data protection report
Children front and centre The Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) has published its draft Children Front and Centre: Fundamentals for a Child-Orientated Approach to Data Processing. ‘The Fundamentals’ will introduce data protection principles and measures designed to protect children. The Fundamentals, which DPC says all organisations collecting and processing children’s data should comply with, have been created “to drive improvements in standards of data processing”. They will “introduce childspecific data protection interpretative principles and recommended measures that will enhance the level of protection afforded to children against the data processing risks posed to them by their
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use of/access to services in both an online and offline world”. The Fundamentals will also assist those organisations that do process children’s data by clarifying the principles to which they are expected to adhere, which arise from GDPR obligations. The draft document released by the DPC for the purpose of stakeholder consultation which closed on 31 March 2021 outlines 14 principles for organisations to follow.
These are: 1. Floor of protection: the provision of a minimum level, or “floor”, of protection by service providers. 2. Clear-cut consent: that consent given by a child for the processing of their data be “freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous, made by way of a clear statement or affirmative action”.
