ARTICLE 19, the Global Campaign for Free Expression, is organising a meeting of experts on Freedom of Expression and Privacy which is scheduled to hold on March 28 and 29, 2016. The meeting will bring together experts on digital rights as well as experts on media and privacy laws from different parts of the world to assist in the development of a new set of Privacy and Free Expression Principles.
Although these rights – privacy and free expression – are generally mutually supportive, they can come into conflict on certain issues. Thus, it is hoped that this new set of principles that would be born from the expert gathering will not only elaborate the mutual reinforcement of these two rights in detail but also establish where the balance should lie when they are in competition.
The gathering will also consider the draft principles on the balance between freedom of expression and privacy. Key issues are likely to include anonymity, surveillance, user profiling and subject access to personal data, “personality” rights, internet archives and available remedies.
The Expert meeting would be held in San Francisco ahead of RightsCon 2016 which begins on March 30, 2016 – the day after the end of the Expert meeting. RightsCon is one of the world’s leading events convened around the issues of internet and human rights.
