Digital rights in 2023: a look back — and ahead

It’s vital to highlight digital rights progress in Africa

"My 2023 highlight was working with Kenyan partners, including Namati Kenya and Haki na Sheria, to support stateless persons and people marginalized on the basis of ethnicity or religion, who are negatively impacted by the roll-out of digital ID programs. I hope to work even more closely and directly with these communities in 2024. Freedom of expression and internet shutdowns are the other topics I’ll be following closely, while also seeing where AI developments take the discussion on digital rights.

Too often, the media only repeats 'doom and gloom' stories from Africa – a sensationalization of harm that is deeply colonial. That’s why it’s important to highlight digital rights progress happening across the continent. Did you know, for instance, that Cabo Verde enacted data protection legislation way back in 2001, making it the first African country with a data protection law? Probably not, because it doesn’t fit into established 'sob story' media narratives about Africa or Africans, which show a consistent lack of care, consideration, and observation for our lives, our stories, and our humanity." 

Let’s make internet shutdowns a thing of the past

"This year, I really enjoyed collaborating with the #KeepItOn coalition members under our Election Watch campaign. Not only did we see a decrease in the number of election-related shutdowns, we documented commitments from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and the DRC’s governments to #KeepItOn during their respective elections, while the Freedom Online Coalition endorsed our call for countries to protect open internet access during elections.

I am also very proud of our work highlighting the severe human impact of the ongoing internet shutdown in Amhara region, Ethiopia, via the personal stories of people living through the shutdown. In 2024, I look forward to engaging even more with our partners to continue pushing back against shutdowns, until they are a thing of the past."

I’ve been beautifully challenged by our work

"As a community, Access Now is a breath of fresh air; a gentle but remarkable force. In 2023, I've learned and grown, in ways that were once only dreams, and been beautifully challenged by our work — allowing me to be even more deliberate in my feminism and my outlook on life."

In an election year, politicians may be less likely to speak up for those at risk

“I’m especially proud of the results we've seen this year following our efforts urging the U.S. government to hold spyware companies accountable for their human rights violations. In 2023, more spyware companies were added to the U.S. government’s economic blocklist and U.S. President Biden issued an executive order barring the use of spyware by U.S. federal agencies.

In 2024, I hope to expand our cross-border collaboration on issues involving the U.S. government, such as migrant rights in Latin America and internet shutdowns in Gaza. I also expect that AI and surveillance will be at the forefront of our work next year, as we follow the implementation of President Biden's executive order on AI and work towards a national AI policy framework. Given it will be an election year – a time when rhetoric around migration becomes particularly inflamed and politicians may be less likely to speak up for at-risk people – we’ll also be paying close attention to further attacks on migrants’ digital rights.”

I want an end to techno-solutionism

“If I had one wish for 2024, it would be for an end to 'techno-solutionism.' Big companies and policymakers love to present more technology in our daily lives as a miraculous remedy to humankind’s struggles, or as a sure path to a better world. But from digital ID systems and biometrics, to the widespread adoption of AI; all these alleged solutions risk creating more problems if they aren’t underpinned by human rights. Next year, I’ll be following developments in Tunisia closely, given that the government wants to implement a massive biometric database of all citizens, which would open the door to mass surveillance. We already see surveillance cameras everywhere, so we’ll be doing our best to prevent these being turned into a vast monitoring network threatening people’s privacy.”

My eyes, mind, and heart will stay focused on Gaza

“My 2023 highlight was our early call for a physical and digital ceasefire in response to the war in Gaza. Wars are brutal. They violently throw people’s lives, plans, and dreams into the unknown, while also calling into question human rights norms. Every digital rights issue that Access Now works on has become magnified, with the offline impact of online threats made more egregious and pronounced. I’m proud we’re on the front lines defending the rights of people and communities most at risk.

In 2024, my eyes, mind, and heart will stay focused on Gaza. I hope for peace, offline and online, and for tech companies to finally understand the outsized impact they have on people’s lives – and to take this responsibility seriously. We’ll keep pushing for this as part of our work on content governance in times of crisis. In the past two months, we’ve also seen how internet shutdowns can be fatal during war, so without a ceasefire in sight, we’ll keep monitoring, and advocating against, disruptions to connectivity. And when the war does end, and the dust settles, I plan to tell the world the personal stories of how shutdowns have altered the lives of people in Gaza, in order to end this crime in times of war.”

Human rights will come under existential threat

“2024 will be a big election year, and thus, a big year for democracy. But given how much the legitimacy of democracies and the rule of law, and the power of international human rights and rules, have been called into question recently, I’m worried about countries turning to a wide array of digital repression tactics, including heightened surveillance, and passing draconian laws.

