Guidelines update crucial to regulate computerised personal data files: UN privacy expert

NEW YORK (24 October 2024) – After decades of rapid advances in technology, guiding principles must be updated so that institutions can adjust to the socio-technological reality of the 21st century, a UN expert said.

In a report to the General Assembly, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, Ana Brian Nougrères, said the internet, digital social networks, international data collection (big data), cloud computing, artificial intelligence, smartphones, virtual reality, and neurotechnologies bring new challenges to protect personal data and privacy.

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

“I urge States to incorporate these updated guiding principles, contained in the recommendations of my report, which touch on key concepts such as lawfulness, proportionality, non-discrimination, special protections for sensitive data and children, confidentiality, transparency and accountability and revise their respective national legislations.”

The report provides a comparative analysis of key international and regional instruments from the UN, Council of Europe and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and examines the regulatory work undertaken by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Ibero-American Data Protection Network and the Global Privacy Assembly to harmonise data processing documents, modernise the concepts and incorporate a human rights approach.

The UN expert urged States to undertake a formal process to update GA Res 45/95 by adopting the updated principles outlined in her report and ensure minimum safeguards are reflected in national laws for the proper processing of personal data and the right to privacy.

The Special Rapporteur also called for an inclusion of a humanitarian clause that “States shall adopt special measures on the processing of personal data to facilitate and support humanitarian action to protect and assist vulnerable persons in the context of armed conflict, violence, natural disasters or emergency situations”.