Tunisia has adopted the 108^th act related to the protection of personal data. Joining as a non-permanent member of European Council, Tunisia is the fourth African nation accepted by this council after Morocco, Senegal and Mauritius.

By joining this convention, Tunisia just like any of the other state members commits to protecting and respecting human rights and freedoms. The challenge here is to find a balance between the new uses of telecommunication technologies and the absolute respect of privacy which is human right.

“A person needs its privacy protected, in a space which cannot be violated by any. The person has to be willing before any intrusion in its privacy, before any information concerning him or her, also known as personal data, is retrieved and used as a situation requires, and in no case doing shall this be done without his or her knowledge. This is the reason for the introduction of the personal data protection term in the Act 24,” said Chawki Gaddes, President of the national authority for personal data protection, last September in an interview with Businessnews.com.

Referring to the Organic Act n°2004-63 of July 2004 in Tunisia, Chawki Gaddes defines personal data “as any information which allows the identification of a person: first name, last name or any other type of ID (NID number, vehicle license plate, phone number, residential address, fingerprint, retinal scan, genetic code, credit card number, bank account number, etc.). That is to say: any data linking a person to a data is a personal data”.