Publications

This global curriculum is a response to the ever-evolving digital landscape and aims to consolidate the collective expertise of Greater Internet Freedom (GIF) partners in digital rights advocacy. It contains customized case studies and best practices compiled from GIF partners’ digital rights schools (DRS) training material across five regions, including South and Southeast Asia, MENA, Central Asia, East and Southern Africa, and the Balkans.

This policy brief examines human rights practices of businesses in the digital communications sector in Lesotho, highlights privacy and freedom of expression risks for users and makes policy recommendations to the sector regulator, the Lesotho Communications Authority.

This report analyses several laws and policies affecting media freedom in Angola, Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). From the onset, it is worth highlighting that Angola, CAR and DRC are state parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights which entrench the promotion and protection of freedom of expression and access to information under articles 19 and 9 respectively.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a country in central Africa with a population of almost 79 million inhabitants and an estimated Internet penetration rate of 6.2%1. Over the past 10 years, various reports published on digital rights and Internet Freedom present the Democratic Republic of Congo as one of the countries where violations of digital rights and internet freedom are recurring and this creates serious consequences for democracy.

The Angolan Constitution provides for freedom of expression and the press, and the Law on Electronic Communications and Information Company Services, adopted in 2011, provides for citizens’ rights to privacy and security online, among other provisions that regulate telecommunications in the country. Nevertheless, Angolan laws also include problematic language that may infringe on internet freedom.

PIN partnered with Ranking Digital Rights (RDR), an organisation that works to promote human rights online by studying the most powerful technology companies around the world and their commitments to respect the rights to privacy and freedom of expression.

This policy brief maps Iraq’s digital landscape and the challenges facing the government of Iraq in developing its e-governance infrastructure. It also provides a series of recommendations to key stakeholders.

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and telecommunications service provider organisations that provide wireless voice and data communication for subscribed mobile users play a crucial role in the digital rights space. This is so because they are the gatekeepers of the Internet and other digital services. In turn, they also control the infrastructure that enables people to access digital technologies and services, and as such, they have the power to either facilitate or limit people's digital rights.

In South and Southeast Asia, internet censorship and content filtering have become tools to silence dissent and limit freedom of information. These forms of digital rights violations are contributing to shrinking civic spaces in the region.

Surveillance measures are necessary for a proper investigation and prosecution of serious crimes and the protection of national security by means of intelligence. At the same time, surveillance measures mean the intrusion in a very intimate part of our lives – personal communications. Establishing a fair balance between security and freedoms while avoiding abuses of power lie at the core of preservation of the rights for privacy and freedom of expression.

The policy brief design gathered more than 30 representatives from different sectors and stakeholders. The researchers gathered relevant and up-to-date information on the cybersecurity landscape in the country, including current policies, regulations, and practices.

This advocacy toolkit aimed to serve as a comprehensive guide for civil society on the instruments of advocacy directed at international and regional (European) human rights institutions and tech giants.

Choosing the right documentation tool - a guidebook based on research with Tool providers

These examples and practice tests are for the Digital Rights School Curriculum in the "Training Courses" section.

This agenda is for the Digital Rights School Curriculum in the "Training Courses" section.

The goal of this toolkit is to equip civil society organizations with recommendations, guidelines, and insights, so they can be better prepared to plan and carry out engagements with digital platforms and telecommunications operators. The guidance provided is primarily geared towards organizations and researchers that have used the Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) Corporate Accountability Index methodology to assess the human rights commitments of technology companies in their local contexts. However, we also aspire for this toolkit to be helpful for other researchers and advocates even if they haven't used RDR's methods and standards.

This guide offers a comprehensive overview of personal data protection legislation and its practical application in business. It includes examples of best practices from across Europe, relevant to Serbia and the region. The aim is for this Handbook to be a valuable resource in understanding data protection challenges and fostering discussions on improving regulations locally and in Europe.

In Serbia, digital technology's growth has raised human rights concerns, particularly with plans to legalize biometric surveillance. Effective, accessible, and transparent Grievance Redress Mechanisms (GRMs) are essential for addressing abuses like surveillance and online harassment. A collaborative approach among government, civil society, and tech companies is vital to improve Serbia's digital human rights protection.

This publication explores the securitization of European borders, focusing on Serbia's key position in the Western Balkan Route. It examines the impact of physical barriers and modern technologies like drones and thermo-vision cameras on border control. The analysis also reviews EU funding to Serbia and the real intentions behind policies framed as combating illegal migration and smuggling.

