Privacy and data protection: Increasingly precious asset in digital era says UN expert

NEW YORK (19 October 2022) – “New digital technologies that are used to process personal information in an invasive and large-scale manner, fail to respect individuals’ reasonable expectations of privacy,” a UN expert said.

In a report to the General Assembly, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, Ana Brian Nougrères said information technologies that process personal data were becoming increasingly present in peoples’ lives.

“Technologies have always been great companions in our quest for development and progress,” Brian Nougrères said, “but they also generate a number of risks inherent in their use and evolution.”

Privacy was a human right that enables the free development of personality and the exercise of rights in accordance with the dignity of the human being, the Special Rapporteur said. “But today, we live in a world where participating in public and private activity at the national and international level requires more and more personal data to be processed,” she said.

“I urge States to view the guiding principles, laid out in my report, as a key structural part of every national legal system that regulate the actions of controllers and processors in the processing of personal data,” the UN expert said. “Respecting fundamental rights and freedoms while mitigating the risks of misuse of personal information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence and other technological developments is crucial to safeguarding the right to privacy of individuals,” she said. 

Brian Nougrères’ report analysed 10 principles (legality, consent, transparency; purpose ; loyalty ; proportionality ; minimisation ; quality; responsibility and security), to guide states and encourage them to continue to strike a balance between the different conflicting interests in the processing of personal data and the right to privacy in the global and digital era.

The expert urged States to strive towards cooperation and regulatory harmonisation at the international level. She noted that there were many commonalities in the way international normative documents develop the principles of privacy and personal data protection.

“These common elements can serve as a basis for progressing towards a global consensus that will make it possible to address various challenges that arise in the processing and international transfer of data concerning individuals to ensure that their right to privacy are safeguarded in both virtual and face-to-face environments,” Brian Nougrères said. 

The UN expert observed that it was a challenge for civilisation to advance hand in hand with technological developments for the attention of diverse, daily, pressing and urgent needs.

“But we must strive to increase cooperation and seek to act in coherence with one of the most precious things that define our humanity: respect for our freedom and dignity as human beings,” Brian Nougrères said. “That implies not only recognising, but also guaranteeing our fundamental rights,” she said.

ENDS

In July 2021, the Human Rights Council appointed Dr. Ana Brian Nougrères of Uruguay as the Special Rapporteur on the right to privacyand she took up the mandate on 1 August 2021. A Professor of Law, Privacy and ICT at the School of Engineering, University of Montevideo and a Professor of Law, Data Protection and ICT at the School of Law, University of the Republic, Montevideo. She is also a practicing Attorney-at-law and Consultant on data protection.

The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council's independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organisation and serve in their individual capacity.