RESOLUTION ON THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE FROM UN

26.01.2021

United Nations General Assembly has adopted the Resolution A/RES/75/176 about the right to privacy in the digital age. The resolution has important notes, recognizations, and concerns about protecting and respecting the right of individuals to privacy, and affirms that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online.

The important points of the Resolution can be summarized as: 

  • In contrast to the rapid pace of technological developments which enables individuals all over the world to use new information and communications technologies, also enhances the capacity of the Governments, business enterprises, and individuals to undertake surveillance, interception, and data collection, which may violate or abuse human rights as in the article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

 

  • The term metadata has become more important and in the Resolution, it has been noted that while metadata may provide benefits, certain types of metadata, when aggregated, can reveal personal information that can be no less sensitive than the actual content of communications and can give an insight into an individual’s behavior, social relationships, private preferences, and identity.

 

  • The Resolution also includes concerns that the individuals, particularly children, often do not and/or cannot provide their free, explicit, and informed consent to the sale or multiple resales of their personal data, and that the collecting, processing, use, storage, and sharing of personal data, including sensitive data, have increased significantly in the digital age.

 

  • The subject of artificial intelligence is also reviewed over the Resolution. It has been recognized that while the use of artificial intelligence can have significant positive economic and social impacts, it requires and allows for the processing of large amounts of data, often relating to personal data, including biometric data and data on an individual’s behavior, social relationships, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, which can pose serious risks to the enjoyment of the right to privacy, especially when done without proper safeguards, in particular when employed for identification, tracking, profiling, facial recognition, classification, behavior prediction or scoring of individuals.

 

  • As predicted, the Covid-19 pandemic is also mentioned in the Resolution. It has been highlighted the need to ensure that national security and public health measures, including the use of technology to monitor and contain the spread of infectious diseases, must be in full compliance with the obligations of States under international human rights law and adhere to the principles of lawfulness, legality, legitimacy concerning the aim pursued, necessity and proportionality and the need to protect human rights, including the right to privacy, and personal data in the response to health or other emergencies.

Also, it has been pointed out that the importance of protecting and respecting the right of individuals to privacy when designing, developing, or deploying technological means in response to disasters, epidemics, and pandemics, including digital exposure notification and contact tracing.

  • Lastly, the Resolution calls upon all States and all business enterprises that collect, store, use, share, and process data about respecting and protecting the right to privacy, establishing transparency, and implementing administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to ensure that data are processed lawfully.

You can find the text of the Resolution here.

Should you have any queries and/or remarks, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

 

Kind regards,

Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law

info@zumbul.av.tr