In 2019, Serbia announced a partnership with Huawei to introduce facial recognition cameras in Belgrade, sparking concerns about mass surveillance. This led to years of resistance, including legal challenges and advocacy, culminating in a book that examines the global state of biometric surveillance, its dangers, and the lack of regulatory oversight. The book highlights the political nature of surveillance technology, its secrecy, and the failure of legal systems to protect against abuses. It emphasizes the struggle for transparency and accountability in the face of powerful interests, arguing against the claimed safety benefits of biometric surveillance.

Zakon o zaštiti podataka o ličnosti usvojen je 2018. i primenjuje se od avgusta 2019. Inspirisan je GDPR-om EU i uključuje nove obaveze za rukovaoce podacima i jača prava pojedinaca. Iako predstavlja napredak u zaštiti privatnosti u Srbiji, zakon ima nedostataka, posebno u usklađivanju sektorskih zakona i obradi posebnih vrsta podataka. Nova Strategija za zaštitu podataka o ličnosti teži poboljšanju, a analiza ukazuje na glavne probleme i potrebu za reformom.

The growing dependence on digital technology has led to increased digital surveillance by governments and private entities worldwide. In Serbia, this trend is concerning due to the country's opaque surveillance practices and its classification as a "captured state" prone to misuse of state resources. Despite media efforts, the full extent of digital surveillance remains unclear. It's essential to inventory Serbia's surveillance tools, assess their legality, and investigate abuses, especially as Serbia seeks EU membership and must align with its regulatory standards on digital surveillance.

Telcos in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, and Serbia are coming under scrutiny for their lack of transparency and vagueness around policies related to freedom of expression and privacy. Following the methodology of Ranking Digital Rights (RDR), an independent research programme under the auspices of the policy think tank New America that ranked 12 of the world’s most powerful telcos based on their commitments to protect users’ freedom of expression and privacy rights, BIRN analysed the practices of the two largest telcos in each of the Balkan countries covered in this report, for a total of 12 companies, to achieve a broad understanding of the challenges faced in the region. See the full report here https://balkaninsight.com/ranking-digital-rights-in-the-balkans/

This report examines privacy in Iraq, specifically focusing on the practices of two major telecommunication companies: Zain Iraq and Asiacell. With over 40 million mobile phone subscribers and nearly 20 million internet subscribers in Iraq, protecting privacy is more important than ever.

Derechos Digitales is pleased to present this exploratory report assessing the corporate governance, freedom of expression, and privacy policies of some of the most prominent online marketplaces and food delivery platforms operating in selected Latin American countries, to gauge their performance in human rights.

The aim of this 8-part workshop is to work together to ​ explore the challenge of supporting continuous skills development and career growth for digital rights and digital security practitioners, and​ co-create actionable solutions that provide a better path forward. ​ We believe that by pooling our collective knowledge, we can create innovative interventions to overcome this challenge and create a positive impact geared at empowering practitioners.​

This report focuses on the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region and is part of a multi-region research seeking to identify and compare the state of biometrics and digital identity threats, usage, and impact in Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South and Southeast Asia.

