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Annual thematic reports
Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy
Every year the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy presents an annual report to the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly. See below all reports presented by the mandate since March 2016.
A list of future planned thematic reports was prepared by the UN Special Rapporteur anticipating issues he intends to address over the next years in order to inform all those interested in participating or contributing to his future work.
| Year | Presented | Document number | Statement |
| 2024 | Human rights Council, 55th session | Legal safeguards for personal data protection and privacy in the digital age | Oral statement |
| 2023 | General Assembly, 78th session | Principles of transparency and explainability in the processing of personal data in artificial intelligence | Oral statement |
| 2023 | Human rights Council, 52nd session | Implementation of the principles of purpose limitation, deletion of data and demonstrated or proactive accountability in the processing of personal data collected by public entities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy | Oral statement |
| 2022 | General Assembly, 77th session | Privacy and data protection: Increasingly precious asset in digital era The Special Rapporteur’s report interprets the various international normative documents and analyses 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. | Oral statement |
| 2022 | Human Rights Council, 49th session | Privacy and personal data protection in Ibero-America: A step towards globalization? The Special Rapporteur suggests that the Ibero-American data protection system could provide a model for a way of working collaboratively towards principles of privacy and personal data protection are respected, leading to the implementation of standards where integration and harmonization can be achieved based on ethical principles that guarantee respect for human diversity. | |
| 2021 | General Assembly, 76th session | How pandemics can be managed with respect to the right to privacy The (now former) Special Rapporteur provides a more definitive analysis (building on his GA 2020 report (A/75/147) now that there is greater evidence available to allow a more accurate assessment of the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic | |
| 2021 | Human Rights Council, 46th session | Artificial intelligence and privacy, and children’s privacy The Special Rapporteur addresses two separate challenges: firstly, artificial intelligence and privacy, then children’s privacy, particularly privacy’s role in supporting autonomy and positive participation in society. | A/HRC/46/37 |
| 2020 | General Assembly, 75th session | Preliminary evaluation of the privacy dimensions of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic The Special Rapporteur examines data protection and surveillance in relation to COVID-19 and contact tracing, which may be manual or technological, anonymous or not, consensual or non-consensual. |
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| 2020 | Human Rights Council, 43rd session | Security and surveillance, health data, and business enterprises use of personal data This report provides an overview of activities undertaken in 2019, and also provides recommendations for protecting against gender-based privacy infringements. | |
| 2019 | General Assembly, 74th session
| The protection and use of health-related data There is increasing awareness on the sensitive nature of health-related data. In the digital era, the industry of collecting and using health-related data and the growing number of data breaches are of enormous concern. The report ends with a draft recommendation. | Recommendation on the protection and use of health-related data (extensive unedited document) |
| 2019 | Human Rights Council, 40th session | Privacy, technology and other human rights from a gender perspective This report focuses on issues in intelligence oversight; and provides the first report of the ‘Privacy and Gender’ work of the ‘Privacy and Personality’ Taskforce, and that of the Health Data Taskforce. Annexures provide the preliminary reports of these two UNSRP Taskforces. | |
| 2018 | General Assembly, 73rd session | Big Data and Open Data This report is divided into two parts: an executive summary of activities undertaken during 2017-18 is the first, introductory part of the report. The second and main part is the final report on the work of the Big Data Open Data Taskforce established by the Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy. | |
| 2018 | Human Rights Council, 37th session | Security and Surveillance This report focuses on the work undertaken in the first three years of his mandate. It outlines the successful work undertaken on one of the mandate’s key priorities: privacy protection, and government and other forms of surveillance. | |
| 2017 | General Assembly, 72nd session | Big Data and Open Data interim report This report is divided into two parts: an executive summary of activities undertaken during 2016-17 is the first, introductory part of the report. The second and main part is the interim report on the work of the Big Data Open Data Taskforce established by the Special Rapporteur on Privacy. | A/72/540 and supporting documents |
| 2017 | Human Rights Council, 34th session | Governmental surveillance activities from a national and international perspective The Special Rapporteur elaborates on the characteristics of the international legal framework and the interpretation thereof. He also describes recent developments and trends, how these can be studied and how they interact with the enjoyment of the right to privacy and other interconnected human rights. Consequently, he outlines first approaches to a more privacy-friendly oversight of government surveillance | A/HRC/34/60 |
| 2016 | General Assembly, 71st session | Early mandate report: activities so far, TASk force, events and developments This report is the first submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy to the General Assembly. It was written just over one year after the Special Rapporteur assumed the post on 1 August 2015. The Special Rapporteur has identified a number of themes which his consultations with multiple stakeholders revealed as being critical areas of work for the protection of privacy in the digital age | |
| 2016 | Human Rights Council, 31st session | First mandate report The Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy describes his vision for his mandate, together with his working methods and a three-year workplan. The report also contains an overview of the state of privacy at the beginning of 2016 |