Transparencia Electoral’s new index on data protection during elections in Latin America

staff — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 09:36:29 +0000

Language English

Our partner Transparencia Electoral has created an extensive and interactive index on data protection during elections in Latin America.

The index evaluates laws and regulations around data protection during the election cycle in 16 countries in the region: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay.

Organising elections is a huge government data-gathering exercise. The election cycle usually starts with the creation of a voter register. The data held in this register is shared not only with electoral authorities, but also with political parties - and increasingly with companies providing the technologies used to administer elections.

Voter databases and the devices used to access and edit them are susceptible to abuse, manipulation, and theft.

This is particularly concerning when countries implement biometric voter registration. Biometric voter registration is a technology which creates a digital representation of an individual’s biometrics such as fingerprints, iris/eye scans, and facial photographs. Biometric data is a sensitive category of personal data that should be protected. Private companies having access to citizen’s biometric data is concerning.

When all these different actors involved in the election cycle - including private companies - have access to our personal data, it is important that regulations properly protect us against any abuse of this data.

Transparencia Electoral’s crucial index aims to quantify the existence and impact of privacy and data protection regulations in Latin America. This information can be used to evaluate the data protection landscape relating to elections, and identify opportunities for the improvement of the protection of voter rights.

Additionally, Transparencia Electoral has published its findings in the format of a report: Índice de Protección de Datos Personales en Elecciones de América Latina (in Spanish).

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Date

Tuesday, April 29, 2025