This research report uses the Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) Corporate Accountability Index methodology to analyse the policies of eight telecommunications companies operating across four African countries — Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Specifically, to evaluate and record how each company’s disclosed policies and practices affect people’s rights to freedom of expression and privacy. For each of these four countries, we selected the two biggest telecommunications companies in terms of subscribers. These companies are, Airtel and Vodacom in Tanzania; Airtel and MTN in Uganda; Airtel and MTN in Zambia; and Econet and Net One in Zimbabwe. In addition to evaluating the prepaid mobile services, this study also analyses the mobile money, or "digital wallets," services that each company provides.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital identity and biometrics topics. The ‘Cybersecurity and Digital Identity Management’ topic briefly explores the need to integrate cybersecurity best practices into digital ID management.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital identity and biometrics topics. The ‘Human Rights Based Approach in the Design and Implementation of Digital Identity (ID)’ topic briefly explores the importance of integrating human rights considerations into the entire digital ID lifecycle.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital identity and biometrics topics. The ‘Data Protection and Digital Identity’ topic briefly explores how data protection intersects with digital identity.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital identity and biometrics topics. The ‘Border, Travel and Migration’ topic briefly explores how digital identity has been deployed for border management and travel purposes.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital identity and biometrics topics. The ‘Digital Identity in Civil Identification’ topic briefly explores how digital identity has been deployed in civil identification systems.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital rights and internet freedom topics. The ‘Safety and Security Online’ topic examines safety online, security online and women’s rights. It briefly explores safety online challenges, including cyber-stalking and child safety online, security online, including cyber-security and identity theft, and women’s rights online, including online gender-based violence, amongst others.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital rights and internet freedom topics. The ‘Surveillance and Privacy’ topic examines the state of surveillance globally and its impact on individuals’ rights to privacy. It delves into the different forms of surveillance including communications surveillance, government-led digital surveillance, Internet and social media surveillance and monitoring, biometric identification surveillance. It also explores pertinent privacy issues in the digital age, including data breaches privacy policies and consent, browser fingerprinting, and social engineering.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital rights and internet freedom topics. The ‘Digital Divide(s)’ topic examines the gap and disparity between people who have access to digital technologies and those who do not. It delves into the categories and dimensions of the digital divide, digital content availability, and corporate social responsibility and philanthropy.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital rights and internet freedom topics. The ‘Access and Connectivity’ topic explores existing and emerging issues impacting access and connectivity in GIF regions.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital rights and internet freedom topics. The ‘Access to Information’ topic explores contextualized topics on access to information, including government and corporate transparency, open data and big data, access to public information sources or records, transparency by design, and public participation in decision-making.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital rights and internet freedom topics. The ‘Freedom of Expression’ topic examines efforts to promote the unhindered exercise of freedom of expression online. It delves into three issues impacting freedom of expression online, including legal restrictions, hate speech and information disorders, and online abuse, including cyberbullying and online harassment.

The CIPIT and the GIF have developed exploratory material relevant to pertinent digital rights and internet freedom topics. The ‘Access to Information’ topic explores contextualized topics on access to information, including government and corporate transparency, open data and big data, access to public information sources or records, transparency by design, and public participation in decision-making.

The Greater Internet Freedom (GIF) project in Serbia aims to shed a light on the digital surveillance infrastructure in the country, which will enable the digital democracy community to make evidenced-based policy recommendations, as well as increase the knowledge and awareness among citizens about the dangers that unrestricted digital surveillance poses to human rights and democracy. Its objective is to increase the respects of citizens’ rights to privacy, association, freedom of expression by preventing technology-enabled human rights abuse and strengthening the protection of these rights in technology and data laws and regulations.

The purpose of this study is to assess the current state of internet and mobile service providers in Central Asia, while offering them a roadmap toward improvement. The improvements we recommend would help secure online business, thereby increasing user loyalty in the region’s expanding and highly competitive e–business environment. We also hope this study will lay the foundation for mobile and internet providers to consider digital rights in their policy reviews and practices, while demonstrating the importance of respecting and protecting human rights, freedom of expression, and the right to privacy.

The Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Regulations, 2020 are largely restrictive and curtail human rights and freedoms online including expression, information, assembly and association and the right to privacy online. Moreover, the regulations were adopted in haste during a controversial period in Tanzania of COVID-19 denialism and in the run-up period to the 2020 general elections, and appeared aimed at curbing free speech targeting online platforms used by government critics in opposition, media, academia and human rights defenders. The proposed amendments to the regulations provide some ray of hope towards the digital rights and freedom space, but may not be sufficient to fully tackle current concerns in Tanzania.

The Compliance Monitoring and Revenue Assurance Regulations, 2021 largely interfere with individuals’ privacy especially through real time surveillance and monitoring of communications and transactions. While they present opportunities for countering some cybercrime like phone fraud, they should be revised and the regressive provisions as highlighted above removed or amended to protect individuals’ data and privacy rights which are guaranteed in the Constitution, the Data Protection Act, and regional and international human rights instruments.

This outlines the key challenges related to the availability of policies regarding the protection of personal data, terms of use, and other corporate practices of the major telecom operators in Georgia.

This research uses Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) Index Methodology to assess how Armenia’s three telecom operators (Viva-MTS, Team Telecom, and Ucom) collect, store, process, and share users’ data with third parties and government agencies.

This report focuses on Mozambique and is part of a multi-region research aimed to identify and compare the state of biometrics and digital identity threats, usage, and impact in Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South and Southeast Asia.

This report summarizes the findings and recommendations emerging from the Evaluation of “the performance, success and impact of the SAFETAG audits implemented under the Greater Internet Freedom (GIF) project” which was carried out from May to July 2023 by Purpose+Motion in close collaboration with GIF’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team.

