A letter to the future members of the European Parliament and American Presidential Candidates

In light of both the European elections which are to take place this week, and also the American elections which will take place next year, I am openly calling on all political candidates to make a pledge in the name of privacy, data protection and democracy.

Privacy and democracy, in fact, go hand-in-hand. One cannot exist without the other. Data protection, security and privacy regulations are paramount in robust economies and must be properly addressed in order to generate legitimate economic value in data-driven economies. At the same time, the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens as they are inscribed in the juridical pillars of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be protected. In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation has attempted to build upon such fundamental rights in order to effectively grant dignity to the citizens of our digital society. There is, however, a necessity for a coordinated global appreciation of the vital role that privacy and data protection play in safeguarding our democracies.

It is ever-more evident that we need to work to embed ethics and democratic principles into the very algorithms that underpin present and future technologies which, if not dealt with properly, will pose significant risks to the democratic process and undermine the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals that our forefathers worked so hard to secure.

The very essence of technology is innovation, and as politicians, the lawmakers we entrust with protecting our fundamental rights, you have the power to regulate technologies in a fair way that allows for their incredible economic and societal potential to be fully taken advantage of while, at the same time, affording unrestrained development and inclusion to the youngest generations.

As a politician, you can fight against disinformation, promote privacy rights awareness campaigns so that voters are aware of their rights, and perhaps most importantly, you can encourage companies to go one step further than what is required of them by the law by building fairness and ethics directly into their innovations.

Last but not least, I ask you to think about a global dimension of data protection and to work on developing international legislative instruments that will truly enable world-wide digital citizenship.