Group Calls For ITU Constitution Amendment To Protect Right To Privacy

A report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the right to privacy in the digital age has been lauded by a group of civil society organisations who also called states to curtail mass surveillance and for the ITU constitution to be amended.

The Just Net Coalition (JNC), in a release [pdf], said the report confirms an element of the organisation’s “Delhi Declaration” on the right to privacy and the use of the internet without mass surveillance, but the Netmundial outcome document did not bear a clear statement “to that effect.”

The report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the right to privacy in the digital age was released on 30 June.

The JNC “calls on all states, including states that, to date, have resisted calls to curtail mass surveillance – in particular the USA [United States], UK [United Kingdom], and Sweden – to embrace to the High Commissioner’s report and to accept its recommendations in full and without reservation,” according to the release.

The organisation also said that the forthcoming International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference would be an opportunity to transpose the High Commissioner’s report into “binding treaty language.”

In particular, the JNC said that Article 37 (Secrecy of Telecommunications) of the ITU Convention should be amended to be strengthened.

Separately the Ninth Annual Internet Governance Forum Meeting is being held in Istanbul, Turkey on 2-5 September.