OECD-brokered deal setting a global tax of 15 percent aims to prevent international companies from cutting their tax bills by registering in countries with low tax rates – Copyright AFP/File PUNIT PARANJPE
The global economy is also undergoing a digital transformation, and at breakneck speed. How can advanced economies understand the pace of change and find the right balance between data flow and privacy? And to what extent is a common framework needed? The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released a statement based on new principles for national adoption.
OECD countries have adopted the first intergovernmental agreement on common approaches to protecting privacy and other human rights and freedoms when accessing personal data for national security and law enforcement purposes.
This is the “OECD Statement on Government Access to Personal Data Held by Private Sector Companies” and the framework aims to increase trust in cross-border data flows (something central to the digital transformation of the global economy). This is to be achieved by clarifying how national security and law enforcement authorities can access personal data under existing legal frameworks.
The new guidelines mark renewed political commitment by the 38 OECD countries. The agreement was developed at the 2022 OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy. The declaration is open to other countries to join.
The Directive follows on from an earlier Recommendation which sought to provide a definition of data localization and outlined a roadmap to ensure that data localization does not impede the flow of data across borders.
Commenting on the guidance, OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said: “In this digital age, the ability to transfer data across borders is fundamental to everything from the use of social media to international trade and collaboration on global health issues .”
Cormann adds: “Yet without common principles and safeguards, the sharing of personal data across jurisdictions raises privacy concerns, particularly in sensitive areas such as national security… It will help enable the flow of data between rule-of-law democracies with the safeguards needed for trust.” of individuals in the digital economy and the trust that governments have in each other over their citizens’ personal data.”
The statement rejects any approach to government access to personal data that is inconsistent with democratic values and the rule of law.
The project arose from growing concerns that the lack of common principles in the sensitive areas of law enforcement and national security could lead to undue restrictions on data flows. The guidelines focus on principles that set out how the legal framework governs state access.
The standards used when requesting access; how access is authorized and how the resulting data is handled, with the aim of providing a process that member states can adopt.
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