Privacy In The Digital Era – Human Rights Online

Introduction

In the wake of online security, the United States and the United Kingdom conducted mass surveillance to know the extent to which information of their citizen could be shared. The right to privacy in the digital era seminar held at Geneva on 24-25 February 2014. In this revelation, the meeting was particularly held to examine the international human rights framework in relation to the challenges, privacy, and fostering understanding and communicating the problems that rises in modern society (Joyce, 2015). The seminar was first focused to accumulate the challenges, documents privacy issues, and restricting the extent to which information be shared.

Right to privacy helps the person in making contributory atmosphere, also create fundamental pillars to protect democracy. Whether it is the online or offline scenario, without the right to privacy a person can feel suffocated. An exceptionally interesting advanced Right to privacy in the digital era has been formulated by Austria Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom, United States, Norway, and Switzerland. In this article, we will be largely talking about the international laws protecting human rights on a digital platform.

The New Era- Digital world

In the light of the highly emerging digital world, it has improved the ability to communicate and sharing information on the internet. However, these technologies also made it possible to conduct mass surveillance, tracking person action, and communicate interception could be allowed at a huge scale with ease. The high commissioner of Human rights in the United States has cautiously said in her opening remarks during the seminar- malpractices threaten privacy, inhibits the free functioning of the vibrant society, as well as arbitrary communication, can pose threat to anonymity of communication.

Digital technology has altered the way, information was grasped, right to privacy exercised both at national and international platforms. Every day, debates have been flooding over the internet fighting against the curse and benefits of technology penetration in human lives.

Right To Privacy And Human Rights Council

The first step taken by the United States human right council in Geneva is to protect human rights over digital realms in order to create a special rapporteur. Further, the right to privacy at the digital platform was passed on the New York Assembly on Dec, 19 under the leadership of Brazil and Germany.

Besides that International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Article 17 concluded that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary surveillance or any interference with their family, friend's home, and correspondence that will be an unlawful attack on their reputation, honour etc. Everyone can be objectified against any mysterious practices to protect their human rights, You can also get assistance on the human rights council for your tuition from the assignment help team of SourceEssay.

Many participants in the Geneva meeting have said, right to privacy doesn’t mean being left alone, but is an essence concerns individual development in the community and ability to talk. Sometimes experts linked the right to privacy to the right to freedom which is two mutually aspects and both the facilities enable the individual to participate freely in democratic societies( Human rights watch, 2020).

General Assembly resolution 68/167 inferred international human rights provides the universal framework to assess human rights. It defines the right to privacy as not absolute and if there is any limitation, it has to be amended or concluded in the law.

Right To Privacy In The Digital World-

Resolution 68/167 sponsored by Brazil and Germany were affected and embraced the surveillance noted that the rapid development of the technology enables people all over the world to access the new information and communication technologies, but on the other hand it also enhances the capacity of the companies and government to conduct mass surveillance interception and data collection that can be resulted into the human rights violation. The broader perspective of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (‘UDHR’) article 12 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘ICCPR’) article 17 is to focus on the development of human rights especially the right to privacy. Get to know more about international human rights from the SourceEssay assignment makers team.

Resolution 68/167 affirms the rule made both online and offline must protect the rights of the individual. In a summit led by the International Telecommunications Union, it was further emphasized that there has to be a necessity to conserve privacy in any context(Nyst,& Falchetta, 2017).

Conclusion

A central tension is always seen among the economists, social activists’ scientists, and governments in regards to the right to privacy over the digital realm, how much information government, companies, and agencies would share. In this blog, we have shared some of the international laws protecting human rights both on virtual and non-virtual platforms. The foremost is that International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Article 17 concluded that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary surveillance or any interference with their family, friends home, and correspondence that will be an unlawful attack on their reputation, honour. Apart from that General Assembly resolution 68/167 that suggested international human rights provides the universal framework to assess human rights defines the right to privacy as not absolute and if there is any limitation, it has to be amended or concluded in the law. With this Universal Declaration of Human Rights (‘UDHR’) article 12 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘ICCPR’) article 17 are other laws focusing on the development of human rights especially the right to privacy.

References

Joyce, D. (2015). Privacy in the Digital Era: Human Rights Online. Melb. J. Int'l L., 16, 270.

General Assembly (2020). General Assembly Distr.: General. Available at- https://undocs.org/A/HRC/44/24 data accessed on 24 Jul. 21

Human rights watch.(2020). Human Rights in the Digital Age. Retrieved from- https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/12/23/human-rights-digital-age data accessed on 24 Jul. 21

Heritage, C. (2019). Report—International Meeting on Diversity of Content in the Digital Age.

Nyst, C., & Falchetta, T. (2017). The right to privacy in the digital age. Journal of Human Rights Practice, 9(1), 104-118.

Geneva, Academy 2020. The Right to Privacy in the Digital Age: Meeting Report . Available at- https://www.geneva-academy.ch/joomlatools-files/docman-files/ReportThe%20Right%20to%20Privacy%20in%20the%20Digital%20Age.pdf data accessed on 24 Jul. 21