RIGHTSCON DAY TWO: STANDING AGAINST SPYWARE, SURVEILLANCE, SHUTDOWNS, AND MORE.
The first full day of RightsCon Costa Rica programming has been busy so far, with conversations covering everything from the environmental impact of generative AI, to supporting Iranian women’s fight for fundamental freedoms, to stopping the use of internet shutdowns as a means of covering up human rights abuses.
Quote of the day:
“We don’t believe that we’re marching towards a predetermined, inevitable march of a technological future, which is often how AI is talked about. We want to remind people that we have agency as human beings as we decide what to build and what not to build – and if we want to build something useful we have to start with the needs of people and create tools that help specific people.”
– Timnit Gebru, Founder and Executive Director, Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR)
Tips for tomorrow:
- Who’s got my data? Data protection in a time of public service digitization: there is yet a balance to be met between the collection and processing of personal data by authorities for the alleged greater good and people’s privacy and data protection rights.
- I can’t speak: digital authoritarianism and freedom of expression in Nigeria: highlighting existing digital authoritarian laws in Nigeria, sharing a comparative analysis with other African countries, and discussing how civil society actors and the media are taking action to guarantee freedom of expression and hold the government accountable.
- In Conversation with Dolkun Isa and Melissa Chan: discussing the ongoing surveillance and systemic human rights abuses faced by Uyghur people in Xinjiang, the nature of transnational repression faced by exiled Uyghur activists, and the resistance strategies they deploy to continue their work.
- Challenges, opportunities, and responsibilities in humanitarian data: emerging data stewardship models for crisis-affected communities: unpacking the data interests of both humanitarian actors and aid beneficiaries, as well as initiatives underway to address them in such a way as to advance the data rights of aid recipients.
RightsCon launches:
- Access Now: The U.S. must outlaw deceptive designs
- #KeepItOn coalition: Internet shutdowns advance into 2023: #KeepItOn mid-year update
- Amnesty International: Costa Rica: All states must immediately ban highly invasive spyware
- ARTICLE 19, Human Constanta, Access Now, and World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT): Belarus: ‘Anti-extremism’ legislation used to further suppress civil society
Video highlights:
And here’s their media kit!
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