1 DFF celebrated Human Rights Day 2020 with a count- down that kicked off on 24 November and ran until 10 December. Each day for 16 days, we published a short article illustrating how digital rights are human rights. Each bite size post was written by an esteemed guest author in our network. Collectively, the series shows how the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights remains relevant today, with the digital age presenting many new and urgent challenges to our human rights. The mini-series was inspired by the excellent Privacy Matters project from Privacy International. List of Contributors Sarah Chander European Digital Rights (EDRi) Rasha Abdul Rahim Amnesty Tech Chloe Setter Global Alliance (WPGA) Samantha Newbery University of Salford Griff Ferris Fair Trials Ilia Siatitsa Privacy International Lea Beckmann Gesellschaft Freiheitsrechte (GFF) Ivan Stepanov Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition David Kaye University of California Ilia Siatitsa Privacy International Nora Mbagathi Open Society Justice Initiative Jedrzej Niklas Data Justice Lab James Farrar Worker Info Exchange Lotte Houwing Bits of Freedom Jen Persson defenddigitalme Adele Vrana and Anasuya Sengupta Whose Knowledge? 2 The right to equal enjoyment of human rights UDHR Articles 1-2 By Sarah Chander, Senior Policy Advisor at European Digital Rights (EDRi). Articles 1 and 2 of the Universal Declaration of target and experiment on communities at the Human Rights tell us that all human beings are margins. In the world of work, the roll-out of a equal. Unfortunately, we know that in our world, range of automated decision-making systems has we are still a long way from realising these rights. been shown to enhance and optimise surveillance of people working in already precarious contexts. Across the world, discrimination in many forms persists – and new technologies and dynamics in In other cases, data-driven tools exacerbate the digital sphere further complicate this issue. monitoring and profiling of already over-policed communities, including people of colour, migrants, The increased power of global technology and sex workers. companies and social media platforms has had a direct impact on whether we really do have The testing of new tools, from facial recognition lie an equal ability to express ourselves and make detectors to iris scanning and beyond, of people political statements online, as the recent Zoom at the borders highlights how we do not all censorship case shows. experience these new technologies in empowering ways. Our enjoyment of rights to privacy, freedom Further, the increasing and disproportionate of movement, the prohibition on cruel, inhuman or experience of abuse and harassment online of degrading treatment and arbitrary arrest, is always many marginalised groups, fuelled by business highly differential and unequal, especially with the models which amplify toxic content, are a direct increased use of digital tools. barrier to the equal enjoyment of rights to free expression and assembly. These are just some of the ways the digital context brings challenges for the full realisation of our right With the increased resort to automated decision- to equality and equal enjoyment of human rights. making in many different areas of public life, They show us that we need to think about digital discrimination will be heightened, and perhaps rights as human rights, and vice-versa. new forms created. The flip side to the “innovation” and enhanced “efficiency” of automated technologies is how they, in effect, differentiate, 3 The right to life UDHR Articles 3 By Rasha Abdul Rahim, Co-Director (Acting) at Amnesty Tech. With a global public health emergency and so Only recently, an investigation by Motherboard many human rights crises happening around uncovered how the U.S. military is buying granular the world right now, it is easy to overlook other location data of people around the world, pressing human rights threats on the horizon. harvested from seemingly innocuous apps, such One of these threats is the development of as a Muslim prayer and Quran app (with more autonomous weapons systems, which, once than 98 million downloads worldwide), to support activated, can select, attack, kill and wound Special Operations Forces missions overseas. humans, all without meaningful human control. This is made all the more concerning in light of As our lives have stood still during the pandemic, the US lethal drone programme, which has relied the development of AI military technologies, heavily on signals intelligence to locate and kill including fully autonomous weapons, continued “targets”, with a disproportionate number of these to race ahead. In a recent interview, the Head of targets being marginalised groups. the UK armed forces said that a military designed Surveillance and the invasion of our right to privacy for the 2030s could include large numbers of may therefore be feeding into the very development autonomous or remotely controlled robot soldiers. of autonomous weapons. Protecting our digital These rapidly developing