François Pellegrini is an internationally-recognized expert in high performance computing and digital law.
A professor in informatics at the University of Bordeaux, where he also teaches software and personal data law, he has a strong scientific background on digital technologies (including artificial intelligence, cyber-security, surveillance technologies, etc.), especially regarding their capabilities, social implications and scientific limitations. A researcher at LaBRI and Inria Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, he is the author of leading-edge software used worldwide by major players in research and industry. He is regularly invited as a speaker and lecturer at international venues.
From 2014 to 2024, he was a Commissionner and Vice-president at CNIL, the French data protection authority. His portfolio included digital advertising and e-commerce, cybersecurity, European sovereign files, and European coordination. As a public prosecutor (« commissaire rapporteur »), he led landmark sanction files regarding prominent players of the digital sector, at the dawn of the GDPR. During his second term, he has been the main representative of the President of CNIL before the European Data Protection Board in Brussels, interacting with his peers on many landmark cross-border decisions. He participated in the EU delegation that assessed the Privacy Shield EU-U.S. adequacy decision in Washington, and reported some of its findings before the European Parliament. For five years, he chaired the European Coordination Board, a body bringing together the National DPAs and the EDPS to coordinate the supervision of the national contact points of Europol. In this capacity, he reported before the Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group. Previously, as a member of the Joint Supervisory Body, he took part in several on-site inspections at Europol premises. He also supervised other European sovereignty files: SIS II, Eurodac, VIS, etc.
An international expert in strategic digital policies for development and education, he has been a member of several missions to Western- and Central-African countries, mainly at the initiative of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. He has taken part in training sessions for parliamentarians in Benin, Cameroon and Togo, as well as in a national audit of the digital infrastructures of Chad.
Highly committed to the economic and social implications of the digital revolution, he chairs Pôle Aquinetic, a non-profit promoting entrepreneurial projects in Region Nouvelle-Aquitaine that implement free/libre business models. Before that, he co-created the Libre Software Meeting (Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre, RMLL), which for 15 years brought together communities of free/libre software developers and users. He is the co-author of the reference law book Droit des logiciels – logiciels privatifs et logiciels libres, and an Ambassador of Responsible Digital. He co-chairs the Sofware and Source Codes college of the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research’s Open Science Committee.
A keen popularizer of science and technologies, he regularly takes part in conferences for the general public and school pupils, and for three years presented a weekly Internet column on a local television channel. He produced filmed and animated training modules, and participated in several documentaries and interviews in the general press.