 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2017) |
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| Formation | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Founded at | Melbourne, Australia |
| Type | NGO |
| Legal status | Charity |
| Purpose | Digital Rights |
| Website | digitalrightswatch |
| Director: Lucie Krahulcova Chair: Elizabeth O'Shea | |
Digital Rights Watch is an Australian charity organisation founded in 2016 [1] that aims to educate and uphold the digital rights of Australian citizens.
In 2016, largely in response to the introduction of Australia's mandatory metadata retention scheme, Digital Rights Watch was created at a meeting of representatives from Australian human rights organisations, activists, political advisers, technology consultants and academics. To coordinate a civil society response to the metadata retention scheme as well as other key digital rights violations, a new organisation was founded with the aim of aligning and supporting existing efforts.
Digital Rights Watch's mission is to ensure that Australian citizens are equipped, empowered and enabled to uphold their digital rights. The organisation works on advocacy, policy reform and public-facing campaigns that push for ethical data use by corporations, [2] [3] [4] good digital government practices and policies, [5] [6] a rights-based legal system, and empowered and informed citizens.
Digital Rights Watch is an incorporated Association, registered as a national charity with the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission. It is a member-run organisation, with a board of directors elected once a year at its Annual General Meeting. The organisation also operates an Advisory Council, which informs and advises on policy and strategy.
Digital Rights Watch is a member of the CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation, the Australian Digital Inclusion Alliance, [7] and the global Keep It On campaign. [8] In October 2017, Digital Rights Watch's Chair Tim Singleton Norton received a special mention in the Access Now Global Heroes and Villains of Human Rights Awards.
Digital Rights Watch often works in partnerships with other Australian digital or human rights organisations such as the Human Rights Law Centre, Amnesty International Australia, Electronic Frontiers Australia, the Australian Privacy Foundation, ACFID and others. Digital Rights Watch also works with international groups such as Access Now, Electronic Frontiers Foundation, Open Media, EDRi, Privacy International and others.
In August 2016, Digital Rights Watch coordinated a campaign, including media coverage, [9] [10] expressing concern over privacy issues raised in the Australian national census.
On 13 April 2017, Digital Rights Watch declared a national day of action against mandatory data retention, [11] calling for all Australians to 'Get a VPN'. [12]
In August 2017, Digital Rights Watch hosted an event as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival in which they profiled the personal metadata footprint of Professor Gillian Triggs, former President of the Australian Human Rights Commission. [13]
In September 2017, Digital Rights Watch partnered with Privacy International to push for greater transparency over intelligence sharing operations between governments.
In May 2018, Digital Rights Watch launched the State of Digital Rights report, outlining several ways that Australian citizen's digital rights are being eroded. [14]
Between October and December 2018, Digital Rights Watch coordinated a public campaign The Alliance for a Safe and Secure Internet against proposed legislation that gave increased powers to law enforcement to break encryption protocols. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]
In May 2019, Digital Rights Watch partnered with Electronic Frontiers Australia to launch the Save Australian Technology campaign.
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
Claude Ajit Moraes is a British Labour Party politician and campaigner, who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for London between 1999 and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020. He was chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, Deputy Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party and Vice-President of the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament.
Privacy International (PI) is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world. First formed in 1990, registered as a non-profit company in 2002 and as a charity in 2012, PI is based in London. Its current executive director, since 2012, is Dr Gus Hosein.
The Open Rights Group (ORG) is a UK-based organisation that works to preserve digital rights and freedoms by campaigning on digital rights issues and by fostering a community of grassroots activists. It campaigns on numerous issues including mass surveillance, internet filtering and censorship, and intellectual property rights.
Data retention defines the policies of persistent data and records management for meeting legal and business data archival requirements. Although sometimes interchangeable, it is not to be confused with the Data Protection Act 1998.
European Digital Rights (EDRi) is an international advocacy group headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. EDRi is a network collective of NGOs, experts, advocates and academics working to defend and advance digital rights across the continent. For almost two decades, it has served as the backbone of the digital rights movement in Europe. In March 2021, EDRi is made of 44 NGOs, as well as experts, advocates and academics from all across Europe.
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The Telecommunications Amendment Act 2015 is an Australian law that amends the Telecommunications Act 1979 and the Telecommunications Act 1997 to introduce a statutory obligation for Australian telecommunication service providers to retain, for a period of two years, particular types of telecommunications data (metadata) and introduces certain reforms to the regimes applying to the access of stored communications and telecommunications data under the TIA Act.
Riseup is a volunteer-run collective providing secure email, email lists, a VPN service, online chat, and other online services. This organization was launched by activists in Seattle with borrowed equipment and a few users in 1999 or 2000, and quickly grew to millions of accounts.
The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, and Queen Elizabeth II signified her royal assent to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 on 29 November 2016 Its different parts came into force on various dates from 30 December 2016. The Act comprehensively sets out and in limited respects expands the electronic surveillance powers of the British intelligence agencies and police. It also claims to improve the safeguards on the exercise of those powers.
Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population. Mass surveillance in Russia includes surveillance, open-source intelligence and data mining, lawful interception as well as telecommunications data retention.
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IPVanish VPN is a VPN service based in the United States, with applications for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Fire TV. Manual configuration is available for ChromeOS, Windows Phone, Linux, and DD-WRT routers.
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