Humanity is currently living in a rapidly evolving technological and digital era. With an increasing number of interactions between individuals and life itself taking place online, it may seem that things should become easier and more accessible. They do, in a way but, at the same time, this era brings fresh challenges and new behaviors that require adaptation at all levels of understanding and compliance.
The topic of the protection of human rights in the digital age has become a significant issue on a worldwide scale.
While navigating the online world, people encounter numerous difficulties, including the consequences of the lack of effective regulation, widespread censorship and monitoring, the rise of cybercrime, online abuse, and hate speech, as well as the unrelenting spread of disinformation.
Moreover, the collection of personal data, which is often deregulated, puts people at risk of becoming the victims of disinformation campaigns, manipulation, fake news, and online scams. The details of the lives of many are being monitored, saved, used, and exploited by technology in an increasing number of areas.
All these issues threaten the protection of human rights online which is why it is essential to develop strong legislative frameworks, strengthen international human rights principles, deal with the digital gap, and improve access to data and technology.
Who is living in the digital world?
- Over 5 billion people have access to the internet
- The average internet user spends over two hours on social media daily
- A user spends more than 40% of their time online, on average
- About 30% of internet users are younger than 18
- Every third child is subjected to illicit activity online, and around 80% of them say they fear being sexually abused or exploited
- Data from the Internet Watch Foundation for the year 2021 shows that more than 250,000 websites featuring or advertising material related to child sexual abuse were discovered which is 64% more compared to the previous year.
Human rights challenges in the digital world
Be it online or offline, human rights are the same. Digital technologies offer new ways of exercising human rights but, at the same time, are often used to abuse them. Surveillance, digital identity issues (data theft, forged credentials, and certificate fraud), privacy and security of information, and online abuse are of most concern.
Suggested reading: Collective vs individual rights: what’s the difference and why does it matter?
We have pinpointed some of the biggest challenges regarding human rights in the digital world:
🔹 Data collection
The constant collection of personal information by big tech corporations (including browsing histories, location-related data, and demographic information) is one of the main threats to privacy rights today. What is even more worrying is that data collection can occur even if you are not logged onto a particular service.
🔹 Illegal and hazardous online content
Digital technology’s ability to spread information more quickly and to a large audience has an impact on the security and privacy of individuals. This may include content that supports terrorism and violence as well as child abuse and exploitation.
Online anonymity may encourage people to undertake activities that are poorly regulated and can harm other people including cyberbullying, online shaming, and trolling. Since the perpetrators are difficult to locate, victims of online abuse frequently have trouble persuading them to stop. This problem interferes with a person’s capacity to exercise their human rights to privacy and nondiscrimination.
Online threats, harassment, and intimidation can result in actual targeting, bullying, assault, and even fatal outcomes in the physical world.
At the same time, the overreaction of officials when trying to control internet speech and usage is likewise a serious violation of human rights. Numerous nations are restricting access and suppressing free speech, frequently in the name of battling extremism or hatred.
🔹 Freedom of expression and splinternet
The modern era provides a wide range of resources, avenues, and opportunities for people to take advantage of their rights. As a greater number of individuals discuss their lives and share their thoughts and ideas online, the right to freedom of expression, a fundamental component of democracy, extends beyond national and international borders.
This freedom is not without risk however.
To regulate the exchange of information and restrict digital services within their own borders, some countries and organizations are using various filters, targeted internet blackouts, and other strategies.
Because it is fairly easy to mislead large online audiences through misinformation and rumors and restrict access to trustworthy information, many people may find themselves being banned or abused. This makes it difficult to exercise certain rights such as the freedom of assembly and association.
🔹 Misinformation and disinformation
According to the UN, misinformation is the unintentional spreading of incorrect or misleading information that is not meant to deliberately mislead, manipulate, or threaten an individual, community, company, or nation.
Disinformation, on the other hand, is a deliberate spreading of proven erroneous or deceptive data for financial gain or to intentionally mislead, manipulate, or harm a person, social group, organization, or nation.
Since false information can spread more quickly, it has the potential to cause serious harm and with this in mind, governments should take steps to tackle the issue without violating human rights.
How can we protect human rights in the digital age?
To protect human rights in this era of fast technological evolution, it is important to improve capacity-building initiatives.
Building capacity entails utilizing a variety of tools to create and bring together the appropriate skills and expertise of specific organizations and people in a particular field to make people and organizations more aware of the issue, protect them, and learn more about those human rights that are greatly impacted by digital technologies.
The role of civil society and NGOs
In the digital age, civil society is crucial to preserving human rights. Online platforms must be accessible without restriction to journalists, activists, and ordinary people. Civil society’s opinion must be heard, not silenced.
In 2022, Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that her office had identified three crucial factors that should be considered in order to protect human rights in the digital age:
- Policy design in the digital age has to have an emphasis on civil society participation.
- Freedom of expression should be protected while dealing with online hate speech and misinformation.
- Regulatory actions must follow the criteria of legality, necessity, and proportionality.
Despite the numerous difficulties that the digital age delivers in terms of human rights, technological evolution also brings many benefits. Its value for human rights and development is massive with an increasing number of people benefitting from online communication and using online resources to learn, educate, and research.
Human rights violations can even be predicted and prevented by using AI. A lot of data from different sources, like social media, news articles, and official documents, can be analyzed by AI to spot suspected violations of human rights early on. Algorithms for natural language processing can help to identify hate speech and other worrying communication patterns.
Final word
Because of the digital age and the accompanying technological developments, our personal information is now more vulnerable to illegal access, whether this arises from businesses collecting data for marketing purposes or cybercriminals breaking into email accounts. Preserving our privacy has therefore become a never-ending struggle.
However, despite these issues, there are signs of hope with an increasing number of people and organizations taking measures to protect their information as knowledge of digital security increases. Moreover, a growing ecosystem of resources and instruments is continuing to evolve, helping users to preserve their online privacy.
