Individual in Privacy Protection: 30 Years after the OECD Privacy Guidelines
Conference on the Evolving Role of the Individual in Privacy Protection: 30 Years after the OECD Privacy Guidelines
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Background This year marks the 30th anniversary of the OECD Guidelines for the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Data Flows (“Privacy Guidelines”). Adopted in 1980, the Privacy Guidelines were the first international statement of the core information privacy principles and have proven highly influential over the years. This conference is one of three events organised during this anniversary year, to better understand the current environment for protecting privacy. The other two include a roundtable on the impact of the Guidelines held this past March in Paris, and roundtable on the economics of personal data and privacy to be held at the OECD on 1 December 2010. Along with these events, the OECD is preparing an anniversary report on the evolving privacy landscape. Work in 2010 will lay the foundations for a review of the Guidelines in 2011, to determine whether they need to be updated or revised to address the current environment for privacy and transborder data flows. Hosted by the Israeli Law, Information and Technology Authority, this Conference is focused on the role of the individual in privacy protection. Held back-to-back with the 32nd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, it will bring together government officials and privacy authorities, together with representatives of international organisations, business, civil society, the Internet technical community, and academia. Following an opening session with speeches from senior officials and a broad ranging discussion on individual and their privacy, the Conference will be divided into 4 main topics, each the focus of a moderated panel discussion: (I) The Individual as Creator and Disseminator of Personal Data (II) Aggregation, Analytics, Identity and the Individual (III) Awareness, Choice and the Individual, and (IV) Innovations in Privacy Protection. The final session will consider the broader implications of the issues raised for protecting privacy and key principles. For further information visit: www.oecd.org/sti/privacyanniversary.
Agenda [PDF – 627kb] Biographies [PDF – 682kb]
Monday 25 October, 18.00-20.00 Opening Session: The Oecd Privacy Guidelines in Context
Welcome Remarks
Panel Discussion: Privacy in the Context of the Internet — Recording Everything and Forgetting Nothing? This panel will embark on a broad-ranging discussion of the core privacy principles in the current context, to try to identify the key issues to be explored further and help set the scene for the following day. the opening speaker will focus on a key technology-fuelled trend: the digital capture of increasing amounts of data about our activities and interests and its indefinite storage. This trend, among others, may bring economic and societal benefits from new uses of personal data, but also an evolution in the privacy risk environment.
Key Issues for Discussion
Panelists
Closing speech
Tuesday 26 October, 09.00-18.00 I. Data Creation and Sharing by Individuals about Individuals When the Guidelines were conceived 30 years ago, the drafters could not have contemplated the dramatic increases in the capabilities of individuals to produce, share, and publish personal data. Large numbers of individuals actively volunteer personal information about themselves and others, posting pictures and videos online, blogging, conducting business transactions among themselves, and interacting with large groups of friends or the public through social networking sites. With mobile computing devices like smart phones becoming commonplace, this trend seems set to continue, with location information added to the mix. In short, it’s not just businesses and governments that are engaged in data processing activities. This session will examine the interest and value for individuals in generating and posting personal data online, as well as the implications of these behavioural changes for the scope and principles of the OECD Guidelines.
Key Issues for Discussion
Panelists
II. Aggregation and Analytics: Constructing an Individual Profile When individuals browse the web, use their cell phones and make purchases, they leave data crumbs everywhere. We live in a world where what we buy, what we tell our friends, how we spend our time, where we walk, where we drive and more are collected, analysed and linked to information about our gender, income, age, occupation, ethnicity and other demographic information. Even apart from more well-known tracking technologies like cookies, browsing the web reveals many other types of data that can often be combined to create unique fingerprint of our browser. These along with other techniques allow those crumbs to be combined, analysed and transformed by private and government actors into individual profiles – our digital personas. And at the same time, the practical effectiveness of efforts to anonymise or de-identify data are being questioned. This session will explore what “personal data” means in an age of data abundance and analytics.
Key Issues for Discussion
Panelists
III. Awareness, Understanding, and Individual Decision-Making As data usage practices have become more complex, so too have the privacy policies that describe them. For an individual, estimating the privacy implications of a particular is often difficult, and numerous and subtle influences can create dichotomies between the individual’s privacy attitudes and actual behaviour. Some of the challenges for example relate, to the difficulty of reconciling the need for privacy with the need for publicity. Others stem from difficulties in navigating and understanding information not always presented in an easy-to-understand manner by organisations. Issues of presentation and default settings may have a great influence on user perceptions and choices. Drawing in part on insights from behavioural economics and the social sciences, this session will explore how and why individuals make the decisions they do when it comes to privacy and what can be done to improve it.
Key Issues for Discussion
Panelists
IV. Fostering Innovations in Privacy Protection While attention is often focused on the privacy challenges of the digital environment, the Internet and other technologies also bring new opportunities to offer individuals practical options to participate in the protection of their privacy. Integrated into IT systems and business practices at the design stage, innovative approaches have been proposed concerning, for example, identity and reputation management tools, “just-in-time” notices, privacy “dashboards”, anonymous routing services, and even attaching “sticky” privacy preferences to the data. Although the adoption of what were dubbed “Privacy Enhancing Technologies” in the 1990’s has been slower than expected, there is renewed interest in deploying technological tools for privacy today. This session will examine some innovative approaches being taken by organisations to provide individuals with appropriate and usable information to exercise control over their personal information and the challenges to making them effective. It will also consider the broader role of innovative approaches to privacy to address the current environment.
Key Issues for Discussion
Panelists
V. Implications for Policy Making This concluding session will consider the broader implications of the issues raised during the conference for policy making to protect the privacy of individuals. A number of international organisations are reviewing their privacy instruments, including the OECD. Recognising the increasing importance of internationally compatible approaches to privacy, this session will bring together experts on work in APEC, the Council of Europe, the European Union and the Global Privacy Enforcement Network, who will join civil society and business representatives to identify key issues and ways forward.
Key Issues for Discussion
Panelists
Closing Remarks
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