Argentina - EU

June 30, 2003. EU ISSUES DATA PROTECTION ADEQUACY FINDING FOR ARGENTINA! Argentina has become the first Latin American country to receive the EU Data Protection Working Party's approval for its data protection framework. The adequacy finding means that data can freely flow between EU member states and Argentina without fear of violating the EU Data Protection Directive.

Decision at <http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/privacy/docs/adequacy/decision-c2003-1731/decision-argentine_en.pdf>

Seminar in Buenos Aires.

June 25 and July 2 and 3, 2003 - Data Protection Seminar organized by the Buenos Aires City Bar Assoc. and the Directorate of Data Protection of Argentina, invited the Data Protection Commissioner of Canada Mr. George Radwaski and Mr. Michel Gentot , Presidente de la Comisión Nacional para la Informática y las Libertades of France - CNIL [html].

Habeas Data in Argentina

Argentina. I authored an article commenting a recent decision on habeas data and privacy by the Administrative Court of Appeals of Buenos Aires. See Rectificación de datos personales, carga de la prueba y costas en el habeas data [PDF].

Spam

Argentina. The traditional La Nacion newspaper runs an editorial about the raise of spam in Internet and the need to find a legal solution. It proposes to enact a bill [Spam Bill] drafted by the Secretary of Telecom of Argentina in the year 2001.

Data Protection in Latin America

Seminar of Data Protection in Guatemala (in La Opinion Digital), as reported by Agencia EFE.

The participants of the Seminar DATA PROTECTION IN LATIN AMERICA, in the city of Antigua, proposed to create an Iberoamerican Network of Data Protection. Mr. José Luis Piñar Mañas, the director of Agencia de Protección de Datos de España was pleased with the declaration of the Seminar. Thirteen diferents countries were represented at the Seminar, together with Italy and Spain. The Seminar was organized by the Agencia de Protección de Datos de España with the collaboration of Fundación Internacional y para Iberoamérica de Administración y Políticas Públicas y la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional (AECI). The data protection director of the Spanish Agency said that the main problem in Latin America is the lack of data protection laws.

Speakers of the Conference at http://profesor.sis.uia.mx/aveleyra/comunica/privacidad/antigua/

More Sources:
Spanish Data Protection Agency´s Red Iberoamericana.
Final Declaration of La Antigua.
(English version)

Argentina

July 13, 2003. Big Brother is coming to Argentina: On July 13, 2003 another data scandal occurred. One of the most important newspaper in Argentina, diario Clarin, reported that the government was planning to gather in a database all the information available in different databases in the public administration. At the same time the government was planning to renovate and issue new i.d. for all the citizens and to homologue the database with the FBI.

See
http://www.protecciondedatos.com.ar/prensa.htm#clarin1