On 20 April 2021, the Inter-American Juridical Committee, an advisory body to the Organization of American States (OAS), unanimously approved the "Updated Principles on Privacy and the Protection of Personal Data, with Annotations". In the process of drafting these principles, the Inter-American Juridical Committee consulted a series of international actors, including the Ibero-American Data Protection Network and the Inter-American Commission of Women.
Through its Gender Equality Policies Department, the European Union EUROsociAL+ programme also participated in this process within the framework of an action to strengthen the strategy to combat gender violence against adolescent girls and women on the internet. Jessica Matus and Ana Karen Cortés, gender experts from the programme, provided technical support and analysed the situation in order to contribute – from both a preventive and reactive perspective – to eradicating violence against women on the internet at an international level.
These principles on privacy and the protection of personal data replace the previous document from 2015 and constitute a regulatory standard for the countries on the American continent, especially for those that still do not have legislation on the matter or are in the process of updating it, with the aim of promoting legal harmonisation throughout the continent.
As part of this collaboration process to update the principles it was possible to incorporate for the first time the consideration of a transversal perspective on gender and human rights in their interpretation. In addition, a strong recommendation was made that special safeguards be established regarding the processing of sensitive data that poses a high risk, as is the case in the usurpation of identity, the violation of sexual privacy and digital gender violence.
These Updated Principles replace the previous ones, from 2015, and incorporate new perspectives on privacy and data protection, including, in addition to the gender approach, an improved framework for the protection of socially and economically vulnerable groups, as well as guidelines to facilitate the development of humanitarian assistance activities.
To view the Updated Principles on Privacy and Personal Data Protection, click here.
