Data Privacy Brasil Contributes to the Progress Report of the UN’s Data Governance Working Group

Data governance is becoming one of the central arenas where the future of digital development is being defined. As data-driven technologies shape public services, economic policy, artificial intelligence systems and other spheres, the question is no longer whether data should be governed, but how, by whom, and for whose benefit.

Against this backdrop, Data Privacy Brasil submitted comments to the zero draft of the Progress Report of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development’s Working Group on Data Governance at All Levels as Relevant for Development, where we participate as an observer. Our comments are grounded in our work committed to building a fair information ecosystem, promoting data justice and addressing the structural asymmetries that shape digital governance from local to the global level.

From this perspective data governance cannot be treated as a technical or regulatory coordination agenda, it must also be understood as a political and development-oriented issue, directly connected to power asymmetries, technological dependency, public-interest safeguards, and the distribution of value across the data lifecycle. In our submission we addressed this agenda across multiple dimensions such as data justice, AI governance, to benefit-sharing models, risk and impact assessments, interoperability, and international cooperation mechanisms for trusted cross-border data flows.

In relation to the fundamental principles of data governance, our comments emphasized that a human rights-based approach cannot remain limited to high-level commitments. It must be translated into institutional design, procedural safeguards, and enforceable mechanisms capable of protecting individuals, groups and communities throughout the data lifecycle. This requires connecting principles such as transparency, accountability, privacy, equity, data quality, and multistakeholder participation to concrete governance obligations.

We also highlighted the distinction between data sovereignty, data autonomy and data localization. From a Global South perspective, data sovereignty should be not reduced to localization, nor framed as opposition to trusted data flows. Rather, it should be understood as the capacity of states, communities and institutions to define and enforce public-interest safeguards over data, prevent extractive data practices and participate meaningfully in the data economy.

We also argued that the collective right to access information should be recognized as a core element of democratic data governance. Access to information is essential for social oversight, public participation and accountability, especially in matters involving the socio-environmental impacts of data-intensive infrastructures and emerging technologies. This point is closely connected to Data Privacy Brasil’s broader work under the AI with Rights project, including our reflections on Artificial Intelligence, Sustainability and the Collective Right to Access Information, which highlight how transparency and public-interest information are necessary conditions for affected communities, researchers and civil society to assess and contest the environmental and social impacts of AI systems.

Our comments on benefit-sharing focused that data can generate economic, social, environmental and public-sector value, but these benefits are neither automatic nor evenly distributed. Without deliberate governance arrangements, the value produced across the data lifecycle tends to be captured by actors and jurisdictions where technical, economic and infrastructural capacities are already concentrated, while others remain positioned mainly as sources of data.

For this reason, we emphasized the importance of collective and community-based models, such as data commons, data cooperatives, citizen-generated data initiatives and data stewardship arrangements. These models can help ensure that data is used in the public interest and that historically marginalized communities are not treated merely as data sources, but as active participants in defining how data is collected, governed, shared and used.

In this sense benefit-sharing should not be measured only through economic indicators, but also be assessed in relation to social welfare, environmental sustainability, democratic accountability and the protection of rights. A data governance agenda oriented toward development must therefore combine innovation and value creation with safeguards, accountability mechanisms, and meaningful participation from affected communities.

Our contributions also addressed interoperability. Drawing on the Global Digital Compact, we stressed the need for stronger coordination among standards bodies in the GDC follow-up process. Once again, emphasizing the collective right to access information as a necessary recognition towards sustainable AI development and deployment, we argued for public-interest data access obligations to promote meaningful public oversight and accountability on significant environmental or social impacts and ensure that interoperability frameworks do not reinforce existing power asymmetries.

We further highlighted the role of open standards, historically strengthened through multistakeholder participation, in promoting countries’ autonomy and flexibility, arguing that they should remain central to data governance debates. This is particularly relevant for Global South countries, alongside the need for institutional arrangements that define who can access data and for what purposes, complemented by a community-based dimension that strengthens democratic legitimacy in data value extraction.

To illustrate the relationship between interoperability and sovereignty, we presented examples from Brazil. One is Pix, the instant payment system operated by the Central Bank, which is interoperable, based on open standards, and governed in collaboration with a multistakeholder body. Another is the recent initiative by DataPrev and Serpro, two state-owned enterprises, to develop an open protocol for age assurance based on age tokens and privacy-by-design principles, following the legal framework recently established by the Digital Statute of Children and Adolescents’ Rights.

Our discussion of interoperability also led to the distinction between data ownership and data stewardship. We argued for a shift away from individualistic approaches to data governance toward more community-centered models, drawing on concepts such as data solidarity, data commons, and citizen-generated data.

On data flows, our contribution focused on international coordination. Stemming from other contributions, such as the ones developed with the Global South Alliance, we stressed the need for greater alignment between data governance and AI governance forums, particularly between the UN’s Data Governance Working Group and the new Independent Scientific Panel on AI, as well as closer cooperation among data protection authorities and other competent institutions to promote regulatory compatibility while respecting different legal traditions and national contexts.

Drawing on our Proposal for the Brazilian National Policy on Data Protection, we argued that international cooperation should also support preventive approaches to identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks to privacy and fundamental rights before harms materialize, advancing a model of networked governance. Regarding the operationalization of such cooperation, we highlighted data protection adequacy decisions as a mechanism that could be expanded to facilitate secure data flows, citing the recent mutual adequacy decisions between Brazil and the European Union, which recognize that both jurisdictions provide comparable levels of personal data protection.

We appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this consultation and will continue to engage with the forthcoming revisions of the report. We hope that the points presented in this submission will help strengthen its recommendations, particularly by reinforcing the importance of a more integrated approach to data and AI governance, based on  a data justice approach. Looking ahead, we also hope that the outcomes of the first UN’s first Global Dialogue on AI Governance will recognize this interdependence and advance governance frameworks that address data and AI in a coherent and mutually reinforcing manner.

Find the complete contribution here.