Today, we see almost daily how the use and regulation of digital tools impact our societies and politics. Since several social media companies decided to ban outgoing US President Donald Trump after his incitement of violence led to his supporters storming the US Capitol, discussions of the role of social media companies and regulation has been rife. During the parliamentary and presidential elections in Uganda, the incumbent President Museveni ordered a complete shutdown of the internet in the country, a strategy increasingly used by autocrats everywhere to silence their critics. It was recently revealed that Chinese companies have patented a series of facial recognition tools capable of identifying Uyghurs, which may have been used to intensify the oppression in Xinjiang.

In December 2019, Liberal International conducted a survey among our member parties, asking whether they had developed policy on digitalisation and human rights. To our surprise, only 1 in 3 parties responded that they had. This realisation laid the foundation for the campaign that Liberal International, with the generous support of Radikale Venstre, is launching this week.

With digital tools and solutions taking on an increasingly large role in our lives, the importance of securing human rights online becomes ever more pressing. Lockdowns imposed to fight the coronavirus has sped up this development, and for a large part of the world digital tools are now used on a daily basis for taking part in fundamental societal functions such as education, work, health care, payments, and keeping in touch with friends and family. Artificial intelligence is also increasingly used in decision making.

With this campaign, Liberal International and Radikale Venstre wish to illustrate and explain what human rights mean online, why it is important to protect them, and what should be done to do so.  Too many citizens are not aware of what their digital rights are, or how they relate to our rights in the physical world. This campaign will strive to raise awareness and to increase the knowledge of digital issues for liberals everywhere.

Throughout the campaign, we will highlight ten core digital rights issues that all liberal parties and policy-makers should address. We will raise issues related to mass surveillance, content moderation, artificial intelligence, and structural inequalities in access to digital communication technologies. Technological development is happening fast, and it is crucial that liberals act to address these issues to ensure that our fundamental values continue to be protected in a digital world.

This campaign, which will be launched on Friday 22 January with an event featuring Executive Vice President of the European Commission Margrethe Vestager responsible for making Europe fit for the Digital Age, and journalist and author Maria Ressa, CEO of Rappler from the Philippines. We will continue throughout the spring to lay out the foundations for the digital issues that all liberals must address. Building on best practices and knowledge from policy-makers and experts, it will culminate in a publication of the Liberal Principles of Digitalisation and Human Rights.

We look forward to engaging with the global liberal family on these issues over the months to come.

Astrid Thors, LI Vice President and Chair of the LI Human Rights Committee (LI HRC)

Charlotte Burgess, International Officer of Radikale Venstre and LI HRC member