weapons systems could rights today is therefore essential to guarding not only change the nature of warfare. They also against tomorrow’s threats to our right to life. raises serious human rights concerns, undermining Amnesty and partner NGOs in the Campaign to the right to life, enshrined in Article 3 of the UDHR, Stop Killer Robots continue to call on states to as well as human dignity. Fully autonomous commence negotiations on a new treaty to pre- weapons would delegate life and death decisions emptively ban fully autonomous weapons and to machines, programs, and algorithms – crossing retain meaningful control over the use of force. an ethical red line, contravening laws designed to protect civilians in warfare and policing operations, Amnesty is convinced that a legally binding and destabilising global security. instrument is the only effective way to address the multiple legal, ethical and security risks posed Our personal data is also extremely valuable to the by autonomous weapons systems. Not only is it tech companies and governments that are quietly achievable, it is a moral and legal imperative. building increasingly autonomous weapons. Location data, image data, and our online activities may contribute to the development, production, and fine-tuning of algorithms powering fully autonomous weapons. 4 The right to be free from slavery UDHR Articles 4 By Chloe Setter, Head of Policy at WePROTECT Global Alliance (WPGA). When the UDHR was proclaimed by the United appropriate legal frameworks and strategies to Nations General Assembly in Paris in December protect children in the digital environment. 1948, the internet was decades away from being In 2019, the United Nations Committee that invented. The drafters of Article 4 – the right not to monitors the Convention on the Rights of the be held in slavery or servitude, or made to do forced Child launched new guidelines designed to help labour – could not have foreseen the role of future states better implement the Convention’s Optional technology in the abuse of generations to come. Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution Fast forward to 2020, and the internet part of and Child Pornography*. Policies and strategies most of our daily lives: there are now over five have had to evolve, just like technology has, in billion unique mobile users and more than four order to deal with the new threats facing children. billion internet users in the world today. Children Despite international efforts, evidence shows that (those under 18) account for an estimated one the “scale, severity and complexity of online child in three internet users around the world, whilst sexual exploitation and abuse is increasing at a evidence suggests that children are going online at faster pace than those aiming to tackle the activity increasingly younger ages. can respond”. The world wide web is a land of opportunity for Now more than ever, a collective response is young people, offering connectivity, learning and, needed. It is for this reason that WePROTECT for many, freedom. Yet the reality is that it also Global Alliance exists: an organisation that unites brings with it the threat of harm and child rights civil society, law enforcement, governments and abuses. The internet can be used to directly facilitate businesses in a single movement dedicated to child sexual exploitation and trafficking, can provide ending online child sexual abuse and exploitation. a safe space for offenders to convene and acts as a readily available repository of abusive material. As we honour Human Rights Day 2020, we must urgently acknowledge that our ability to protect Yet in this modern era of online-facilitated child children from sexual abuse and exploitation both sexual abuse and exploitation, the established online and offline depends on how globally we framework of human rights is as relevant as ever: can adapt and respond to the ever-changing a child’s right to be safe from violence applies in technological landscape. a digital context to the same extent as any other. In this way, states have a responsibility to establish 5 The right to be free from torture UDHR Articles 5 By Samantha Newbery, Reader in International Security at the University of Salford. The unsettling images brought to mind when Victims can be reached remotely using social torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment media or emails for instance, on devices they or punishment (CIDT) are mentioned tend to carry with them all day long. Mental suffering, involve the victim and perpetrator being together sometimes severe enough to meet the “severity” in the same room. These abuses are commonly threshold for torture, can be caused through understood to take place face to face, with persistent online harassment that targets the perpetrator and victim in close physical proximity victim on the basis of protected characteristics to one another, for motives that include revenge, such as gender or age, online threats, accusations, sadism, or interrogations designed to collect blackmail, or a combination of these and more.