News release

Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne, in his role as chair of the Global Privacy Assembly Working Group on Data Protection and Other Rights and Freedoms, announced the winners of the first Global Privacy and Human Rights Award yesterday.

A collaboration with international human rights organization Access Now, the award recognizes and celebrates outstanding leadership from organizations around the world to advance and support the protection and promotion of the fundamental right to privacy and other human rights, including democratic rights and the freedom of political belief, of movement, association, and expression.

This year’s inaugural prize was awarded in Taipei, Taiwan, during the annual RightsCon conference to two co-winners: the 5Rights Foundation and the Internet Freedom Foundation.

The global 5Rights Foundation was recognized for its efforts to promote the adoption of laws that guarantee digital privacy and data protection rights for children. The organization was instrumental in securing the United Kingdom’s Children’s Code, a first-ever statutory code of practice for protecting children’s data and advocating for California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code. The Foundation has also developed a Child Online Safety Toolkit to help lawmakers enshrine online safety into their laws and practices.

The India-based Internet Freedom Foundation was honoured for its litigation and advocacy work defending online freedom and addressing the use of excessive and illegal surveillance. In particular, it was recognized for its advocacy work related to the surveillance of sanitation workers and the introduction of a student ID system.

Organizers received more than 30 nominations from around the world, a number of them from organizations operating in complicated and unsafe geo-political contexts.