About digital privacy and human rights
Digital technologies do not exist in a vacuum. They can be a powerful tool for advancing human progress and contribute greatly to the promotion and protection of human rights.
However, data-intensive technologies, such as artificial intelligence applications, contribute to creating a digital environment in which both States and business enterprises are increasingly able to track, analyze, predict and even manipulate people’s behavior to an unprecedented degree. These technological developments carry very significant risks for human dignity, autonomy and privacy and the exercise of human rights in general, if applied without effective safeguards.
OHCHR’s work on privacy in the digital age
OHCHR has organized expert consultations and published reports to explore the challenges that the right to privacy and other human rights face in the digital age, as requested by relevant resolutions by the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council.
Latest reports and publications
The right to privacy in the digital age (2021): This report focuses on the multifaceted impacts of the steadily growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) on the enjoyment of the right to privacy and associated rights. It stresses the urgent need for a moratorium on the sale and use of AI systems that pose a serious risk to human rights until adequate safeguards are put in place. It also calls for AI applications that cannot be used in compliance with international human rights law to be banned. View
report page | View document
A/HRC/48/31
The impact of new technologies on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of assemblies, including peaceful protests (2020): Among other aspects, this report discusses the human rights impacts of various surveillance practices and calls for a moratorium on the use of facial recognition technology in the context of peaceful assemblies.
View
report page | View document
A/HRC/44/24
