UN Says Human Rights Should be Respected on the Internet

The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council has passed a resolution advocating respect, promotion and enforcement of human rights on the internet. Resolutions do not have the force of law, but they are important guidelines for guiding governments and society.

The document states that the same rights guaranteed in the offline world should be provided also in the online environment. These include freedom of expression, which must be respected and enforced irrespective of platforms and borders.

In the text, the Council calls on governments in member countries to strengthen cooperation in order to develop programs to facilitate access to and use of the media and technologies. These resources are seen as fundamental instruments for the exercise of other human rights by the people.

This effort also includes the search for reducing digital inequality among citizens, especially from a gender perspective, and ensuring a safe and non-discriminatory online environment. The dissemination and appropriation of technologies, he recommends, should be carried out by human rights.

Such an approach would, for example, involve accessibility in such equipment so as to enable it to be fully utilized by persons with disabilities. Among the resources for this audience are audiodescription and measures of facilitation of reading (such as contrast variations in websites and applications).

At the same time, the resolution indicates to governments the importance of developing "remedies" for when human rights violations occur on the network.

Privacy and data protection

The resolution addresses privacy and security as two important guiding values. In this regard, it recommends that governments adopt laws or similar standards that ensure the protection of citizens' data. This week, the National Congress passed the first general data protection law, but the matter still needs the sanction of President Michel Temer and it will take a year and a half to come into force.

In addition, the document stresses the responsibility of the private sector as well. "Companies should work to enable technical solutions that provide security and protect the confidentiality of digital communications," he adds, citing as technical resources the use of
anonymization (when data can no longer be related to an individual) and encryption (a tool to hinder the reading of a transmitted information).

Source