Thank you to everyone who has written to their local Council urging them to sign on to be a Digital Rights City!
If you are eager to help your community transform, but are not sure what that means in practice, this post is for you! We will also be sharing it with the Councils who have responded positively (and there are quite a few!) and asked for more information.
At Digital Rights Watch, we believe local government has a huge opportunity to shape the way we all experience human rights on a local level.
In 2018, the Cities for Digital Rights initiative was launched in Barcelona, Amsterdam and New York City with the support of the United Nations Human Settlements Program. More jurisdictions around the world have signed on since; Sydney was the first in Australia. Others are taking it further still—San Francisco recently moved to ban all use of facial recognition surveillance.
I’m interested in getting my council involved, what are they signing up for?
To be part of the initiative, cities sign on to the UN Declaration of Cities for Digital Rights. In doing this, cities make a commitment to embed human rights into their smart city plans, digital transformation initiatives, and frankly, all other areas of activity.
There are five key pillars:
Universal and equal access to the internet, and digital literacy
Privacy, data protection and security
Transparency, accountability and non-discrimination of data, content and algorithms
Participatory Democracy, diversity and inclusion
Open and ethical digital service standards
We’ve broken down each of these areas in more detail to help you know what you’d be committing to, and start taking the first steps to transforming your city into one that is truly smart. Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and each council may uphold each pillar in different ways.
Universal and equal access to the internet, and digital literacy
The internet is a part of our everyday lives, and is often (and increasingly) the default way to access essential government services and support. The potential benefits of internet access and digital services are big, but for those benefits to be realised, everyone must have equal and affordable access.
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Privacy, data protection and security
Privacy is a human right in and of itself, and it’s also integral to how people are able to realise other human rights. People should have the ability to exercise meaningful control over who has access to information about them. As our lives are increasingly online, the issue of keeping our information private and secure is urgent.
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Transparency, accountability of algorithms
As more connected services become essential to our everyday lives, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand how everything operates and how it may impact us.
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Participatory Democracy, diversity and inclusion
Technology can be a wonderful tool when used in creative, safe, and ethical ways. Local governments should take advantage of technology and develop digital tools to help people understand their rights and participate in democracy. They can also leverage existing technology platforms to increase community participation.*
*But don’t forget about the privacy risk assessment mentioned previously!
