In line with the UN secretary general’s initiative to help member states address the COVID-19 crisis, the UN Inter-agency Task Team on Science, Technology and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) launched a call for proposals on technology solutions for addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and its immediate impacts. Solutions from diverse sources and communities [...]

A joint statement was signed by 29 organisations to call upon the governments of the Gulf countries to permanently lift the ban on all Voice Over IP (VoIP) platforms used for voice and video Internet calls. The banned VoIP services, which have been blocked since 2017, have an adverse impact on the fundamental rights of [...]

According to a press release, the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development has in an emergency virtual meeting adopted an Agenda of Action outlining how governments, industry, and civil society can pool network and infrastructure resources as an immediate measure to boost network access and inclusiveness in an effort to strengthen the global response to the [...]

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Coordination Body for the Suppression of Infectious Disease, an entity founded by the government of Montenegro, has introduced new measures, one of them being to digitally publish the identity of persons who were ordered into obligatory 14-day self-isolation. After this public body started publishing names, surnames as [...]

NOYB, a civil society organization led by privacy activist Max Schrems, announced having filed a complaint against Amazon to the German data protection authority. The complaint argues that the emails sent via Amazon’s servers contain information such as users’ IP and email address, name, surname,  purchase  details as well as other metadata, and are not [...]

 According to Associated Press, London police has started using live facial recognition technology in London, to find individuals wanted for serious crimes. This launch follows a series of trials carried out in the city in 2019. The use of this technology raises strong concerns from civil society organizations, regarding privacy.  According to the Guardian, an [...]

The High Court has suspended Kenya’s biometric ID programme until a comprehensive legal framework on digital ID is developed.  This followed a petition by civil society groups and the national human rights institution on grounds that the programme violated the privacy of Kenyans. They also raised concerns that minorities and border communities who did not [...]

124 French civil society organisations, including la Quadrature du net, have released a joint letter calling for the ban of facial recognition for law enforcement. This letter invites political candidates to the upcoming local elections in France to join this cause and take into account the lack of proportionality of these techniques and their great [...]

In a speech before the UN General Assembly, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke about the “four horsemen in our midst’ that pose a threat to the global future. Amongst the ‘four horsemen’ is the ‘dark side of the digital world’ which includes job displacement provoked by automation, misuse of cyberspace by terrorists, cybercrime, and [...]

The 5th Arab Internet Governance Forum (ArabIGF-V) took place in Cairo on 22-23 January 2020. It was organised by ESCWA and the League of Arab States, in co-operation with the National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt – the Arab IGF Secretariat since 2012, and was hosted by the Arab Administrative Development Organization (ARADO) at its [...]