artificial intelligence
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Derechos Digitales welcome the opportunity to submit this Parallel Report ahead of the 66th session of the Pre-Sessional Working Group of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). This submission is centred on cross-cutting issues related to the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) affecting the exercise of economic, social and cultural rights in the International Covenant for Economic, Social an...
In an increasingly interconnected world, it is easy to forget that many people, especially those living in the rural areas of low-income economies, lack basic internet connectivity. We encourage the ITU to continue to focus on its core mandate of “connecting all the world’s people”. Within this context, ITU’s expertise could help to explore new and emerging technologies to improve connectivity. New and emerging technologies and the institutional strategies around them need to be promo...
The publication “Human Rights in the Age of Platforms”, published by the MIT Press in November 2019, examines the human rights implications of today's platform society. “Today such companies as Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter play an increasingly important role in how users form and express opinions, encounter information, debate, disagree, mobilize, and maintain their pri...
The 14th annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was hosted by the government of Germany in Berlin in late November 2019, under the theme “One World. One Net. One Vision.” Many people with an interest in internet governance had come to Berlin to discuss their own agendas, and all of the debates were very interesting. The agendas that I was interested in were artificial intelli...
The 14th Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which was held in Berlin, Germany from 25 to 29 November 2019, had the contestable theme of “One World. One Net. One Vision”. Not that MacBride of Many Voices, One World fame would have raised an eyebrow about it, but in a world that is divided along different patches with different development problems and different goals, it is presumptuous to thi...
The Association for Progressive Communications welcomes the focus of the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance on the acute and structural threats that new information technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), pose to the rights to non-discrimination and racial equality, human rights principles and standards,...
We, organisations, collectives, companies, associations and trade unions, ask the French Parliament and government to ban any use of facial recognition techniques for security and surveillance purposes, now and in the future. We note that such technologies are already being widely deployed in France. In addition to the “PARAFE” automated border gates already installed in various stations an...
The annual Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) report has come to be an important publication for APC, as each year the theme reflects a topic or issue of great relevance for the network. This year’s theme of “Artificial intelligence: Human rights, social justice and development” was extremely timely, as evidenced by the high number of panels and sessions that took place at the In...
One of the most important underlying issues of the digital revolution that’s now underway is: what will happen to the jobs? Artificial intelligence, robotics and automated decision-making, it is clear, will displace a lot of jobs – professional as well as manual. It’s cheaper and more efficient for very many tasks than using humans. Robots and algorithms don’t fall sick, seek pensions o...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is now receiving unprecedented global attention as it finds widespread practical application in multiple spheres of activity. But what are the human rights, social justice and development implications of AI when used in areas such as health, education and social services, or in building “smart cities”? How does algorithmic decision making impact on marginalised ...
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2019
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