(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

In October 2008, the 30th International Conference of Privacy and Data Protection Commissioners in Strassbourg adopted a resolution on the urgent need for protecting privacy in a borderless world, and for reaching a Joint Proposal for setting International Standards on Privacy and Personal Data Protection.

Following this resolution, the Spanish Data Protection Authority (DPA) - as the organiser of the 31st international DPA Conference to be held in November 2009 - has set up a working group on drafting this Joint Proposal. The first meeting of this working group was held on invitation of the Spanisch DPA and the DPA of Catalonia on 12 January in Barcelona.

Participants in this meeting were not only the interested international Data Protection Authorities but also data protection experts from academia, businesses and civil society, amongst which EDRi.

EDRi very much welcomes this standardisation initative of the International Conference of Privacy and Data Protection Commissioners. Provided that the defined standards are not set below the requirements of the current European data protection legislation - which is very unlikely to happen - an international standard on data protection will not only serve as an important tool for international data exchange but also as a worldwide benchmark for data protection legislation. Besides that, it provides the opportunity to work on issues that are likely to cause difficulties with emerging technologies (like for example the concept of the data controller in RFID environments or cloud computing).

As this one day meeting clearly showed, the creation of an international standard on Privacy and Personal Data Protection is not an easy task and it is by far unclear whether this task can possibly be completed by the next International Conference of Privacy and Data Protection Commissioners in November 2009 in Madrid. But with the draft document provided by the organisers of the meeting and the inputs provided by the participants in the meeting a first step is already taken. In the following months the working group will go into the details and present the outcomes at the Madrid conference.

Resolution on the urgent need for protecting privacy in a borderless world, and for reaching a Joint Proposal for setting International Standards on Privacy and Personal Data Protection adopted by the 30th International Conference of Privacy and Data Protection Commissioners (17.10.2008)
http://www.privacyconference2008.org/adopted_resolutions/STRASBOURG200...

Announcement of the Barcelona Meeting by the DPA of Catalonia (only in Spanish, 8.01.2009)
http://www.apdcat.net/noticia.php?not_id=93

Intervention of the director of the DPA of Catalonia (only in Spanish, 14.01.2009)
http://www.apdcat.net/noticia.php?not_id=97

Press statement of the Spanish DPA (only in Spanish, 13.01.2009)
https://www.agpd.es/portalweb/revista_prensa/revista_prensa/2009/notas...

(contribution by Andreas Krisch - EDRi)