surveillance
Namibia has become the latest African country to introduce mandatory SIM card registration and data retention regulations that will have a far-reaching impact on online privacy and data protection in the country.
Australia adopted a range of technology-based responses to address the COVID-19 pandemic, but this approach resulted in “solutions” that ranged from the outright ineffective to the actively punitive.
Recent instances of the use of state surveillance apparatus for repressive purposes and prosecutions, compounded by a lack of data and online privacy protections and low internet penetration and usage, have heightened fears that the country is regressing in terms of safeguarding online rights.
The draft bill would have enabled surveillance abuse and privacy violations. The pressure that was brought to bear by various human and media rights organisations, and the international spotlight that it attracted, paid off and the bill was withdrawn and amended.
The Zalo Connect app in Vietnam connects users in need with private donors. But in doing so, it exemplifies a humanitarian trend that centres on extracting data from vulnerable communities as a precondition to receiving aid, protection and justice.
The Sri Lankan government has capitalised on the COVID-19 pandemic to further its authoritarian agenda, using digital technologies to reinforce a climate of fear and censorship.
EngageMedia and CommonEdge invited writers, researchers and changemakers to respond to the growing digital authoritarianism – accelerated by COVID-19 – in the Asia-Pacific. The result is a 10-part series featuring insights from Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Australia.
Two years ago, the assumption was that the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns would have lasting impacts on digitalisation – that they would accelerate the process by which offline turned to online, increase its pace and shift the way we do things towards digital alternatives. But has this happened as much as was expected?
The undersigned organisations and activists firmly reject the violent repression, arbitrary arrests and use of surveillance technologies to intimidate, harass, persecute and silence defenders of human rights and nature in Ecuador in the context of the protests that started on 13 June 2022.
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen rampant surveillance and citizen monitoring under the guise of public health. FMA's recent research focused on understanding how such privacy and freedoms were being curtailed in the Philippines, providing recommendations for a more equitable response and helping civil society hold the government accountable.
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2022
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