 | |
| Formation | 2009 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Brett Solomon, Cameran Ashraf, Sina Rabbani and Kim Pham |
| Website | accessnow.org |
Access Now is a non-profit organization founded in 2009 and focused on digital civil rights. [1] The organization issues reports on global Internet censorship, and hosts the annual RightsCon human rights conference.
Access Now was established by Brett Solomon, Cameran Ashraf, Sina Rabbani and Kim Pham in 2009, after the contested Iranian presidential election of that year. [2] [3] During the protests that followed this election, Access Now disseminated the video footage which came out of Iran. [3] Access Now has campaigned against internet shutdowns, [4] online censorship, [5] international trade agreements, [6] and government surveillance. [7] Access Now has supported the use of encryption [8] and limited cyber security laws and regulations. [9]
As of 2020 [update] , Access Now has legal entities in Belgium, Costa Rica, Tunisia, and the United States, [10] with staff, operations, and activities distributed across all regions of the world. Major funders have included Facebook, Global Affairs Canada, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.[ citation needed ]
Access Now runs an annual conference, RightsCon, which focuses on issues concerning technology's impact on human rights. [11] [12] The conference was first held in Silicon Valley in 2011, followed by events in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2012), Silicon Valley (2014), Manila, Philippines (2015), and Silicon Valley (2016); [13] thus alternated between Silicon Valley and a city in the Global South. [13] After being held in Brussels and Toronto, [14] RightsCon 2019 took place in Tunis, Tunisia (11–14 June). [15] The 2019 RightsCon event gathered activists and stakeholders from all over the globe discussed the intersection between human rights and digitalization by government representatives, tech giants, policymakers, NGOs and independent activists. [16] The discussions were about hate speech and freedom of expression, artificial intelligence, privacy and data security, open government and democracy, access, and many others. [16]
In 2020, RightsCon was to be held in San José, Costa Rica, for the COVID-19 pandemic, so the meeting took place in the online format. [17] In 2021, the 10th edition of RightsCon was again held online from Monday, June 7 to Friday, June 11, 2021 due to the continued global COVID-19 pandemic which altered several digital rights physical meetings. [18] [19] The topics for RightsCon2021 included: Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation, data protection and user control, digital futures, democracy, elections, new business models, content control, peacebuilding, censorship, internet shutdowns, freedom of the media and many others were discussed by several digital rights organizations and individuals. [18]
In 2022, the 11th edition of RightsCon was planned to take place entirely online across all time zones from Monday, June 6 to Friday, June 10, 2022. [20] [21]
Threough its #KeepItOn project, Access Now makes an annual report and data set on internet shutdowns to track internet shutdowns, social media blockages, and internet slowdowns in countries around the world. [22] This report and data are published every spring. [23] [24] Access Now fights against online repression, and provides grants and support to grassroots organizations to advance the rights of users and communities at risk of digital violations. [25]
Access Now gathers data by the Shutdown Tracker Optimization Project (STOP). [23] This project uses remotely sensed data to initially identify shutdowns, blockages and throttling. Instances are confirmed using news reports, reports from local activists, official government statements, and statements from ISPs. [26] Access Now defines Internet shutdowns as "an intentional disruption of the internet or electronic communications rendering them inaccessible or effectively unusable, for a specific population or within a location, often to exert control over the flow of information.". [23] Individual instances are counted if the shutdown lasts longer than one hour. [23]
Access Now's data capture fewer false positives but more false negatives compared to expert analysis of internet shutdowns, such as V-Dem Institute's Digital Society Project, or Freedom House's Freedom on the Net. [27] Access Now's data are more likely to miss shutdowns than captured by other methods. [26]
#KeepItOn data is used to measure shutdowns by a range of organizations and academic publications. [26] The Millennium Challenge Corporation uses these data as a part of its Freedom of Information indicator on its annual scorecards, used for determining aid allocations. [28] Access Now's reports are also used in calculating the total cost of internet shutdowns. [29] [30] Other articles use these data to track trends in internet censorship in various countries and regions. [31] [32] [33]
