[governance] Fwd: After Snowden Leaks, Countries Want Digital Privacy Enshrined in Human Rights Treaty

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

--srs (iPad)

Begin forwarded message:

> Led by the German government, a loose coalition of privacy chiefs from countries across the world is pushing to update an influential international human rights treaty that enshrines the right to privacy. German  officials first wrote to their counterparts in other European Union countries with the proposal after Snowden’s revelations about the sweeping scope of spy programs operated by the NSA. They were seeking support for an attempt to protect citizens’ right to privacy in the Internet Age—and the effort is now beginning to gather momentum.
>  
> The intention is to draw up an additional protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a 1966 multilateral treaty that is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is endorsed by more than 160 countries, including the United States.  Article 17 of the ICCPR already states that citizens should not be “subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with [their] privacy, family, home or correspondence” and contains a vague so-called “general comment” that says the collection of information from computers must be “regulated by law.” But the German government wants to broaden and update Article 17, adding an additional protocol for the “digital sphere” that specifically covers the conduct of spy agencies. It may as well be named the “Snowden Protocol,”
>  
> Data protection chiefs in Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein were quick to back the plan, which the German government says was initially proposed in a letter it sent to other EU member states in July. On Tuesday, however, the proposal received a major boost at the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners in Warsaw, Poland. During a closed session at the conference open only to the privacy chiefs, a resolution was put forward for a vote on the proposal to update Article 17. They voted overwhelmingly in favor of the idea, recognizing a need to “create globally applicable standards for data protection and the protection of privacy in accordance with the rule of law.” Notably, only one country did not approve of the resolution: the United States. A representative from the Federal Trade Commission abstained.
>  
> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/26/article_17_surveillance_update_countries_want_digital_privacy_in_the_iccpr.html
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