Argentina's Data Protection Authority Publishes its 2021 Annual Report

Argentina’s data protection authority, the Agency of Access to Public Information recently published its 2021 Annual Report on the protection of personal data.

The annual report lists the administrative files processed and prosecuted by the Agency during 2021, including the following:

• 386 new administrative files were opened due to complaints for the breach of the provisions of the Data Protection Law.
• 83 decisions were issued regarding the infringement of both the Act and the “Do Not Call” Registry.
• Although the report does not expressly mention the fines imposed, based on the public information available on the official website, there were 36 fines/penalties.

• 9,426 documents were incorporated into the Questioned Identity Documents Registry.

• 12,664 complaints related to the National “Do Not Call” Registry were received. In addition, 155,213 lines were registered, accumulating a total of 16,996,465 registered lines.
• 307 court requests were processed.

• 1,389 data controllers and 2,201 databases (2,131 private and 70 public) were registered in the database registry.

• 8 spontaneous investigations were conducted (one of which was confidential).

 The report also notes that the AAIP participated in the following international networks and organizations throughout 2021:

• Latin American Transparency Netwrk (RTA).
• Internatinal Conference of Commissioners on Access to Public Information (ICIC): global meeting and four working meetings of the governance group.
• UNESCO | Reginal Forum for Latin America and the Caribbean "Promotion of Information as a Common Good".
• OECD | Transparency and Accuntability Network.
• Internatinal Congress on Transparency, University of Alicante, Spain. 

It also indicates that the Data Protection Authority participated in various forums and international organizations, among the following:

• Ibero-American Data Protection Network (RIDP).
• Global Privacy Assembly (GPA).
• European Commission, in relation to the Process of Adaptation of Argentine Regulations to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
• Council of Europe (CoE), in relation to the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regards to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (Convention 108), ratified by Law 27,483; and its modernized version (Convention 108+), which has been signed by Argentina in 2019 and is in the process of ratification before the Congress.
• Convention on Cybercrime of the Council of Europe, approved by Law 27,411 and the additional protocols to the Budapest Convention.