The organization offers a 24/7 Helpline to advise victims of cyber-crime such as cyber-attacks, spyware campaigns, data theft, and other digital malfeasance, to protect citizens from digital attacks. [34] [35] Starting in 2009, it has offered support and direct technical advice to activists, journalists, and other human rights campaigners [34] who are in need of digital security support, those facing cyber threats and attacks and those in need urgent support. [25] The Digital Security Helpline was officially launched in 2013. [34] Services include digital security guidance on topics such as how to protect against data and credential theft, and preventing targeted cyberattacks. [34] [35]
The Helpline has been credited with helping to build people-first digital infrastructures, and one content moderation request at a time. [36] Supporters claim that the helpline provides lessons on how to build comprehensive and sustainable digital infrastructures while protecting the digital rights of the people they serve, including CSOs, activists, and human rights defenders. [36]
Access Now's methods of using in-country volunteers to identify attacks from their own governments have been criticized as unethical due to the risk of government retribution for those reporting via the helpline and other methods. [37] [38] [39] [40] Others have proposed automated systems to more ethically track these disruptions.[ citation needed ]
Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is offered for sale by an international hierarchy of Internet service providers (ISPs) using various networking technologies. At the retail level, many organizations, including municipal entities, also provide cost-free access to the general public.
Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, indigenous, and traditional knowledge; freedom of information, building of open knowledge resources, including open Internet and open standards, and open access and availability of data; preservation of digital heritage; respect for cultural and linguistic diversity, such as fostering access to local content in accessible languages; quality education for all, including lifelong and e-learning; diffusion of new media and information literacy and skills, and social inclusion online, including addressing inequalities based on skills, education, gender, age, race, ethnicity, and accessibility by those with disabilities; and the development of connectivity and affordable ICTs, including mobile, the Internet, and broadband infrastructures".
Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression. CDT seeks to promote legislation that enables individuals to use the internet for purposes of well-intent, while at the same time reducing its potential for harm. It advocates for transparency, accountability, and limiting the collection of personal information.
Digital rights are those human rights and legal rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and publish digital media or to access and use computers, other electronic devices, and telecommunications networks. The concept is particularly related to the protection and realization of existing rights, such as the right to privacy and freedom of expression, in the context of digital technologies, especially the Internet. The laws of several countries recognize a right to Internet access.
Internet censorship in India is done by both central and state governments. DNS filtering and educating service users in suggested usages is an active strategy and government policy to regulate and block access to Internet content on a large scale. Measures for removing content at the request of content creators through court orders have also become more common in recent years. Initiating a mass surveillance government project like Golden Shield Project is an alternative that has been discussed over the years by government bodies.
Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains but exceptionally may extend to all Internet resources located outside the jurisdiction of the censoring state. Internet censorship may also put restrictions on what information can be made internet accessible. Organizations providing internet access – such as schools and libraries – may choose to preclude access to material that they consider undesirable, offensive, age-inappropriate or even illegal, and regard this as ethical behavior rather than censorship. Individuals and organizations may engage in self-censorship of material they publish, for moral, religious, or business reasons, to conform to societal norms, political views, due to intimidation, or out of fear of legal or other consequences.
The Internet is accessible to the majority of the population in Egypt, whether via smartphones, internet cafes, or home connections. Broadband Internet access via VDSL is widely available. Under the rule of Hosni Mubarak, Internet censorship and surveillance were severe, culminating in a total shutdown of the Internet in Egypt during the 2011 Revolution. Although Internet access was restored following Mubarak's order, government censorship and surveillance have increased since the 2013 coup d'état, leading the NGO Freedom House to downgrade Egypt's Internet freedom from "partly free" in 2011 to "not free" in 2015, which it has retained in subsequent reports including the most recent in 2021. The el-Sisi regime has ramped up online censorship in Egypt. The regime heavily censors online news websites, which has prompted the closure of many independent news outlets in Egypt.
