Proposal for a Decision authorising Member States to sign the Protocol amending the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data

The Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data ("Convention 108") is the only legally binding multilateral agreement in the field of personal data protection. The objective of the Convention is to protect the right to privacy, recognised in Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

The modernised Convention (i.e. Convention 108 modified by the amending Protocol) will have a uniform scope of application for all Parties to the Convention, without the possibility to fully exclude sectors or activities (e.g. in the area of national security) from its application, as is the case with the text of the current Convention 108. It would thus cover all types of data processing under the jurisdiction of the Parties, in both the public and private sectors.

The present proposal concerns the decision authorising Member States to sign the amending Protocol. The Commission simultaneously submitted a proposal for a Council decision authorising Member States to ratify the amending Protocol.