History tells us that technology is often manipulated and abused as part of wider trends toward increased securitization, repression, and discrimination. So whether it’s via the targeting of journalists and political activists with spyware, the use of facial recognition technology to surveil protestors and migrants, or increasingly unfair and disproportionate content moderation policies, we are highly likely entering a tumultuous year which will see human rights coming under existential threat and needing to be upheld more than ever.”

AI is being weaponized against people

“Working as an editor across many countries and topics makes it hard to pick one highlight! I’d have to say anything and everything related to AI, but especially working with internal and external experts to produce a video and report on the bodily harms of AI-based biometric technology. In 2024, I hope to deepen my understanding of how AI is being weaponized against people, including in times of war, to make sure the content we produce on the topic places its human impact front and center. The makers of AI rarely count the cost paid by people at the other end – but theirs are the stories we need to keep telling.”

There are people working to make the internet a safer, better place

“2023 was a tough year for encryption and privacy in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia is currently considering new 'online safety' industry standards that would allow it to scan all messaging and cloud services – leading to indiscriminate surveillance and eroding the promise of encryption to protect privacy and security. Meanwhile, India’s government has rushed through a new telecommunications bill granting it almost unchecked powers to intercept people’s communications and to shut down the internet on a whim – something we’ve called for an immediate U-turn on.

Yet amid the chaos, I think it’s vital to celebrate the incredible efforts of the many people, in many places, focused on protecting and strengthening what is good and rights-respecting about the internet. From the Global Encryption Coalition and Digital Rights Watch, to SLFC India and the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), among many, many others; they are the people working relentlessly to make the internet a safer, better place, and to find solutions to complex problems, whom I admire and will continue to be inspired by in 2024.”

Pay attention to transnational repression

“There are three areas of work from 2023 that I’m especially proud of: Access Now’s engagement with the UN Security Council, advocating for more attention to digital and cyber harms within its mandate; our inquiry into the digital rights impacts of humanitarian technology and the intersection of digital rights and international humanitarian law; and our ongoing involvement with the Freedom Online Coalition, especially on topics such as internet shutdowns during elections and the situation of digital rights defenders in conflict zones.

Looking ahead to 2024, I’ll be paying close attention to transnational repression, and its flipside of “human rights-washing.” This is something Access Now has already been doing – calling out the Internet Governance Forum for choosing Saudi Arabia as the host for next year’s event – but I think it will warrant even closer scrutiny in the next 12 months, as international organizations adopt big texts like the UN Cybercrime Treaty and Global Digital Compact. There’s a lot more work happening at the UN level on cyber and digital than some might think, and the international laws and norms being shaped as we speak have repercussions for us all.”

We're building bridges between digital and migrant rights organizatons

“My 2023 highlight was the launch of #ProtectNotSurveil, a joint campaign between Access Now, EDRi, PICUM, and Refugee Law Lab, demanding that the E.U.’s AI Act protect every person, regardless of migration status. At every step of E.U. negotiations towards finalizing the legislation, we challenged lawmakers to ensure that its rules would apply to everyone equally, and in the process, highlighted E.U. member states and agencies’ widespread use of surveillance tech against migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. The campaign also helped to build bridges between digital rights and migrant rights organizations – a prerequisite for resisting the use of digital surveillance to build Fortress Europe.”

The fight for digital rights persists into 2024

“To say that this year has been a challenging one seems like an understatement. But it has also seen some incredible achievements. My stand-out moments? Access Now co-publishing three major investigations exposing the insidious use of spyware and surveillance against civil society, on top of the thousands of digital security cases that our Helpline attends to; the EU team making significant strides towards a more rights-respecting regulatory landscape for AI - a world first (even if it remains an uphill climb!); and our organization’s continued commitment to identifying, documenting, and resisting emerging digital rights violations, such as digital threats to LGBTQ+ people or the increasingly repressive surveillance of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. 2023 will also be remembered as the year that Access Now became a humanitarian actor – from the war in Gaza, to the invasion of Ukraine. The fight for digital rights persists into 2024, but I do believe that it’s a fight that civil society can – and must – win.”

There is no safe harbor for civil society, even in exile

“In 2023 we saw the continued rise of digital authoritarianism in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, marked by spyware attacks, even in war contexts, and an increased crackdown on civil society in Russia and Belarus. What concerns me the most is how digital repression is spreading across borders and nations, meaning that there is no safe harbor for civil society, even in exile. This was made startlingly clear by the targeting we uncovered of Russian journalist Galina Timchenko, based in Latvia, with Israeli firm NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. As we continue to track violations of digital rights during crises and conflict, including in the Russian-Ukrainian war, I also hope the world won’t ignore the rising trend towards censorship in Central Asia, where countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are following Russia’s lead by adopting 'foreign agent' laws in order to stifle dissent and control information flows."

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