Controversy arises in Costa Rica as information was released last Friday in relation to an executive decree (41.996-MP-Mideplan) signed by President Carlos Alvarado October 2019 which was officially published February 17, 2020 regarding the creation of the Presidential Unit of Data Analysis (UPAD), which apparently has been operating for over a year.

Article 7 of this decree establishes that public institutions are obligated to “allow access to all information required by UPAD for the compliance of its objectives and ends”, and in Article 10, the operation of UPAD is declared public interest which technically would put the Unit above the Law of Data Protection (Law 8968).

The Government initially justified the creation of the Unit stating that having access to this information would allow the government to make decisions for the benefit of the population, however, President Alvarado immediately abolished the decree later on Friday after being questioned over it. He since has stated that “big mistakes” took place which is why he decided to take corrective measures by derogating the decree issued.

“The doubts and concerts of the citizens and different sectors made it clear that the formulation of some concepts was mistaken, particularly in article 7” … “Some efforts were made to offer information on the tools this team was generating through these data, but not enough. This team worked with information that is of public access of the institutions of the State, to which it had been authorized, as well as the information that the law allows access to. It did not have access to personal information such as phone calls, social media, financial or tax information or medical files”, assured Alvarado.

Even though the decree for the creation of the unit was signed in October, the President recognized that the tools generated by the data analysis was presented at different times to some academic sectors, international organizations, journalists in different media outlets, among others.

The Legislative Assembly already appointed a commission to investigate for the next two months the creation of this unit, the use of the information it had access to and all the activity of the UPAD.

The district attorney’s office has also confirmed it has an open investigation on this case.