UN-BHR

Biddlecomb: UK May be Heading Toward a Duty on Businesses to Prevent Breaches of Human Rights

May 13, 2020

Writing in The National Law Review, Robert Biddlecomb describes the possibility and nature of the UK adopting a legal mechanism that would hold businesses liable for preventing human rights violations.
Brotman: Americans Need to Discuss Digital Privacy

May 13, 2020

Writing in The HIll, Stuart Brotman explains that the increased use of, and dependence on, networks, websites, and apps to undertake daily activities while social distancing has made digital privacy a "kitchen table" issue, literally and figuratively.
Götzmann: Use of Human Rights Impact Assessments Face Challenges

May 01, 2020

Nora Götzmann, Senior Adviser in Human Rights and Business at The Danish Institute for Human Rights, details the challenges human rights activists face in securing transnational business participation in the performance of human rights impact assessments.
Goldsmith: Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal

April 28, 2020

Writing in The Atlantic, Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith explains how, to address serious and growing harms resulting from digital speech, governments and private platforms will continue to expand their definition of offensive content and regulate it more closely.
Costa: Contact-tracing Applications Create Privacy Nightmare

April 28, 2020

Writing in Malta Today, Massimo Costa explains the privacy concerns associated with new contact-tracing applications being implemented to fight the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Privacy and the Pandemic: Time for a Digital Bill of Rights

April 22, 2020

Foreign Policy published an argument that democratic government efforts to implement digital tools and data collection strategies to fight the COVID-19 crisis must strike the right balance with personal liberty.
Apple-Google Virus Tracking Plan Carries Data Security Risks

April 22, 2020

According to Bloomberg Law, Apple and Google’s ambitious COVID-19 contact tracing plan creates a tempting target for cybercriminals looking for sensitive health data to find out who’s been infected with the coronavirus.
Greenwood: Verily Coronavirus Test Yields Personal Data Bounty

April 06, 2020

Writing in Foreign Policy, Faye Greenwood explains how, with the blessing of both federal and state governments, Google's Verily has set up a system where people must choose between sharing their health data with the company and, practically speaking, not getting a coronavirus test.
EFF: How Google Shares, Monetizes, and Exploits User Data

March 24, 2020

The Electronic Frontier Foundation ("EFF") explains that Google monetizes what it observes about people by using data to build individual profiles with demographics and interests that advertisers use to target groups based on traits and by sharing data with advertisers directly and soliciting bids on individual ads.
Coronavirus Could Be a ‘Catalyst’ for China to Boost Mass Surveillance

February 26, 2020

According to a CNBC report, privacy experts fear that, with the help of technology companies, China could use the coronavirus outbreak to boost its mass surveillance capabilities.