rights in the context of contemporary forms of surveillance. She is also the vice-president of European Digital Rights, a coalition of 33 privacy and civil rights organizations, as well as a member of Ashoka, the international network of social entrepreneurs.
Through her work at Panoptykon, Katarzyna was strongly involved in the political process leading up to the creation and implementation of GDPR (the new data protection regulation launched in Europe this year). She also spearheads a growing number of artistic projects and journalistic investigations at the foundation, all of which with the goal to strengthen human values in a digital society.
She frequently speaks at tech and human rights conferences and contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Open Democracy, Netzpolitk, and others.