The protection of privacy and personal data is an integral part of the principle of human dignity, as enshrined in all important documents on Human Rights, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the draft European Constitution. It should therefore be a priority in any civilised society. These were the conclusions of Stefano Rodotà, for many years the Chairman of the Article 29 Working Group of EU Member States' Data Protection Commissioners, at a Conference uniting 26 countries' Data Protection and Privacy authorities last week in Wroclaw, Poland.

This annual Conference, held for the 26th time, had as a motto, inspired by Rodotà, "Right to Privacy - Right to Dignity". It dealt with numerous single issues, ranging from Radio Frequency Identification chips (RFID) to employee's rights and from mass e-mails from political parties to privacy issues related to "the need to deal with the past", in particular in formerly Communist Central and Eastern European Countries.

But the single most important issue that almost all sessions focussed on were the threats to privacy caused by measures proposed by the U.S. as well as by EU member states for combating terrorism. While law enforcement favours an approach where privacy is at best a nice add-on, and at worst, detrimental to security, privacy commissioners like the EU Commissioner Peter Hustinx see privacy as being an integral part of security and would like the two to be dealt with as one unit: "You can't have one without the other," Hustinx said. At the same time, as Ulrich Dammann from the German Federal Commissioner's office pointed out, privacy is increasingly becoming an international issue, which should be dealt with internationally, possibly as a result of a kind of global "lex informatica".

How to proceed in the future was also the big question at an international symposium that EDRI hosted, together with partner organisations Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, the day before the Commissioner's meeting, also in Wroclaw. The answers given by attendants from many countries in- and outside of the EU, were, if maybe a little less visionary, at least as interesting as the ones given at the Commissioner's meeting. Agreement was found on the need for increased co-operation amongst civil society privacy activists as well as collaboration with data protection authorities. One of the points where civil society could certainly contribute is the establishment of best practices for data protection authorities. In many countries, like Serbia, speakers from those regions pointed out, this is still far away: they have neither privacy laws nor independent authorities overseeing the protection of privacy. Only 500 countries worldwide have introduced such measures so far.

Lots of discussions took place outside the official meeting rooms, so that the Wroclaw meeting may very well be the starting point for an improved global co-operation between the official DPA's and the civil society data protection people.

26th International Conference on Privacy and Personal Data Protection (14-16.09.2004)
http://26konferencja.giodo.gov.pl/zaproszenie/j/en/

Public Voice Symposium: Privacy in a New Era: Challenges, Opportunities and Partnerships (13.09.2004)
http://www.thepublicvoice.org/events/wroclaw04/

(Contribution by Andreas Dietl, EDRI EU Affairs Director)