Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Context of Digital Technologies

A/RES/78/213View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 71bHuman rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, published in 2023.

What other versions does this mandate have?

2 versions · 2023–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/215

2025A/RES/80/215Promotion and protection of human rights in the context of digital technologiesLatestCompare with previous version
2023A/RES/78/213Promotion and protection of human rights in the context of digital technologies

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

1 entity

Extracted automatically from each entity’s budget submission.

What subjects does this mandate have?

5 topics

Digital Divide Digital Technology Disinformation Human Rights Human Rights Advancement

What does this mandate say?

29 operative paragraphs

Affirms that human rights and fundamental freedoms must be protected, online and offline;

Encourages all Member States to promote an open, safe, secure, stable, free, interoperable, inclusive, accessible and peaceful digital technology environment in accordance with international law, including the obligations enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and international human rights law;

Calls upon all Member States:

To consider developing or maintaining and implementing adequate legislation, in consultation with all relevant stakeholders, including business enterprises, international organizations, civil society and technical and academic communities, with effective sanctions and appropriate remedies, that protects individuals against violations and abuses of their human rights in the digital context;

To provide effective and up-to-date guidance to business enterprises on how to respect human rights by advising on appropriate methods, including human rights due diligence, and on how to consider effectively issues of vulnerability and accessibility;

To ensure that victims of violations and abuses have effective and accessible remedy, that threats and acts of violence are investigated effectively, and that those responsible are brought to justice in order to combat impunity;

Encourages the private sector and all relevant stakeholders to meet their responsibility to respect human rights in line with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework and applicable domestic laws;

Recognizes the importance of combating all forms of violence in the context of digital technologies, including sexual exploitation and abuse, harassment, stalking, bullying, non-consensual sharing of personal sexually explicit content, threats and acts of sexual and gender-based violence, death threats, arbitrary or unlawful surveillance and tracking, trafficking in persons, extortion, censorship, illegal access to digital accounts, mobile telephones and other electronic devices, in line with international human rights law;

Calls upon the private sector and all relevant stakeholders to ensure that respect for human rights is incorporated into the conception, design, development, deployment, operation, use, evaluation and regulation of all new and emerging digital technologies and to provide for redress and effective remedy for the human rights abuses that they may cause, contribute to, or to which they may be directly linked;

Encourages online platforms, including social media companies, to review their business models and ensure that their design and development processes, their business operations, data-collection and data-processing practices are in line with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and emphasizes the importance of conducting human rights due diligence of their products, particularly of the role of algorithms and ranking systems in amplifying disinformation and hate speech, and calls upon them to adopt and make publicly available, after consultation with all relevant stakeholders, clear, transparent, narrowly defined content and advertising policies on countering disinformation and advocacy of hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence that are in line with international human rights law, and emphasizing the role of States to put in place safeguards so that companies, including technology companies, meet their responsibilities to respect human rights;

Calls upon Member States to work with relevant stakeholders, including the private sector and civil society, to take steps to close all digital divides, including through creating an enabling and inclusive regulatory environment for small and non-profit Internet operators, and to promote digital inclusion by addressing the challenges associated with access, affordability, safety, digital literacy and digital skills, ensuring that the benefits of new and emerging digital technologies are available to all without discrimination of any kind;

Stresses that many Member States all over the world, especially developing countries, need support in expanding infrastructure, cooperation in science, technology and innovation and capacity-building, including human and institutional capacity-building, to ensure the accessibility, affordability and availability of the Internet in order to bridge digital divides, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and to ensure the full enjoyment of human rights;

Calls upon Member States to encourage the inclusiveness of innovation, especially with regard to local communities, women, persons with disabilities, older persons and youth, and to ensure that the scaling and diffusion of new technologies are inclusive and do not create further divides;

Also calls upon Member States to adopt specific measures to close the gender digital divide and to ensure that particular attention is paid to access, affordability, digital literacy, privacy and online safety, to enhance the use of digital technologies and to mainstream a disability, gender and racial equality perspective in policy decisions and the frameworks that guide them;

Affirms the important role that the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the full respect for the freedom to seek, receive and impart information plays in strengthening democracy, promoting pluralism and multiculturalism, enhancing transparency and press freedom and countering disinformation and hate speech;

Also affirms the responsibility of States to counter, as appropriate, and in accordance with international human rights law, the dissemination of disinformation, which can be designed and implemented so as to mislead, to violate and abuse human rights, and expressing concern that the dissemination of disinformation can violate and abuse human rights, including privacy and the freedom of individuals to seek, receive and impart information, and to incite all forms of violence, hatred, discrimination and hostility, inter alia, racism, xenophobia, negative stereotyping and stigmatization, and stresses that responses to the spread of disinformation and misinformation must be grounded in international human rights law, including the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality and non-discrimination and underlines the importance of free, independent, plural and diverse media and of providing and promoting access to independent, fact-based information to counter disinformation and misinformation;

Calls upon Member States to strengthen international cooperation, including with international and regional organizations, and cooperation with the private sector, including technology companies, national human rights institutions and civil society in order to share expertise, knowledge and effective practices in addressing disinformation and advocacy of hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, including in the development and use of digital technologies;

Urges Member States to refrain from interference with the use of technologies such as encryption and anonymity tools, and from employing unlawful or arbitrary surveillance techniques, including through hacking;

Calls upon Member States to ensure that targeted surveillance technologies are only used in accordance with the human rights principles of legality, necessity and proportionality, and that legal mechanisms of redress and effective remedies are available for victims of surveillance-related violations and abuses;

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 by journalists and media workers of such technologies and to ensure that any restrictions thereon comply with the obligations of States under international human rights law;

Calls upon Member States to refrain from imposing restrictions on the free flow of information and ideas that are inconsistent with relevant obligations under international law, including articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, through practices such as the use of Internet shutdowns and online censorship to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or the dissemination of information, and from using digital technologies to silence, unlawfully or arbitrarily surveil or harass individuals or groups, including in the context of peaceful assemblies;

Affirms that human rights and fundamental freedoms must be respected, protected and promoted throughout the life cycle of artificial intelligence systems and that new and emerging digital technologies should provide new means to promote, protect and exercise human rights and not to infringe upon them;

Calls upon Member States and, where applicable, other stakeholders:

To conduct human rights due diligence, including regular, comprehensive human rights impact assessments of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, throughout their life cycle, including their conception, design, development, deployment, use, sale, procurement or operation, in order to prevent and mitigate their adverse human rights impacts, and ensuring effective remedies as well as human oversight, accountability and legal responsibility;

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, unless and until the adequate safeguards to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms are in place;

To promote the transparency of artificial intelligence systems and adequate explainability of artificial intelligence-supported decisions, taking into account the various human rights risks arising from these technologies;

To ensure that digital or biometric identity programmes are designed, implemented and operated after appropriate human rights safeguards, as well as technical, regulatory, legal and ethical safeguards, are in place, and in line with international human rights law;

Encourages Member States and business enterprises to ensure participation of all relevant stakeholders in decisions on the development, deployment and use of artificial intelligence;

Decides to continue its consideration of the question at its eightieth session.

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