Security and privacy
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.
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.
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 coronavirus pandemic isn’t a purely medical issue, it entangles all aspects of human lives, including our privacy, protection and dignity.
As governments around the world attempt to flatten the curve of coronavirus cases, authorities appear to be looking towards technology for support. Chatbots, online dashboards, and mobile caller tunes are some of the digital strategies put on display by officials to raise awareness around Covid-19.
7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media warns of Israel committing mass violations of digital rights, especially the right to privacy, under the pretext of managing the health crisis caused by the coronavirus.
While emergency measures like these are adopted with the aim of slowing the spread of the virus in order to protect public health, it is crucial to ensure that any use of surveillance technology for these purposes strictly adheres to the criteria of necessity and proportionality.
The undersigned organisations express their concern over the announcement of the use of satellite monitoring and georeferencing systems to track individuals as part of the disease containment measures established in Ecuador to confront the COVID-19 epidemic.
In the face of a rising number of attacks on journalists in Bangladesh, Voices for Interactive Choice and Empowerment (VOICE), an APC member organisation, hosted a day-long media training workshop to discuss the challenges faced by journalists and explore solutions for this growing problem.
The exhibition, launched in January 2020, critically investigated the online world from a feminist point of view. APCNews spoke with its curators to gain more insight on the event and to understand the part that the Feminist Principles of the Internet played in this unique display.
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2022
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