The Right to Privacy in the Digital Age

A/RES/73/179View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 74bHuman rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, published in 2018.

What other versions does this mandate have?

11 versions · 2014–2024

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/79/175

2024A/RES/79/175The right to privacy in the digital ageLatestCompare with previous version
2023A/RES/77/211The right to privacy in the digital ageCompare with previous version
2020A/RES/75/176The right to privacy in the digital ageCompare with previous version
2019A/RES/73/179The right to privacy in the digital ageCompare with previous version
2019A/HRC/RES/42/15The right to privacy in the digital ageCompare with previous version

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

5 topics

Communication Technology Cybercrime Data Protection Digital Technology Right to Privacy

What does this mandate say?

29 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms the right to privacy, according to which no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, and the right to the protection of the law against such interference, as set out in article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights1 and article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;2

Recognizes the global and open nature of the Internet and the rapid advancement in information and communications technologies as a driving force in accelerating progress towards development in its various forms, including in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals;

Affirms that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, including the right to privacy;

Recalls that any interference with the right to privacy should take into account its legality, necessity and proportionality;

Encourages all States to promote an open, secure, stable, accessible and peaceful information and communications technology environment based on respect for international law, including the obligations enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and human rights instruments;

Calls upon all States:

To respect and protect the right to privacy, including in the context of digital communications;

To take measures to put an end to violations of the right to privacy and to create the conditions to prevent such violations, including by ensuring that relevant national legislation complies with their obligations under international human rights law;

To review, on a regular basis, their procedures, practices and legislation regarding the surveillance of communications, their interception and the collection of personal data, including mass surveillance, interception and collection, with a view to upholding the right to privacy by ensuring the full and effective implementation of all their obligations under international human rights law;

To establish or maintain existing independent, effective, adequately resourced and impartial judicial, administrative and/or parliamentary domestic oversight mechanisms capable of ensuring transparency, as appropriate, and accountability for State surveillance of communications, their interception and the collection of personal data;

To provide individuals whose right to privacy has been violated by unlawful or arbitrary surveillance with access to an effective remedy, consistent with international human rights obligations;

To consider developing or maintaining and implementing adequate legislation, in consultation with all relevant stakeholders, including civil society, with effective sanctions and appropriate remedies, that protects individuals against violations and abuses of the right to privacy, namely through the unlawful and arbitrary collection, processing, retention or use of personal data by individuals, Governments, business enterprises and private organizations;

To consider adopting and implementing data protection legislation, regulation and policies, including on digital communication data, that complies with their international human rights obligations, which could include the establishment of national independent authorities with powers and resources to monitor data privacy practices, investigate violations and abuses and receive communications from individuals and organizations, and to provide appropriate remedies;

To further develop or maintain, in this regard, preventive measures and remedies for violations and abuses regarding the right to privacy in the digital age that may affect all individuals, including where there are particular effects on women, as well as children and those who are vulnerable and marginalized;

To consider developing, reviewing, implementing and strengthening gender-responsive policies that promote and protect the right of all individuals to privacy in the digital age;

To provide effective guidance to business enterprises on how to respect human rights by advising on appropriate methods, including human rights due diligence, and on how to consider effectively issues of gender, vulnerability and/or marginalization;

To promote quality education and lifelong educational opportunities for all to foster, inter alia, digital literacy and technical skills to effectively protect privacy;

To refrain from requiring business enterprises to take steps that interfere with the right to privacy in an arbitrary or unlawful way;

To take steps to enable business enterprises to adopt adequate voluntary transparency measures with regard to requests by State authorities for access to private user data and information;

To consider developing or to maintain legislation, preventive measures and remedies addressing harm from the processing, use, sale or multiple resale or other corporate sharing of personal data without the individual’s free, explicit and informed consent;

Calls upon business enterprises:

To meet their responsibility to respect human rights in accordance with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework, including the right to privacy in the digital age;

To inform users in a clear and easily accessible way about the collection, use, sharing and retention of their data that may affect their right to privacy and to establish transparency policies, as appropriate;

To implement administrative, technical and physical safeguards to ensure that data are processed lawfully and to ensure that such processing is limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes of the processing and that the legitimacy of such purposes, as well as the accuracy, integrity and confidentiality of the processing, is ensured;

To ensure that respect for the right to privacy and other international human rights is incorporated into the design, operation, evaluation and regulation of automated decision-making and machine-learning technologies and to provide for remediation of the human rights abuses that they have caused or to which they have contributed;

Encourages business enterprises to work towards enabling secure communications and the protection of individual users against arbitrary or unlawful interference with their privacy, including by developing technical solutions;

Encourages all relevant stakeholders to participate in informal dialogues about the right to privacy, and takes note with appreciation of the contribution of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the right to privacy to this process;

Encourages the Human Rights Council and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to remain actively seized of the debate, and invites all relevant stakeholders to further discuss how profiling, automated decision-making and machine-learning technologies, sometimes referred to as artificial intelligence, without proper safeguards, impact the enjoyment of the right to privacy, for the purpose of clarifying existing principles and standards and identifying best practices regarding the promotion and protection of the right to privacy;

Decides to continue its consideration of the question at its seventy-fifth session.

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