The right to privacy in the digital age
A/RES/79/175
(d) To ensure that respect for the right to privacy and other international human
rights is incorporated into the design, operation, evaluation and regulation of automated
decision-making and machine-learning technologies and to provide for compensation
for the human rights abuses that they may cause or to which they may contribute;
(e) To ensure that individuals have access to their personal data and to adopt
appropriate measures for the possibility to amend, correct, update, delete and
withdraw consent for the data, in particular if the data are incorrect or inaccurate, or
if the data were obtained illegally;
(f) To put in place adequate safeguards that seek to prevent or mitigate adverse
human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services,
including where necessary through contractual clauses or notification of any relevant
entities of abuses or violations when misuse of their products and services is detected;
(g) To enhance efforts to combat discrimination resulting from the use of
artificial intelligence systems, including by exercising due diligence in assessing,
preventing and mitigating the adverse human rights impacts of their deployment;
10. Encourages business enterprises to work towards enabling technical
solutions to secure and protect the confidentiality of digital communications, which
may include measures for encryption, pseudonymization and anonymity, and calls
upon States not to interfere with the use of such technical solutions, with any
restrictions thereon complying with the obligations of States under international
human rights law, and to enact policies that recognize and protect the privacy of
individuals’ digital communications;
11. Encourages States and, where applicable, business enterprises to
systematically conduct human rights due diligence throughout the life cycle of the
artificial intelligence systems that they conceptualize, design, develop, deploy, sell,
obtain or operate, including regular and comprehensive human rights impact
assessments and the participation of all relevant stakeholders;
12. Encourages Member States and all relevant stakeholders to prevent harm
to individuals caused by artificial intelligence systems and to refrain from or cease
the use of artificial intelligence applications that are impossible to operate in
compliance with international human rights law or that pose undue risks to the
enjoyment of human rights, in particular the right to privacy, unless and until adequate
safeguards to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms are in place;
13. Encourages States, business enterprises and other private actors to foster,
support and facilitate education and digital literacy, promote awareness and self protection training and guidance, and support capacity-building initiatives to enable
citizens to better understand the concepts relating to artificial intelligence,
transparency and explainability, to ensure that their rights, including the right to
privacy, are respected;
14. Encourages all relevant stakeholders to mainstream a gender perspective
into the conceptualization, development and implementation of digital technologies
and related policies and promote the participation of women in order to address
violence and discrimination against women and girls in digital contexts, inter alia, by
encouraging digital technology companies, including Internet service providers, to
respect standards and implement transparent and accessible reporting mechanisms;
15. Emphasizes that, in the digital age, encryption and anonymity tools have
become vital for many journalists and media workers to freely exercise their work
and their enjoyment of human rights, in particular their rights to freedom of
expression and to privacy, including to secure their communications and to protect
the confidentiality of their sources, and calls upon States not to interfere with the use
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