A/HRC/28/39 I. Introduction 1. Pursuant to its decision 25/117, the Human Rights Council held a panel discussion on the right to privacy in the digital age on 12 September 2014. The discussion took account of the issues raised in the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights submitted to the Human Rights Council at its twenty-seventh session (A/HRC/27/37). 2. Based on the request of the Human Rights Council, the promotion and protection of the right to privacy in the digital age in the context of domestic and extraterritorial surveillance, the interception of digital communications and the collection of personal data, including on a mass scale, also with a view to identifying challenges and best practices, taking into account the report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, were examined in the course of the panel discussion. 3. The panel discussion was chaired by the President of the Human Rights Council, and moderated by Marko Milanovic, Associate Professor at Nottingham University. The United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights gave an opening address. The panellists were Catalina Botero, Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, Sarah Cleveland, Louis Henkin Professor of Human and Constitutional Rights, Columbia Law School, Yves Nissim, Deputy Chief Corporate Social Responsibility Officer, Orange, former Chair of the Telecommunications Industry Dialogue, and Carly Nyst, Legal Director, Privacy International. 4. In its decision 25/117, the Council requested the Office of the High Commissioner to present a summary report of the panel discussion at its twenty-eighth session. The present report is submitted pursuant to that request. II. Opening statement by the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights 5. The Deputy High Commissioner noted that, in a very short space of time, digital communications technologies had revolutionized the way human beings interact and that for millions of people, the digital age was one of emancipation – perhaps the greatest liberation movement the world had ever known. She noted as an example that over one million people had participated electronically in the open dialogue and consultation that was conducted to develop a framework for the post-2015 sustainable development goals, which called for the full inclusion of human rights. She emphasized that human rights defenders, activists, democratic voices, minorities and others could now communicate via digital platforms and participate in the global debate in ways that were previously inconceivable. 6. The Deputy High Commissioner also noted that those digital platforms were vulnerable to surveillance, interception and data collection. Deep concerns had been expressed, as policies and practices that exploited that vulnerability had been exposed across the globe. She added that surveillance practices could have a very real impact on peoples’ human rights, including their rights to privacy to freedom of expression and opinion, to freedom of assembly, to family life and to health. In particular, information collected through digital surveillance had been used to target dissidents and there were credible reports suggesting that digital technologies had been used to gather information that led to torture and other forms of ill-treatment. 3