Dr Ralf Sauer is the Deputy Head of Unit ‘International Data Flows and Protection’ in the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers at the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm. The Unit covers data flows both for commercial and law enforcement purposes. He has been one of the key negotiators of the EU-US Privacy Shield and the adequacy arrangements with Japan and Korea. He has also led the European Commission’s work on the new model clauses for data protection contracts (Standard Contractual Clauses). At multilateral level, Ralf Sauer has represented the European Commission in the negotiations on the modernisation of Council of Europe Convention 108, the only binding global agreement on data protection, and on a Second Additional Protocol to the Cybercrime (Budapest) Convention. He regularly speaks at international conferences and panels on data protection issues. Previously, Ralf Sauer worked for almost 10 years in the European Commission's Legal Service, among others representing the Commission before the European courts in more than 200 cases. He holds an LL.M. and doctoral degree from Yale Law School.