Digital Dilemmas Dialogue #2.2: Digitalized Assistance and Data Protection - A Commissioner's perspective

What role can data protection authorities play to ensure the protection of sensitive humanitarian information? Can humanitarian organization remain neutral, impartial and independent when collaborating on social protection systems?

Building on the previous Digital Dilemmas Dialogue of the month, and to celebrate her first 100 days in office, we have invited the newly appointed Data Commissioner of Kenya, Ms. Immaculate Kassait, to discuss how humanitarian organizations and data protection authorities can effectively collaborate to ensure the protection of vulnerable populations. The discussion will focus in particular on the types of partnerships these collaborations require, both public and private, and on how we can lay the bases for solid cooperation.

The discussion will be the second event of the February thematic path – Cash and voucher assistance and social protection systems.

The series

The Digital Dilemmas Dialogues are a series of one-on-one discussions about the humanitarian digital transformation, its implications and the work ahead. This 30-odd minutes chat brings together prominent experts and stakeholders from various sectors to explore the humanitarian consequences of a new type or trend in digital technologies each month, and offer reflections on what is coming next.

The Digital Dilemmas Dialogues are an initiative of the DigitHarium.

Additional resources

The mosaic effect: the revelation risks of combining humanitarian and social protection data, by Jill Capotosto (11 min. read)

Humanitarian engagement in social protection: implications for principled humanitarian action, by Cristina Quijano Carrasco (9 min. read)

Chapter 9 of the Handbook on Data Protection in Humanitarian Action - Second Edition (ICRC)

Chapter 6 of The humanitarian metadata problem: 'Doing no harm' in the digital era (ICRC and Privacy International)

[VIDEO EXPLAINER] Data Protection and Cash Transfer Programming (01:27)

Questions? Comments? Ideas?
Write to us at: digitharium@icrc.org