Global Privacy And Data Protection Awards 2021
The Gibraltar Regulatory Authority, as the Information Commissioner, has been shortlisted for two awards from the Global Privacy Assembly (“GPA”) in respect of work done by the GRA’s Information Rights Division.
A statement from the GRA follows below:
There are five award categories: education and public awareness, accountability, dispute resolution and enforcement, innovation and people’s choice. The GRA has been shortlisted for: education and public awareness, and dispute resolution and enforcement.
Category A: Education and Public Awareness
The GRA is one of three finalists – the other finalists are the Polish Data Protection Authority and the European Data Protection Supervisor.
The GRA has been nominated for its “Control Your Privacy” campaign, which takes a layered and multi-pronged approach to raising awareness about data protection law and privacy, combining traditional and modern outreach methods, to target key sectors within the community, namely children and adults, with different awareness raising methods used for each. Key features relating to the awareness raising activities carried out for each key target sector are outline below.
- Students:
(a) All school students are taught about privacy and data protection. GRA staff attend schools to deliver presentations on data protection and privacy followed by a question-and-answer session. All Gibraltar school students in three year groups are involved (ages 11-12, 13-14, and 15-16).
(b) Annual survey. A survey (undertaken annually) is conducted with corresponding reports published on the GRA’s website. The survey helps learn about student behaviour and promotes engagement.
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(c) Educating the educators. The GRA developed educational resources, which teachers can make use of to educate students on privacy and data protection. The lesson plans adopt the International Framework developed by the GPA.
- Adults
(a) Public events in the city centre. The GRA promotes and periodically conducts a “Data Protection Day” in town to engage directly with members of the public to generate and promote awareness in data protection.
(b) Cooperation with key stakeholders. The GRA invites other bodies (e.g. the Gibraltar Citizens Advice Bureau, the Royal Gibraltar Police, the Gibraltar Youth Service and the Office of Fair Trading) to participate in its initiatives and participates and supports the initiatives of others (e.g. the GRA participates in other initiatives such as the Royal Gibraltar Police’s video for safer internet day and the Gibraltar Citizens Advice Bureau’s awareness raising events in town).
(c) Social media. In keeping with new technologies and behaviour, the GRA operates a social media campaign to engage with the public and disseminate information.
(d) Video. Creation and use of short eye-catching videos to raise awareness, promote guidance and topics disseminated via social media.
(e) Survey: In 2020, the GRA carried out a Data Protection Survey amongst the general public.
(f) Press releases: Press releases are regularly issued in relation to the GRA’s activities.
The key features of the GRA’s initiative are the combination of techniques, modern and traditional, to engage with different key sectors of the community, including direct one to one engagement methods, as well as methods of mass communication, and in cooperation with other stakeholders to promote a collective voice and action.
Category D: Dispute Resolution and Enforcement
In this category the GRA has been shortlisted as part of a group, which consists of the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the GRA, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data of Hong Kong (China), the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner of Switzerland and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. The group has been shortlisted for its cooperative compliance initiative concerning Video Teleconferencing Companies (“VTC”).
The work consisted of an international call to address data protection and privacy concerns relating to VTC use, which had accelerated during the pandemic. Key features of the initiative were –
(a) Efficiency. The efficient manner in which concerns were raised and established internationally amongst data protection and privacy authorities, and a compliance approach agreed, which allowed the group to gather substantial intelligence on the VTC industry without duplicative, resource-intensive investigations. Extremely high returns on collaborative enforcement investment.
(b) Collaborative. The group achieved high-level engagement from four key global players; benefitted from the expertise of six authorities in developing communications, questions and analysis; carried out scalable enforcement action allowing regulators of various sizes and resource limitations to benefit from a global coordinated action for promoting an industry-wide compliance effect; allocated tasks (e.g., dividing interviews with VTCs according to time zones) to minimize the load on each authority; and amplified compliance messaging through unified communications.
(c) Impactful. The group generated powerful communications to share compliance expectations vis-à-vis VTC platforms (open letter), and then identify best practices (in upcoming release) to encourage broad-based compliance and improve industry wide privacy protection on a global scale. Given the growing number of digital services that operate across the word, this initiative will have a significant impact on the protection of VTC consumer’s privacy worldwide.
Both entries will be submitted to an online vote by the GPA members alongside other shortlisted entries. In addition, this also means that this work will be eligible for entry in the People’s Choice Award 2021. The People’s Choice Award will also be a part of the membership vote.
With more than 130 data protection and privacy authorities from across the globe, the GPA is one of the most important global forums for data protection and privacy authorities. Every year, the GPA’s Global Privacy and Data Protection Awards celebrate the achievements of the GPA community and highlights good practice.
