GENEVA - In a joint statement, UN experts* raised serious concerns over the growing global spread of intrusive surveillance technologies, and their normalisation in everyday life, and called for the urgent strengthening of human rights safeguards.
"Digital surveillance tools and practices are often incompatible with international human rights obligations. Globally, arbitrary and pervasive surveillance is overwhelmingly used against civil society, human rights defenders, journalists, peaceful assemblies, minorities, political opposition and dissenting voices, thereby undermining free democratic participation. Digital surveillance creates an environment of fear and exerts profound chilling effects on fundamental freedoms, civic space, and the right to express dissent.
The misuse of powerful technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), in law enforcement, counter-terrorism, border management, and national security and military contexts, in the absence of adequate legal frameworks, poses serious human rights risks. Misuse of AI can intensify unjustified surveillance, predictively profile populations, censor online expression, and propagate disinformation and amplify biases. It enables authorities to target dissent, human rights defenders, and civil society, and stifle civil and political freedoms and privacy at a much larger scale and faster pace - all undermining democracy and the rule of law.
Digital surveillance tools and methods cannot be viewed in isolation but constitute elements of a complex, interconnected and reinforcing surveillance ecosystem. These ecosystems are sustained by opaque collaborations between States, commercial developers, and data-intermediaries which extend State surveillance powers.
Surveillance ecosystems and their compounding human rights harms and related chilling effects must be holistically addressed. Otherwise, assessments of whether surveillance is "necessary in a democratic society" according to human rights law will favour harmful digital surveillance over the right to peaceful assembly, of association, of expression, privacy and other affected rights. This would further exacerbate the chilling effects that silence dissent and fundamentally erode civic space.
The misuse of digital technologies is exacerbated and enabled by the proliferation of overbroad laws to counter terrorism, "extremism", "foreign agents" and cybercrime, as well as those for protecting national security and sovereignty. These laws have profoundly impeded and chilled the legitimate work of civil society actors, including humanitarians, human rights defenders, journalists, dissidents, activists, and minority groups.
To halt serious abuses, States must urgently recommit to safeguarding rights and freedoms by enacting effective limits on digital surveillance. States and businesses must conduct rigorous human rights due diligence and impact assessments of AI and other technologies throughout their lifecycle, including regarding their development, transfer and use. States must prohibit the use or transfer of AI systems, surveillance and other technologies that cannot satisfy human rights law or that pose unacceptable risks to human rights. Other uses must be subject to rigorous risk-based regulation.
Stringent safeguards on data quality, testing and validation, and personal data protection and security must be effectively implemented. There must also be effective and accessible mechanisms for accountability and remedies for harms related to digital surveillance and AI systems uses, taking into consideration intersectional harms and chilling effects.
International, regional, and national laws and regulations on the design, use, and transfer of digital surveillance tools must prevent arbitrary and indiscriminate surveillance. Governments should adopt and implement national legislation that restricts the use of digital surveillance in line with international human rights standards and with independent judicial authorisation and oversight. An international binding instrument on digital surveillance technology is also urgently needed."
