The Department of International Law
(DIL), in its capacity as an Observer
to the Advisory Committee of the Council of
Europe Convention for the Protection of
Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing
of Personal Data (Convention 108), participated
in the Committee´s 46th meeting held at the
Palace of Europe in Strasbourg France from June
5-7. The Advisory Committee, currently
consisting of 55 Member States and over 20
Observers, was established to submit proposals
to facilitate and improve the implementation of
the Convention.
During its intervention,
the DIL took the opportunity to present the OAS
Updated Principles on Privacy and the Protection
of Personal Data, prepared and approved by the
InterAmerican Juridical Committee (CJI) and
adopted by the General Assembly in 2021,
highlighting the importance of having principles
that result from a consultative process and aim
to establish guidelines that strike a balance
between the effective protection of personal
data and the free flow of personal data across
national borders.
With this
presentation, the DIL had the opportunity to
showcase one of the OAS´ latest soft law
instruments before the Advisory Committee as
well as to share its perspective and experience
as a regional Organization, as a first step
towards closer inter-regional cooperation and to
consolidate the DIL´s ability to provide
state-of-the-art support for OAS Members States
that wish to strengthen or modernize their legal
frameworks regarding the protection of personal
data.
The Committee members expressed
great interest in having more OAS Member States
acceding to Convention 108. As of this date,
Uruguay, Mexico and Argentina have done so. The
Committee further laid the groundwork for
working closely with the CJI in the development
of guidelines for the protection of neuro data.
Convention 108, adopted in 1981, is the
only binding international instrument on data
protection. Subsequently, on 10 October 2018,
the European Council adopted an Additional
Protocol (Convention 108+) in order to
strengthen the protection of personal data
considering the diversification, increase and
globalization of data processing activities and
the flow of information.
Convention 108
is open for accession by States which are not
members of the Council of Europe.
» To learn more about the DIL,
click here.
» To learn more about the DIL’s
work in protection of personal data,
click here.
» To view the Updated Principles
on Privacy and the Protection of Personal Data,
click here.
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