10 June 2009

International solutions are increasingly being sought by data protection and privacy commissioners around the world to target cross-national privacy challenges.

A significant step towards achieving workable international solutions took place recently with a joint announcement made by New Zealand's Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff, and Dr Walter Fumy, Chairman of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). A representative of data protection and privacy commissioners from around the world, Canada's Steven Johnston, has recently been appointed as liaison officer on identity management and privacy technologies to the leading International Standards Committee on information security.

Dr Walter Fumy said: 'I warmly welcome this collaborative development... It represents an important turning point in advancing data privacy and protecting personal information through the publication of international privacy standards in the area of technology...'

'This appointment is a significant step toward achieving an international solution' said Marie Shroff.

This year's International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners in Madrid in November will also be considering a joint proposal on 'International Standards for the Protection of Privacy and Personal Data', as the basis for the development of a universal, binding, legal document.

ENDS

Notes:
The current representative Steven Johnston, is Senior Security and Technology Advisor to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in Canada.

At the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners in Strasbourg in October 2008, Marie Shroff was appointed chair of the Steering Group on Representation before International Organisations.

For more details of this joint cooperation go to the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 web site http://www.jtc1sc27.din.de/en. Also contained on this web site is a full list of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 projects.

For further information about the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, go to resolutions on global standards and appointing liaison officer or to this year's conference web site.

For more information see www.privacy.org.nz or contact:
Annabel Fordham on 021 509 735 or enquiries@privacy.org.nz