Submission on Argentina's Draft Law on the Protection of Personal Data, 2018

In September 2018, the National Executive sent the proposed Data Protection Bill to the National Congress. The proposed law was directed to the Senate and it will be considered by two commissions: the Commission of Constitutional Affairs (Comision de Asuntos Constitucionales) and the Commission of Rights and Guarantees (Comision de Derechos y Garantías).

Privacy International welcomes the continued efforts by Argentina to provide protections for the right to privacy, already enshrined in the Constitution of Argentina. PI welcomes the main aim of the draft law forprotection of personal data (“the Bill”), namely to regulate the processing of personal data in order to guarantee fully the exercise of data subjects in accordance with Articles 18, 19 and 43 of the Constitution. (Clause 1 of the Bill.)

While these efforts have positive intentions, a number of concerns ought to be addressed with the aim of strengthening the data protection framework and Privacy International wishes to make a number of observations and recommendations based on our analysis of the draft law.

We also invite you to refer to the submission published by our national partners, Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC), which presents their analysis of the proposed Data Protection Bill.

As the legislative process continues, Privacy International is calling for an open, constructive and consultative process. Privacy International hopes to contribute constructively to the next steps of this process along with the national civil society organisations in Argentina.

Our priority is to ensure that the highest data protection safeguards are encoded in law and effectively enforced so that people in Argentina are protected from undue harm and they are able to fully exercise the enjoyment of their fundamental rights and freedoms.

To find out more about privacy and data protection in Argentina, please refer to ‘The State of Privacy in Argentina’ (last updated in January 2018).

We take the opportunity to share our guide for policy engagement on data protection "The Keys to Data Protection". The guide is intended to help organisations and individuals improve their understanding of data protection, by providing a framework to analyse the various provisions which are commonly presented in a data protection law.