Maria Paz Canales
Head of Policy and Advocacy
mariapaz@gp-digital.org
Maria Paz oversees the development of insight and expertise to support GPD’s team and projects. Her particular focus areas are data protection, artificial intelligence, freedom of expression, competition and intellectual property.
Previously, she co-founded and served as Executive Director at Derechos Digitales. She holds a Master’s Degree with specialisation in Law and Technology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Explore their work
19 Jun 2025
Report
Stakeholder Positions on IGF in WSIS+20: Comparative Analysis
As the global Internet governance community prepares to meet in Lillestrøm in June 2025, the future of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) hangs in the balance. With its mandate up for review as part of the WSIS+20 process, proposals on the table range from evolutionary tweaks to more radical overhauls.
17 Jun 2025
Blog post
Final Stretch, High Stakes: Getting UN AI Governance Back on Track
Negotiations are advancing rapidly on the terms of reference (ToR) and modalities for two key initiatives established under the Global Digital Compact—the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence and the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance. However, serious concerns have emerged about whether these mechanisms will live up to…
22 Jan 2025
Blog post
2025: a stress test for the multistakeholder model?
For those of us advocating for human rights-based digital policy, 2024 was a difficult year. An unprecedented “race to governance” saw states battling to assert sovereignty on the terrain of digital technologies—heralding a sharp multilateral turn in the field, evident in processes from the Global Digital Compact (GDC) to the UN…