PROGRAM

New technologies can play a key role in protecting human rights, but also create new threats to human rights and vulnerabilities for human rights defenders. This program examined such developments as the use of satellite imagery, drones, and video forensics for monitoring and accountability for human rights violations, the expanding role of citizen witnesses in human rights reporting and advocacy, especially using camera phones and other widely available technologies, and the need to prevent abusive governments from obtaining data gathered by human rights organizations.

With panelists: Sam Gregory, Program Director at WITNESS, Iain Levine, Deputy Executive Director at Human Rights Watch and Enrique Piraces, Vice President of Benetech’s Human Rights Program.  The panel was moderated by Andrew Rasiej, Founder of Personal Democracy Media and the Personal Democracy Forum.

Photo Credit: A female supporter of Lebanese Salafist figure, Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, takes a picture with her tabled during a protest against the Syrian regime in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on December 2, 2012. AFP PHOTO/MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/Getty Images.

RESOURCES

• "Unchecked Surveillance is a Threat to Human Rights" by Enrique Piracés (9/20/2013)
  


• Empowering Human Rights Through Video: An interview with Sam Gregory regarding human rights and video technology (Community Media Review - Spring 2010)
  


• "Will Technology Transform Human Rights Movement?" by Iain Levine (openDemocracy.net - 03/26/2014)