Digital security
This article was originally published on the website of Digital Rights Monitor, an initiative of Media Matters for Democracy, an APC member organisation in Pakistan. 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 just some of the digital strategies put on display by officials to raise awareness about testing, precautionary measures, and ...
In response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the country, the government of Ecuador has announced its plans to use satellite monitoring and georeferencing systems to track individuals as part of the disease containment measures. The announcement was made on 17 March alongside the declaration of a state of emergency, and has sparked the concern of both national and international organisations that work to defend human rights. While emergency measures like these are adopted with the aim of slowing t...
The undersigned organisations, which are dedicated to the promotion and defence of human rights, 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. The announcement was made on 17 March 2020 by Interior Minister María Paula Romo, [1] who announced a se...
The 43rd session of the Human Rights Council (HRC43) is taking place over four weeks (24 February to 20 March 2020) in Geneva. During this session, more than 90 reports will be presented on thematic and country-specific human rights situations from UN Special Procedures, the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Council is expected to act on between 40 and 45 draft r...
Ola Bini is a computer expert and human rights defender recognised worldwide, who is facing a political-judicial process in Ecuador since April 2019. In regards to this, the Ecuadorian and international civil society organisations signing below have decided to attend, as observers, the preparatory hearing and trial evaluation of 5 March 2020. This decision is based on a shared concern: the poss...
The European Commission recently presented a set of strategies to shape the bloc’s digital transformation. This policy package offers a roadmap for the EU’s plans on developing a single market for digital services and regulating platforms, and explains how the EU is approaching data governance and its ideas regarding specific artificial intelligence regulation. Over the next five years, the...
Statement by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Second Substantive Session of the Open-ended Working Group on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security New York, 12 February 2020 Delivered by Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) Distinguished Chair, colleagues, The Association for Progressive Communicat...
APC joins over 40 organisations in an open letter to Brazilian authorities condemning the charges against investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald. The letter denounces Brazilian authorities’ criminal investigation and the charges brought against Greenwald, and calls on the prosecutor’s office to drop them immediately. "These charges represent a straightforward attempt to intimidate and ret...
For Take Back the Tech! (TBTT), the internet is a space for play, exploration, experimentation and learning, as well as a vital political space of free association and expression. That’s why the APC Women's Rights Programme created a series of online sharing sessions so that TBTT campaigners and other curious cyberfeminists from all over the world could participate, create and put their knowl...
On 8 January 2020, Privacy International issued an open letter to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., asking Google to “take action against exploitative pre-installed software on Android devices.” The letter is both a caution and a call to action against exploitation of smartphone users by manufacturers who put profit over privacy by pre-installing apps, known as “b...
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2019
Unless otherwise stated, content on the APC website is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)