Malta IT Law Association to focus on member outreach and further international projects

AGM and election of 2021 executive committee members held

The Malta IT Law Association (MITLA) will continue to work towards contributing to Malta’s digital future, focusing its efforts on its member outreach programme, as well as playing a pivotal role for Malta at EU level in the areas of IT Law. This was communicated to members during MITLA’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on Friday 29^th January. The AGM was held remotely in line with current recommendations of the health authorities.

Addressing the members, Sarah Cannataci, MITLA Board Secretary, introduced the current members, and invited nominees to introduce themselves to all members attending the AGM.

Antonio Ghio, President of MITLA, presented a report on the work that MITLA carried out in 2020, including several international projects where MITLA and its members played a pivotal role. In particular, he referred to the finalisation of the RED Alert Project which provides real time detection of online terrorist content across the EU. MITLA also initiated BorderUAS, another EU project where MITLA’s role is to assess and analyse from a privacy perspective, the use of drones for border surveillance between countries. The end of 2020 saw MITLA successfully win yet another international project called CounteR.

Antonio Ghio also highlighted the Membership Outreach Project spearhead Gege Gatt, MITLA Vice President, with the winning bid going to the Concept Stadium, a local branding and marketing firm. He applauded the results that MITLA registered through the increase in members and nominations for candidacy of the election that was held during the AGM. MITLA encourages students, individuals and businesses involved in IT and/or law to become involved with the NGO and benefit from the opportunity to participate in EU-wide projects and influence policy.

The roadmap for 2021 was also set out by Gege Gatt through a three-pillar agenda: 1) the advancement of technology law through active research, 2) the drive towards international cooperation and pan-European collaboration on topics related to ICT and the knowledge economy; and lastly 3) a continuous focus on member outreach and value-creation through knowledge-sharing of project experiences, guidance documents and academic papers.

Karen Coppini, MITLA’s Treasurer highlighted how the main sources of income for the NGO are related to membership subscriptions and income through international projects of which MITLA forms part of the Consortium.

The election of MITLA’s new Executive Committee was also held during the AGM. Antonio Ghio, Gege Gatt, Sarah Cannataci, Deo Falzon as well as Karen Coppini were re-elected, whilst Kenneth Terribile, Sharon Xuereb, Jonathan Spiteri and Alexia Valenzia were elected as new committee members. The committee is currently meeting to assign the individuals roles to be taken up by each member.

For more information, visit mitla.org.mt