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Second public consultation of the Charter of Digital Rights in Spain

On 15 June, Spain began a participatory process for the creation of the Digital Rights Charter, in which civil society, as well as entities and public administrations, such as the City Council of Barcelona, were able to respond to a public consultation launched by the Spanish Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (SEDIA) which is leading the elaboration of the Charter. Five months later, SEDIA has published a first draft of the document, granting a period of public consultation to all citizens until 4 December.

The main purpose of this Charter is that, through an inclusive and transparent process, individuals' rights in the offline dimension will also be preserved in the online dimension. This purpose takes up (almost literally) the proposal of the Coalition of Cities for Digital Rights in its Declaration of 2018.

The preparation of this Charter maintains Spain in a leading position at a European level in the protection of digital rights, contributing to what has already been achieved through the regulation of rights in the digital environment, as contemplated in Title X of the Organic Law of 3/2018, of 5 December, of the Law on the Protection of Personal Data and the Guarantee of Digital Rights.

This draft is divided into different sections led by a category of rights:

This step forward in the participatory process of the Declaration of Digital Rights in Spain is undoubtedly good news in the context of digital rights protection. From Barcelona City Council, we encourage the Spanish Government to also incorporate three specific aspects that would give the Charter of Digital Rights the ambition to protect rights that we have been demanding from the Coalition of Cities for Digital Rights:

In any case, the pioneering initiative of the Government of Spain in developing a legal mechanism for the protection of digital rights is to be applauded, and we urge it to collaborate closely with local councils for its development and implementation.

The final text of the Digital Rights Charter is getting closer. All responses to the public consultation of the Digital Rights Charter must be submitted before 4 December of this year to derechosdigitales@economia.gob.es.

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