Happy Data Protection Day 2020
Data Protection Day (known outside Europe as Data Privacy Day) is an international event that occurs every January 28th. It is the date on which the Council of Europe's data protection convention, known as "Convention 108", was opened to signature.
The Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (CETS No. 108) opened for signature on 28 January 1981 and was the first legally binding international instrument in the data protection field. Under this Convention, the parties are required to take the necessary steps in their domestic legislation to apply the principles it lays down in order to ensure respect in their territory for the fundamental human rights of all individuals with regard to processing of personal data.
35 Council of Europe member States have signed this treaty, as well as Argentina, Tunisia and Uruguay. Three countries have already also ratified it: Bulgaria and Croatia in December 2019 and Lithuania on 23 January 2020. Once in force, the modernised convention - known as Convention 108+ - will provide additional safeguards to data protection globally.
The purpose of Data Protection Day is to raise awareness and promote privacy and data protection best practices. The day was initiated by the Council of Europe:
- People´s personal data are being processed every second - at work, in their relations with public authorities, in the health field, when they buy goods or services, travel or surf the Internet;
- Individuals are generally unfamiliar with the risks related to the protection of their personal data and of their rights in this respect. They are seldom aware of what they can do if they consider that their rights have been breached, or of the role of national data protection agencies;
- Data Protection Day is now celebrated globally and is called Privacy Day outside Europe (please note that Data-Protection is different to Privacy);
- It was first held in 2007 as the European Data Protection Day.
