A new GPA report is available that analyzes the relationship between privacy, data protection and human rights

Within the framework of International Data Protection Day, the APDCAT, together with other authorities that make up the Working Group of the World Privacy Assembly (GPA) on Data Protection and Other Rights and Freedoms (DPORF), publishes a new document that analyzes the relationship between privacy and data protection and other rights and freedoms, based on the 'International Resolution on Privacy as a Fundamental Human Right and Prerequisite for the Exercise of Other Fundamental Rights'.

On the occasion of International Data Protection Day, the Catalan Data Protection Authority (APDCAT), together with more than twenty authorities participating in the GPA Working Group on Data Protection and Other Rights and Freedoms (DPORF), has published the report ‘Privacy and Data Protection as Fundamental Rights’, which has been prepared as part of the 2021-2023 Work Plan of this Group.

The document analyses the relationship between privacy and data protection and other rights and freedoms, drawing on the ‘International Resolution on Privacy as a Fundamental Human Right and Prerequisite for the Exercise of Other Fundamental Rights’, adopted in the framework of the 2019 World Data Protection Assembly Conference.

The document takes into account modern developments in the main international data protection instruments, including the Privacy Guidelines of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Convention 108 of the Council of Europe and the legal framework for data protection of the European Union (EU), as well as various national data protection laws adopted around the world.

The main conclusions are:

Recognition that privacy and data protection are universal human rights that are necessary for the exercise of other rights that we value as a society, as are human dignity, liberty and freedom of expression, which serve to ensure that democracy thrives.
Universal recognition of the right to privacy and the right to the protection of personal data, even in States that do not yet formally recognize these rights. For those in which such recognition already exists, it is called for the renewal of the commitments established to these rights and their underlying principles.
Identification of possible impediments to the development of these rights and suggestions for how to overcome them.

International Data Protection Day began to be celebrated on 28 January 2007, to commemorate the anniversary of Convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty on privacy and data protection.