IASC Special event: Aiding Surveillance - challenges to the protection of beneficiaries privacy and personal data in cas
Geneva
Meeting Documents
Aiding Surveillance - challenges to the protection of beneficiaries privacy and personal data in cash and e-transfer programmes
New technologies have revolutionised the impact and effectiveness of development and humanitarian interventions, and their adoption is a key priority for modern humanitarian actors. However, the adoption of new technologies raises new challenges for the protection and promotion of human rights, in particular the rights to privacy and the protection of personal data. The advent of electronic transfers, while creating clear opportunities for the delivery of vital cash transfers, has the potential to create new risks to beneficiaries' privacy as their personal data is collected, mined, shared and analysed by a range of public and private actors in the name of humanitarian aid.
Panellists:
Carly Nyst, Head of International Advocacy, Privacy International. Lili Mohiddin, Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP) Technical Coordinator. Arafat Jamal, Chief IASC Secretariat and former UNHCR Deputy Representative (Operations), UNHCR Representation in Jordan
Carly Nyst
Carly Nyst will canvass some of the potential risks involved in utilising new technologies, particularly e-transfers, in humanitarian responses, and will present an argument for strong safeguards and operational standards around privacy and the protection of personal information.
Lili Mohiddin
Lili Mohiddin will review the increased use of cash as a tool in emergency response and the growing interest in the application of e-transfers. She will provide a description of the needs identified by NGOs in terms of data management before outlining the content and purpose of the document developed by CaLP with inputs from a large number of stakeholders: ‘Protecting Beneficiary Privacy: Principles and Operational Standards for the secure use of personal data in cash and e-transfer programmes’.
Arafat Jamal
Arafat Jamal will discuss the transformative effects of switching from delivery of assistance to transfers of cash in an urban refugee operation. He will share some of his experiences in introducing cash transfers in UNHCR's refugee assistance in Jordan in 2011; identify challenges to the protection of beneficiary data and how some of these risk were mitigated.