Digital age has brought many opportunities and challenges. The key challenges are: how to harness the opportunities while enjoying and protecting human rights; and, how to translate ‘traditional’5 offline rights into online rights. The key question is ‘how to guarantee and protect human rights online? The nature of digital age and globalization has broken geographical boundaries, legal territories and jurisdictions. Africa and specifically Southern Africa as part of the global digital village has not been spared by the dilemma of technology and human rights. Digital rights are an extension of ‘human rights in the offline’ world as recognised, protected and promoted by international laws and conventions6. These include the right to freedom of expression, the right to privacy, and the right to freedom from censorship and online surveillance, to name a few7. These rights are in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)8. The UN Human Rights Council has affirmed in a number of resolutions that “the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online.” Read more by clicking the link below
Beyond-a-Click-Assessment-of-digital-rights-in-Southern-Africa.pdf