The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) awards a prize to AGENCIA EFE
28 January 2016 | Madrid
The Spanish Data Protection Data Agency (AEPD) has awarded the joint first prize for communication to the journalists Ms. Violeta Molina and Ms. Amaya Quincoces from AGENCIA EFE for their reporting regarding privacy and data protection.
The 19th Data Protection Prizes 2015, which were made public today, recognize those works which promote the most the knowledge and research about the fundamental right to data protection.
Ms. Quincoces and Ms. Molina prepare since 2011 this kind of specialized information within the Efefuturo department (efefuturo.com), the department for scientific and technological journalism in the Spanish state-owned news agency AGENCIA EFE, which merges the traditional news agency’s journalisms with the most innovative media and formats.
Big data and right to be forgotten
The Data Protection Agency distinguishes these two journalists for their reports regarding this fundamental right and which span from the future European regulation regarding Big Data to the so-called “right to be forgotten”.
A total of 37 candidates were submitted for the prize, of which 19 belonged to the information category, and the remaining 18, to the research category.
Equally, the jury awarded a consolation prize to Mr. Ángel Luis Sucasas for his reports on the daily El País and on that newspaper’s website www.elpais.com.
Within the research category, the prize for original and unpublished reports went to Ms. Amaya Noaín Sánchez for her work “Protecting intimacy and private life in internet”, and a consolation prize within that category was awarded to Ms. Elena Gil González, for her work “Big Data, privacy and data protection”.
Within the category on the research on original and unpublished issues regarding the right to protection in Latin American countries, the jury chose the candidature of Mr. Luis Fernando Cote Peña, for his work on the statutory law for data protection in Colombia.
These awards have been made public coinciding with the European Data Protection Day 2016, which this year reaches its 10th anniversary and which is promoted by the European Commission, the European Council and by the agencies for data protection in the Member states of the European Union for promoting the knowledge on these issues.
The awarding ceremony for these prizes will take place within the framework of the 8th annual open meeting of the Spanish Data Protection Agency.
EFE and Grupo SEPI
AGENCIA EFE belongs to Grupo SEPI, a corporate holding which includes a total of 16 state-owned companies in which it has direct, majority shareholding participations, with a final workforce of around 73,000 professionals in 2014; the Spanish state-owned television and radio corporation, Corporación Radiotelevisión Española, which is attached to SEPI, and one public foundation. Equally, SEPI has direct minority shareholdings in a further ten companies, and indirect shareholdings in more than one hundred companies.