"Privacy: Generations", the 32nd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners closes with a new executive committee and new members

The 32nd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners closed today (Friday, October 29, 2010), ending Privacy week in Jerusalem. This week included the participation of over 600 representatives of governments, companies and non-governmental organizations, who together explored and discussed the challenges to privacy in the 21st century.

Today, during the closed session for Data Protection and Privacy commissioners the Conference agreed on accelerating the work on the mission and objectives of the conference and accepting new members, amongst them The Federal Trade Commission, and Mexican Federal Institute for Access to Information and Data Protection.

The proposal of Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información y Protección de Datos (ifai - the Mexican Data Protection Authority) to host the 33rd International conference was accepted.

In addition, the members agreed on establishing an Interim Executive Committee to continue the work on the future of the Conference in order to define its mission and objectives, including international cooperation in the field of enforcement.

The Interim Executive Committee, consists of the hosting authority of the 33rd conference and the hosting authorities of the preceding four conferences, which will include the Israeli Law Information and Technology Authority.

Furthermore, the closed session adopted the resolution proposed by the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL) calling for the organization of an intergovernmental conference with a view to developing a binding international instrument on privacy and the protection of personal data. This resolution follows a series of resolutions in previous conferences to reinforce the universal nature of the rights to data protection and privacy and call for the standardization of the individuals’ protection level at a national and international level through the development of an universal convention on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data.

Another adopted resolution was the resolution proposed by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada to recognize Privacy by Design as an essential component of fundamental privacy protection, encourage the adoption of Privacy by Design’s Foundational Principles, as set in the resolution as guidance to establishing privacy as an organization’s default mode of operation and promote Privacy by Design by measures suggested in the resolution.

Following this part of the closed session, the members of the conference discussed the value of collaboration and coordination with other regulatory authorities, such as Financial sector regulators, Telecommunication regulators, Consumer protection regulators, and Antitrust regulators. The discussion focused on ways to improve regulatory effectiveness through collaboration through examples given by members of the conference.