ABSTRACT
Data protection in humanitarian action has witnessed a growth in maturity over the last decade with the emergence of normative frameworks such as the Rules on Personal Data Protection of the International Committee of the Red Cross or the Policy on the Protection of Personal Data of Persons of Concern to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It has also witnessed engagement between humanitarians and data protection practitioners, resulting in the co-constitution of key concepts and principles.
This chapter presents a critical interrogation of key concepts in data protection and privacy such as confidentiality, consent, and accountability from a humanitarian viewpoint. It argues that a semantic cross-pollination has occurred over the last ten years between data protection practitioners and humanitarians, which has resulted in a change of understanding of key concepts in theory and in practice.
By rethinking such key concepts, this chapter represents an invitation to both humanitarians and data protection specialists to deepen their collaboration and further this conversation through intellectual and practical engagement.
