cybersecurity
This edition focuses on the human dimension of cybersecurity, asking how cybersecurity policies developed from the centres of political, economic and epistemological power affect those at the margins, and how we can think about cybersecurity from a feminist perspective.
The input to the progress report of the UN Open-ended Working Group on developments in the field of ICT in the context of international security (OEWG) makes recommendations to ensure implementation of responsible state behaviour in cyberspace in a human-centric and rights-respecting manner.
APC is currently participating in the fifth substantive session of the UN Open-ended Working Group on developments in the field of ICT in the context of international security (OEWG), where it will continue to emphasise the need for a human rights-based approach to the work of the group.
A gender-sensitive approach to cyber capacity building understands and considers the gendered impacts and implications of cyber threats, and calls for specific steps to address the needs, priorities and capacities of women and people of diverse sexualities, gender expressions and identities.
A gender approach to cybersecurity is a perspective that seeks to rethink individual and collective responsibilities for the cybersecurity of individuals and groups, making cybersecurity responsive to the complex, differentiated and intersectional needs of people based on a wide range of factors.
Derechos Digitales has mapped cases involving the abusive use of cybercrime regulation to silence and criminalise women and LGBTQIA+ people around the world, and the results warn of the inherent danger of imposing international standards in this matter without building in human rights safeguards.
This assessment tool seeks to provide step-by-step advice and concrete recommendations for those wishing to develop a gender approach to cybersecurity policy.
Given that digital technologies and the laws and norms that govern them have the potential to perpetuate and worsen pre-existing structural inequalities, APC and Derechos Digitales believe that a central element of this future convention should be the integration of a gender perspective.
In this statement during the March 2023 session of the Open-ended Working Group on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security 2021–2025, APC focuses on gender-sensitive cybersecurity capacity building.
This year's Commission on the Status of Women is the first ever to focus on gender equality and digital technologies. Here is APC's recommended reading list to help us all prepare for the discussions at CSW67.

Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2022
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