ICC celebrates data protection day

  • 28 January 2008

To make citizens more aware of their data protection rights, the Council of Europe and the European Commission are launching “Data Protection Day” on 28 January. The kickoff will include a series of events throughout Europe and North America.

ICC will hold a reception in Brussels on the day, which representatives of business, data protection authorities, and European institutions will attend. ICC will co-host the event with the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU (AmCham EU) and the European Privacy Officers Forum (EPOF).

“ICC welcomes the opportunity to help celebrate Data Protection Day,” said Christopher Kuner, Chairman of ICC’s Task Force on Privacy and the Protection of Personal Data. “ICC members support the protection of personal data as an important enabler of commerce, both online and offline.”

“The ICC task force will continue to work for a legal framework for data protection that protects the rights of individuals and provides a workable framework for global commerce,” Mr Kuner said.

ICC’s Task Force on Privacy and the Protection of Personal Data has long been one of the most active business organizations working on privacy and data protection.

The task force’s accomplishments include: a model contract to ensure equivalent data protection in the context of data flows across borders, agreed jointly with the Council of Europe and the European Commission in 1992; standard contractual clauses for controller-to-controller data transfers, approved by the European Commission in 2004, drafted and negotiated with six other business organizations; and a standard application form for binding corporate rules (BCRs) approved in 2007 with changes by the EU’s Article 29 Working Party.