UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy Joe Cannataci will give a presentation on the challenges to privacy in the digital age and the role of businesses in addressing the challenges.

Professor Cannataci’s visit to Denmark is organized by the think-do-tank DataEthics.EU and the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

The role of businesses in the digital age

The context for the right to privacy is radically transformed due to digital means of data collection, processing and storage. In the so-called personal information economy, personal data holds great commercial value. While states have gained unprecedented access to information on citizens, the technology industry today hold the greatest troves of data on people worldwide. With such great powers comes responsibility, and the role and mandate of these private companies is increasingly on the political agenda.

How do we operationalise human rights expectations to private companies? What is the current state of affair? How can we monitor progress? And what are we doing (or not doing) in Denmark to meet these challenges? These and many other questions will be addressed and discussed with Joe Cannataci during his public presentation.

The first UN rapporteur on privacy

In 2015, the United Nations appointed Joe Cannataci as its first Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy. The appointment came after world-wide petitions from organizations and institutions for a renewed UN emphasis on the right to privacy after revelations of a range of mass surveillance programmes. The appointment was strongly supported by a number of countries, including Denmark. The core task of the rapporteur is to gather information, raise awareness and report back to the UN’s Human Rights Council on current challenges and violations pertaining to privacy rights.

Contact for more information

Gry Hasselbalch, DataEthics.eu, dataethics@mediamocracy.neomailbox.ch

Rikke Frank Jørgensen, Danish Institute of Human Rights, rfj@humanrights.dk

Registration here