World privacy commissioners call for U.N. privacy principles [priv]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: FW: World Privacy Commissioners pass important resolution
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 17:49:46 -0400
From: Stanley, Jay <JStanley () dcaclu org>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>


Declan,

Barry Steinhardt has just reported breaking news to us from Montreux 
that the world's privacy commissioners have passed an important 
Delcaration that might be of interest to Politech.

Among other things, they call for:
    * the spread of universal privacy principles around the world, 
including through the U.N.
    * cooperation with NGOs around the world
    * for intergovernmental organizations (like ICAO, creator of the 
biometric/RFID passport standard) to comply with such principles and to 
appoint privacy officers

They also passed a separate resolution on biometric identity documents.

Although the U.S. lacks a privacy commissioner or its equivalent, nearly 
every other industrialized nation has one, and in many countries they 
possess significant power. At a time when we are seeing the increased 
internationalization of many anti-privacy policies through what we call 
"policy laundering," this is a significant step.

Their press release and the documents are online at 
http://www.edsb.ch/e/aktuell/index.htm.  We've also posted them at 
http://www.policylaundering.org.

Best,

Jay Stanley
Communications Director, Technology and Liberty Program
American Civil Liberties Union
202-715-0818
www.aclu.org/privacy
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