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Mini video series: Oral history of data protection - Negotiating the OECD Guidelines

Introducing the first episode of the Oral history of the data protection - Negotiating the OECD Guidelines: An interview of Mr. Michael Kirby. In this interview Michael Kirby revisits his work on the Guidelines and on privacy more generally. He is interviewed by Prof. Lee A. Bygrave, Director of the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law (NRCCL) at the University of Oslo, and Prof. Gloria González Fuster, Director of the Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS) Research Group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).

Mini video series is a collaborative project of the European Data Protection Supervisor and LSTS Research Group at the Vrije Universitet Brussel. This series features in-depth interviews with leading experts in the field of data protection who shed light on how the landscape of data protection has transformed over time and what lies ahead. 

Background information:

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data saw the light in 1980, constituting the first major international instrument on privacy and personal data protection. The negotiations on the Guidelines were led by the Hon Michael Kirby, an Australian who had the difficult role of achieving consensus despite not fully concordant regional and national perspectives.  

That role was one of the highlights of the exceptional career of a man whose life includes many more: international jurist, educator and former judge, he has notably been Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission, and Justice of the High Court of Australia, but also worked internationally for multiple organisations such as the United Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Global Fund Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to name just a few.

For background, read: Michael Kirby (2017), ‘Privacy Today: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue’, Journal of Law, Information and Science, 25(1), available here.