Navigating the Dataverse: Privacy, Technology ... - The ICHRP

In each case, it seems likely that traditional human rights instruments may provide a
basis for challenging some pieces of the emerging architecture of the dataverse – but it
seems unlikely that human rights law is positioned to question or reorient the cumulative
effect of these emerging challenges. The Discussion Paper suggests, however, that to
be successful, a human rights orientation must return to the original premise of human
rights protections, which is to provide a framework for protecting individual autonomy
per se – itself the premise for privacy as broadly understood. From this perspective,
the broader challenge for human rights remains, as it has always been, to reassert
and protect the capacity of individuals to act autonomously. From this perspective, a
long tradition has recognised the indispensable role of the full menu of human rights
in ensuring autonomy – economic and social as well as civil and political. Only when
the interdependence of the full set of rights is properly recognised can the capacity of
individuals to participate effectively in the public sphere be assured.
The broader challenge for human rights remains, as it has always been, to
reassert and protect the capacity of individuals to act autonomously.
Topics for Further Research
In conclusion, the Discussion Paper proposes the following topics for further research:
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Clear policies are required to enhance the degree of control that individuals (data
subjects) exercise over their own personal data. At a minimum the legal framework
must ensure that data holders inform data subjects of the information held on them
– or where there are exceptions, these must be stated in law and conveyed to the
data subject. Such policies must be grounded in solid research. Policies introducing
default expiry dates for personal data (as a requirement of data systems) are also
needed. Any such policies ought ideally to be pursued at international level.
The implications of transnational border flows are poorly understood, given in
particular the mismatch between different national data protection frameworks and
the relative absence of international or transitional laws in this area. A transnational
policy must extend beyond existing data protection laws by (i) ensuring the access of
data subjects to information concerning them; (ii) minimising exceptions on grounds
of national security; (iii) extending to private as well as public retainers of data; and
(iv) providing robust supranational mechanisms for review and redress.
Privacy today is a transnational affair involving a congeries of national and international,
public and private, data collectors; and yet there is no shared universal conception of
privacy itself. Cross-cultural studies to identify a set of principles relevant to privacy
in a variety of settings will provide greater ballast for a human right to privacy equal
to the immense challenge posed by transglobal technological processes.
The implications of the dataverse for a series of human rights must be researched
in much more detail than has been possible in the present Discussion Paper. In
particular, the interface of privacy, data protection and the principle of nondiscrimination,
as well as freedom of expression and of information, require further
research. Ultimately, reasserting the fundamental link between human rights and
personal autonomy requires focused conceptual spadework and lateral thinking.
Navigating the Dataverse: Privacy, Technology, Human Rights