A/HRC/27/37 5. Following on the concerns of Member States and other stakeholders at the negative impact of these surveillance practices on human rights, in December 2013 the General Assembly adopted resolution 68/167, without a vote, on the right to privacy in the digital age. In the resolution, which was co-sponsored by 57 Member States, the Assembly affirmed that the rights held by people offline must also be protected online, and called upon all States to respect and protect the right to privacy in digital communication. It further called upon all States to review their procedures, practices and legislation related to communications surveillance, interception and collection of personal data, emphasizing the need for States to ensure the full and effective implementation of their obligations under international human rights law. 6. Also in resolution 68/167, the General Assembly requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to submit a report on the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in the context of domestic and extraterritorial surveillance and/or the interception of digital communications and the collection of personal data, including on a mass scale, to the Human Rights Council at its twenty-seventh session and to the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth session, with views and recommendations, to be considered by Member States. The present report is submitted pursuant to that request. As mandated by resolution 68/167, the Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) will also submit the report to the Assembly at its sixty-ninth session. II. Background and methodology 7. Bearing in mind resolution 68/167, OHCHR participated in a number of events and gathered information from a broad range of sources. On 24 February 2014, the High Commissioner delivered a keynote presentation at an expert seminar on “The right to privacy in the digital age”, which was co-sponsored by Austria, Brazil, Germany, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Norway and Switzerland, and facilitated by the Geneva Academy on International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. 8. From November 2013 to March 2014, OHCHR engaged the United Nations University in a research project on the application of international human rights law to national regimes overseeing governmental digital surveillance. OHCHR is grateful to the University, and acknowledges its major substantive contribution to the preparation of the present report through the research project. 9. As part of an open consultation, on 27 February 2014, OHCHR addressed a questionnaire to Member States through their Permanent Missions in Geneva and in New York; international and regional organizations; national human rights institutions; nongovernmental organizations; and business entities. In its questionnaire, OHCHR invited inputs on the issues as addressed by the General Assembly in its resolution 68/167. A dedicated OHCHR webpage was created in order to make available the questionnaire and all contributions for public consultation, as well as to provide further opportunity for input. Contributions were received from 29 Member States from all regions, five international and/or regional organizations, three national human rights institutions, 16 nongovernmental organizations and two private sector initiatives.2 10. Many of the contributions referred in detail to existing national legislative frameworks and to other measures taken to ensure respect for and protection of the right to privacy in the digital age, as well as to initiatives to establish and implement procedural safeguards and effective oversight. Some contributions referred to challenges encountered 2 4 All contributions are available at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/DigitalAge/Pages/DigitalAgeIndex.aspx.