The data protection commissioners from the countries convened in Venice on the occasion of the 22nd International Conference on Privacy and Personal Data Protection agree on the need for reaffirming common data protection principles and standards in the face of the increasingly pervasive data processing technologies, the growing number of users of such technologies and the intensification of data exchanges worldwide.

Many international instruments are already available in this sector: from OECD Privacy Guidelines up to Council of Europe Convention no. 108, EU directives, resolutions and recommendations from international organizations.

These instruments already represent the significant core of reference principles supported by wide- ranging consensus; they are the basis of a common exercise with a view to securing their worldwide application taking due account of the many technological and social changes. In the light of the recognition of privacy as a fundamental personal right and as constitutive element of citizens’ freedom, our work should aim at a global recognition of guidelines for the processing of personal data

- reaffirming the binding nature of these principles, with particular regard to the purposes of data collection, the need for fair, transparent processing operations (especially in respect of the so-called invisible processing operations), proportionality, quality of data, time for which the data can be kept, access and the other data subjects’ rights;

- providing data subjects with more effective protection via the independent supervision of processing operations and the availability of user-friendly remedies;

- strengthening the safeguards applying to the processing of certain categories of data such as genetic data or data related to the various types of electronic surveillance. This would allow citizens worldwide to attain an adequate, more widely shared level of protection regardless of the place where the processing is performed and irrespective of the instruments used for implementing protection in national and international fora.

Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners will work with others to elaborate and implement the globally recognised principles.