A/HRC/RES/48/4
United Nations
General Assembly
Distr.: General
13 October 2021
Original: English
Human Rights Council
Forty-eighth session
13 September–11 October 2021
Agenda item 3
Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to development
Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council
on 7 October 2021
48/4.
Right to privacy in the digital age
The Human Rights Council,
Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
Reaffirming the human rights and fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other relevant
international human rights instruments,
Recalling all previous General Assembly and the Human Rights Council resolutions
on the right to privacy in the digital age, and the recent extension of the mandate of the Special
Rapporteur on the right to privacy,1 as well as other relevant resolutions,
Welcoming the work of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights on the right to privacy in the digital age,2 noting with interest its reports
thereon, and recalling the expert workshop on the right to privacy in the digital age, held by
the Office of the High Commissioner on 27 and 28 May 2020, that noted the steadily growing
impact of the use of artificial intelligence technologies on the exercise of the right to privacy,
pointed to transparency concerns regarding personal data collection and exchanges
underlying parts of artificial intelligence systems and expressed concern about adverse
privacy impacts of the application of artificial intelligence,
Welcoming also the work of various special procedure mandate holders of the Human
Rights Council on the right to privacy, and taking note of their contributions to the promotion
and protection of the right to privacy,
Taking note of the Secretary-General’s Road Map for Digital Cooperation, launched
in June 2020,
Reaffirming the human right to privacy, according to which no one shall be subjected
to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence,
and the right to the protection of the law against such interference, and recognizing that the
exercise of the right to privacy is important for the realization of other human rights,
1
2
Resolution 46/16.
See A/HRC/48/31.
GE.21-14713(E)