A Guide to Litigating Identity Systems West African States Supplementary Act on Personal Data Protection44 from 2010. As of 2019, over 130 countries now have some form of privacy and data protection law, and another 40 countries have pending bills.45 26. As the right to privacy is a qualified right, human rights instruments that guarantee the right to privacy and the protection of individuals’ personal data may sometimes permit interferences with these rights if they abide by certain principles, such as legality, necessity, and proportionality, and do not interfere with the essence of those rights.46 27. In other words, as affirmed also by the UN Human Rights Committee, ensuring that any interference with the right to privacy is not arbitrary or unlawful requires a two-part test: (1) legality and (2) necessity and proportionality. The first part of the test means that any interferences with privacy can only take place “in cases envisaged by the law.” Second, states must demonstrate that the interference must “proportionate to the end sought, and … necessary in the circumstances of any given case.”47 28. However, there are limits to the extent of permissible interference with a Covenant right. As the UN Human Rights Committee has emphasised: “in no case may the restrictions be applied or invoked in a manner that would impair the essence of a Covenant right.”48 The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has similarly observed that “any limitation to the right to privacy must not render the essence of the right meaningless and must be consistent with other human rights.”49 44 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Supplementary Act on Personal Data Protection within ECOWAS, http://www.tit.comm.ecowas.int/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SIGNED-Data-ProtectionAct.pdf 45 See David Banisar, National Comprehensive Data Protection/Privacy Laws and Bills 2019, last revised 5 December 2019, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1951416 (retrieved 23 July 2020). 46 See, among others, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 17(1) (“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation”). 47 UN Human Rights Committee, ¶¶ 3 and 8. 48 UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment 27 and General Comment 31. 49 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, The Right to Privacy in the Digital Age, UN Doc. A/HRC/27/37, 30 June 2014, ¶ 23. 18