From 2022-2023, the Greater Internet Freedom Project conducted research into the digital rights and digital security ecosystem with the aim of identifying the needs and concerns of practitioners working across the internet freedom landscape.

The “Biometrics and Digital Identity: Trend Analysis and Comparative Assessment” global report is produced by the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT), Strathmore University, under the Greater Internet Freedom (GIF) project implemented by Internews and the GIF Consortium. It is informed by a trend analysis and comparative assessment performed by the CIPIT based on the reports produced by the GIF Consortium.

This report focuses on the South and Southeast Asia (SSE Asia) region and is part of a multi-region research seeking to identify and compare the state of biometrics and digital identity threats, usage, and impact in Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South and Southeast Asia.

This report focuses on the African region and is part of multi-region research seeking to identify and compare the state of biometrics and digital identity threats, usage, and impact in Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South and Southeast Asia.

This report focuses on the following Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia, and is part of a multi-region research aimed to identify and compare the state of biometrics and digital identity threats, usage, and impact in Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South and Southeast Asia.

This social media monitoring approach is drawn from lessons learned from social media monitoring projects across Internews and other organizations. It will enable partners to effectively identify, track, and report harmful social media content particularly related to hate speech and violence inciting content. The methodology has been designed to serve the needs of individual researchers, and both small and large organizations, ensuring that teams of different sizes are able to capture sufficient data and insight to produce substantive reports on online threats in their countries that will support advocacy and on-the-ground activities addressing those issues.

Digital Agenda for Tanzania Initiative (DA4TI) has conducted an analysis and review of legal framework and practices surrounding the implementation of biometric digital identity (BDI) programs in Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania (United Republic of Tanzania or Tanzania). Since 2013, the country has upgraded its legal identification processes to encompass digital technologies, including biometric technology, and promote their interconnected use for the delivery of public and private services, including mobile connectivity.

This report explores the topic of biometric identification and the ease of ID documentation access to the youth or young people in la République Démocratique du Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo or DRC) in the context of a rapidly evolving digital landscape. For purposes of this report, biometric identification is defined as the ‘use of a human’s unique physical or behavioral characteristics to establish their identity, in digital and offline environments.

This report focuses on the biometric identification landscape in la República de Angola (the Republic of Angola or Angola), a critical component of the broader digital identity conversation. For purposes of this report, biometric identification is defined as the ‘use of a human’s unique physical or behavioral characteristics to establish their identity, in digital and offline environments’.

This paper is focused on the use of biometric technologies in Zimbabwe, and the rollout of identification (ID) in the country along with prospects on the use of digital ID. The main findings of this desk research are that a significant portion of Zimbabwe’s population is still without birth certificates due to a combination of factors, which range from the country’s liberation struggle to, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of access to birth certificates has a knock-on effect since individuals need birth certificates to apply for national ID.

This report advances the argument for the holistic engagement of stakeholders in the implementation of foundational ID systems, beyond international institutions, governments, and private infrastructure providers. This applies to ID systems that integrate biometric data, biometric technologies, and digital identity.

The report explores the impact of Biometric and Digital Identity (BDI) programs on independent journalism practice in Uganda. Using a mixed-methods approach combining content analysis, questionnaires, and interviews with journalists and media personalities, the report details how the implementation of BDI programs has facilitated surveillance and intrusion on journalists and media houses. In turn, the report examined how this has affected the pursuit of independent journalism practice in Uganda, with a focus on media freedoms and access to information.

This report evaluates the policies and transparency of Mozambique’s telecommunications companies. The report uses the Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) Index Methodology to evaluate the policies and practices of Vodacom1, Tmcel, and Movitel, Mozambique’s major telecommunication companies. The RDR index methodology uses three categories: governance; freedom of expression and information; and privacy.

This curriculum outlines best practices based on current accepted academic norms, for developing and executing research projects.

https://medium.com/codingrights

https://idec.org.br/

https://www.fundamedios.org/ Investigación de Fundamedios realizada por: Maria Fernanda Almeida Sonia Romero Dagmar Thiel Diseño y diagramación: Mary Liseth Donoso

A digital security tool for journalists and social communicators. Available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

https://paradigmhq.org/

https://paradigmhq.org/politiques-de-lintelligence-artificielle-et-de-prise-de-decision-automatisee-en-rd-congo/?lang=fr

https://paradigmhq.org/

https://paradigmhq.org/

https://engagemedia.org/projects/gif-report-digital-safety/

http://www.origenferaz.org/