The Internet in Ukraine is well developed and steadily growing, mostly uninfluenced by the global financial crisis; in April 2012 rapid growth was forecast for at least two more years. As of 2011, Ukraine was ranked 9th in the "Top 10 Internet countries in Europe", with then 33.9% Internet penetration and 15.3 million users; growing to 36.8% in 2012. However, as of January 2021 about 30 million Ukrainians were Internet users.
Internet censorship in Vietnam prevents access to websites critical of the Vietnamese government, expatriate political parties, and international human rights organizations, among others or anything the Vietnamese government does not agree with. Online police reportedly monitor Internet cafes and cyber dissidents have been imprisoned. Vietnam regulates its citizens' Internet access using both legal and technical means. The government's efforts to regulate, monitor, and provide oversight regarding Internet use has been referred to as a "Bamboo Firewall". However, citizens can usually view, comment and express their opinions civilly on the internet, as long as it does not evoke anti-government movement, political coup and disrupt the social stability of the country.
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, having been appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009. After serving her term as ambassador, Donahoe was appointed as Director of Global Affairs for Human Rights Watch. In 2014, she was also appointed to the board of International Service for Human Rights. She is also an affiliate of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, a center of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at the Freeman Spogli Institute's Cyber Policy Center working at the intersection of governance, technology and human rights.
An Internet outage or Internet blackout or Internet shutdown is the complete or partial failure of the internet services. It can occur due to censorship, cyberattacks, disasters, police or security services actions or errors.
Internet censorship in South Korea is prevalent, and contains some unique elements such as the blocking of pro-North Korea websites, and to a lesser extent, Japanese websites, which led to it being categorized as "pervasive" in the conflict/security area by OpenNet Initiative. South Korea is also one of the few developed countries where pornography is largely illegal, with the exception of social media websites which are a common source of legal pornography in the country. Any and all material deemed "harmful" or subversive by the state is censored. The country also has a "cyber defamation law", which allow the police to crack down on comments deemed "hateful" without any reports from victims, with citizens being sentenced for such offenses.
Global Internet Usage is the number of people who use the Internet worldwide.
In Russia, internet censorship is enforced on the basis of several laws and through several mechanisms. Since 2012, Russia maintains a centralized internet blacklist maintained by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor).
David Kaye is an American politician who served as the United Nations special rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression between August 2014 and July 2020. He was succeeded by Irene Khan. Kaye is clinical professor of law at the University of California, Irvine on public international law, international humanitarian law human rights and international criminal justice. He is co-director of the UCI Fair Elections and Free Speech Center working at the intersection of technology, freedom of speech and democratic deliberation. He is also the independent board chair of the Global Network Initiative.
Human rights in cyberspace is a relatively new and uncharted area of law. The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has stated that the freedoms of expression and information under Article 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) include the freedom to receive and communicate information, ideas and opinions through the Internet.
The Cyberspace Administration of China is the national internet regulator and censor of the People's Republic of China.
Turkey Blocks is an independent digital research organization that monitors internet access restrictions and their relation to political incidents in Turkey. Using its network of monitoring probes, the project has uncovered and documented systematic mass-censorship of communications infrastructure, primarily social media services, during national emergencies and incidents of political significance relating to human rights, freedom of expression and public policy in the region.
Freedom on the Net is an annual report providing analytical reports and numerical ratings regarding the state of Internet freedom for countries worldwide, published by the American non-profit research and advocacy group Freedom House. The countries surveyed represent a sample with a broad range of geographical diversity and levels of economic development, as well as varying levels of political and media freedom.
Digital rights—human rights in relation to digital technologies—present particular challenges in the Caribbean countries, due to its geographies, political context, social inequalities and cultural diversity. While they face the same problem of digital divides as other regions, for islands the impacts of not accessing or understanding digital technologies can have particularly harmful consequences. Similar concerns could be found in terms of gender-based violence online, a global problem encompassing psychological, physical, emotional and sexual violence. This affects more acutely girls and young women and brings about special concerns within the Caribbean. However, there are other topics which are utmost problematic because of the history and type of applicable law system in countries from this region, such as in the case of digital identity and internet shutdowns. Despite variations across Caribbean countries, issues happening in one country can be replicated within the region or can affect people living in other countries.
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