Benchmarks for Global Privacy Standards (November 2009)

3. The consumer perspective

To ensure that a Global Privacy Standard actually delivers real benefits to the community, there is a need for a set of Benchmarks that represent the consumer perspective.

The right to privacy has been included in important declarations and initiatives by civil society representatives. Recent examples include:

The Asia-Pacific Privacy Charter, working draft 1.0, 2003, <http://www.worldlii.org/int/other/PrivLRes/2003/1.html> [APPC].
‘The Seoul Declaration’ Civil Society – TUAC Declaration to the OECD Ministerial Conference on the Future of the Internet Economy, Seoul, Korea, 16 June 2008, <http://thepublicvoice.org/events/seoul08/seoul-declaration.pdf>.
Global Privacy Standards for a Global World – The Civil Society Declaration, Madrid, Spain, 3 November 2009, <http://thepublicvoice.org/madrid-declaration/>.

The new Global Privacy Standards for a Global World – The Civil Society Declaration is supported by numerous civil society organisations and privacy experts. It contains the following key principles:

(1) Reaffirm support for a global framework of Fair Information Practices that places obligations on those who collect and process personal information and gives rights to those whose personal information is collected;

(2) Reaffirm support for independent data protection authorities that make determinations, in the context of a legal framework, transparently and without commercial advantage or political influence;

(3) Reaffirm support for genuine Privacy Enhancing Techniques that minimize or eliminate the collection of personally identifiable information and for meaningful Privacy Impact Assessments that require compliance with privacy standards;

(4) Urge countries that have not ratified Council of Europe Convention 108 together with the Protocol of 2001 to do so as expeditiously as possible;

(5) Urge countries that have not yet established a comprehensive framework for privacy protection and an independent data protection authority to do so as expeditiously as possible;

(6) Urge those countries that have established legal frameworks for privacy protection to ensure effective implementation and enforcement, and to cooperate at the international and regional level;

(7) Urge countries to ensure that individuals are promptly notified when their personal information is improperly disclosed or used in a manner inconsistent with its collection;

(8) Recommend comprehensive research into the adequacy of techniques that ‘de-identify’ data to determine whether in practice such methods safeguard privacy and anonymity;

(9) Call for a moratorium on the development or implementation of new systems of mass surveillance, including facial recognition, whole body imaging, biometric identifiers, and embedded RFID tags, subject to a full and transparent evaluation by independent authorities and democratic debate; and

(10) Call for the establishment of a new international framework for privacy protection, with the full participation of civil society, that is based on the rule of law, respect for fundamental human rights, and support for democratic institutions.

The Civil Society Declaration calls on countries to sign one specific global privacy standard – the Council of Europe Convention 108 (together with the Additional Protocol). However, the Declaration leaves the door open for the development of other global frameworks and initiatives.

The following section sets out the author’s proposal for a set of benchmarks for global privacy standards, building on the principles in the Civil Society Declaration.[2]

[2] The proposed benchmarks are the personal proposal of the author, and do not represent the formal views of any other Civil Society Declaration signatories.





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