Rocco Panetta, Attorney at Law admitted to the Italian Highest Courts, chairman of Panetta Consulting Group, and managing partner of Panetta Law Firm, is an internationally renowned tech, data, and AI lawyer, as well as a certified privacy professional and external DPO.

IAPP Country Leader for Italy and Westin Emeritus Fellow, until 2022 Rocco served as a board member of IAPP.

Counsel of the Italian Government on the tech strategy 2013-2017, Rocco has previously been a top-level officer at the Garante (2001-2008) heading one of its legal departments. His tasks and duties included, among others, supervising and dealing with marketing, public licensed operators, and international data transfers. While at the Authority he has been Italy’s representative at the Commission’s Article 29 WP and worked on BCRs, SCCs, SH, APIS/PNR, and IMI.

He also served both as Secretary General and Commissioner of the Italian Commission on Environmental Impact Assessment from 2007 to 2012 and was a former ethics expert of ERCEA – European Research Council Executive Agency
Based in Rome and Brussels, Rocco leads one of the largest and most highly specialised data and tech teams in the EU, advising and assisting multinational companies from strategic to legal issues dealing with the impact of new tech on data governance, from AI impact on companies business to the implementation of global privacy compliance programs, acting also as external DPO for a number of national and multinational corporations in various field from fashion to gaming, from retail to healthcare.

He has authored more than 200 publications and he is constantly invited as a speaker to conferences and universities. Throughout the years, Rocco has been ranked amongst the leading lawyers by Chambers Europe, Legal500, and TopLegal. From 2019 to 2024 he was awarded Best Privacy Lawyer of the Year at Legalcommunity’s IP&TMT Awards. In 2023 Rocco was listed among the 100 Best Italian professionals by Forbes and the newspaper La Repubblica mentioned Rocco among the 500 people to watch in the AI market.