January 28: Data Protection Day
The International Organization of Migration today (January 28) marks Data Protection Day, as one of the first international organizations to have taken significant steps to ensure data security in recent years. IOM handles the personal data of hundreds of thousands of people on a regular basis.
For example, IOM’s Human Trafficking Database alone hosts data of more than 45,000 cases and personal data from around 5,000 to 6,000 victims of human trafficking are collected annually.
Registrations are also done in countries around the world, particularly for the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), which in 2015 registered over 200,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and over 750,000 in South Sudan.
Aware of the importance of handling such data in a responsible way, respecting beneficiaries’ rights and bearing in mind IOM’s interests, the organization issued its Data Protection Principles in May 2009, which were further elaborated in its Data Protection Manual.
KJ