Reframing Data Transparency

In 2015 the Chairman of the Dutch Data Protection Authority, Jacob Kohnstamm and Daniel Weitzner, Director of the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative brought together between the EU and the US to develop en practical proposals to increase the level of privacy protection in Trans-Atlantic Internet environment.

The goal of the project, called ‘Privacy Bridges’, was to bridge gaps between the existing approaches to data privacy of the European Union (EU) and the United States (US), in a way that produces a high level of privacy protection, furthering the rights of individuals and increasing certainty for commercial organizations.

The ten recommendations formed the centerpiece of the 37th International Privacy Conference in November 2015.

A year on, this is the week of the 38th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners in Marrakesh. Together with the Centre for Information Policy Leadership, Telefónica has been developing some of the ideas of the Privacy Bridges initiative, connecting calls for a new model of transparency with its own Data Transparency Lab project.

CIPL and Telefónica today publish “Reframing Data Transparency”, a paper based on an expert rountable held in London in June 2016. The roundtable took as its starting point the need, identified by Privacy Bridges, to fine new approaches to transparency and user control, in order to fully unlock the potential of the digital world.

There is a need for a model of transparency that goes beyond legalistic privacy notices and is instead focused on people and their experience. “Reframing Data Transparency” identifies nine key themes that were explored by the roundtable and makes recommendations for industry, regulators and civil society about how they can support a collaborative, multi-stakeholder approach to the transformation of transparency that is now critical in order to build and sustain trust in the digital world.

Read the report, “Reframing Data Transparency”.

38th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners takes place this week in Marrakesh.

DTL2016 takes place November 16-19 in New York.