Human rights

Meet the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a New Delhi-based organisation committed to democratising the potential of technology and individual liberty, and one of the recent additions to the APC member network.

This statement was delivered by Karla Velasco Ramos, the APC Women’s Rights Programme policy advocacy coordinator, at the interactive dialogue on artificial intelligence to advance gender equality” during the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68).

The use of CCTV for face recognition or tracking of motor vehicles based on their number plate registration has raised the important question about a person’s right to privacy and as such a suitable legislation is required to ensure Zambia falls within the universally accepted parameters.

The writer presents some key takeaways from the 2023 Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) programme at University of Oxford, which he attended with the help of an APC grant. 

This issue of Digital Rights Southern Africa makes clear that there is no or slow commensurate roll-out of measures to ensure that biometric data collection and processing systems are secure and to the actual benefit of the societies in which they are being implemented.

Some of the areas of specific human rights concern raised about the 2022 draft were underdeveloped consent provisions, the almost complete absence of protections for data subjects, and the absence of carve-outs for journalistic, artistic and academic data collection and processing.

In Malawi, authorities are increasingly demanding that citizens surrender personal information for routine activities, ranging from using a mobile phone to participating in elections, and the absence of a robust, currently enacted data protection law jeopardises citizens’ right to privacy.

Meta is complicit in the oppression, and now plausible genocide, of the Palestinian people. With over 30,000 Palestinians killed, much of Gaza’s infrastructure destroyed and the threat of widespread famine looming, Meta’s platforms have played a role in creating the digital space that led to this real-world catastrophe.