Proceso Magazine Cites Enrique Piracés on the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Risks to Privacy

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact that the United States is negotiating with eleven other countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region, has raised significant concerns about risks to fundamental rights of the world’s citizens. In a story that examines the risk of private data flow within the countries that are negotiating the TPP, Mexican weekly news magazine Proceso cites Benetech VP of Human Rights, Enrique Piracés, on the implications of the TPP for human rights groups and other vulnerable communities.

The TPP covers issues such as intellectual property, investment, government procurement, agriculture, environment, and telecommunications services. Its main risk to human rights, according to Piracés, concerns “the transmission of data between jurisdictions that have a different understanding of the right to privacy and are differently equipped to handle the potential negative impact of the misuse of the information.” In particular, since many corporations rely on monetization of citizens’ data, the TPP poses significant threats related to privacy and data management of vulnerable populations, such as journalists and human rights defenders, says Piracés.

The story also mentions Martus, Benetech’s free, open source, secure human rights information management tool.

The complete story (in Spanish) is available on Proceso’s website.