Human rights and ICTs

Many nations are considering proposals to use digital technologies to confront the COVID-19 pandemic. This joint statement calls on the OECD to ensure the protection of privacy and other fundamental human rights in the use of these technologies.

Brazil's communications regulator Anatel has acknowledged that community networks are a viable option for Brazilians. This decision provides for both regulation for existing community networks and the creation of future networks. The question now is, what happens next?  

Many countries today are turning to digital technologies to provide information as well as for monitoring and controlling people infected with the virus, which alerts us to the potential impact of these technologies on people’s fundamental rights.

In the last two weeks of March 2020, the government issued several directives to Myanmar telecom operators ordering them to block at least 221 websites. We believe that the government’s order to block these websites lacks an adequate legal basis and is in violation of international human rights law.

Over 100 organisations from around the world signed a joint statement stressing that digital surveillance to fight COVID-19 can only be justified if it respects human rights, and setting out conditions that must be met before the use of surveillance technology to fight the pandemic.

7amleh concluded the online version of the Palestine Forum for Digital Activism 2020 with the participation of a quarter million Palestinians, Arabs and internationals. The conference was adapted from an offline event with 1,000 participants to an online event in two weeks.

The extent to which African countries are conducting technology-based disease surveillance is not fully known. While well intentioned, Covid-19 surveillance and data-based tracking interventions have been effected in haste, and with limited precedent and oversight mechanisms. 

The Lebanese government announced on 12 March that Ogero, the national internet service provider (ISP), will double the speed and capacity for users until the end of April, but it did not clarify whether the decision includes other privately owned ISPs.