UNGA76 Side event: The digital surveillance crisis and threats to human rights defenders
Channel: Access Now
Date: 2021-10-21

This event discussed how states, facilitated by private companies, are unlawfully deploying targeted surveillance technologies against civil society around the world. The biennial General Assembly resolution on human rights defenders that will be considered at its 76th session offered an opportunity to discuss the effects of digital surveillance on the activities and safety of human rights defenders and their rights to privacy and freedom of expression, and to adopt measures that would allow defenders to continue exercise their human rights unhindered.

Speakers 
Mr. Odd-Inge Kvalheim - Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N., Norway 
Siddharth Varadarajan - Founding Editor, The Wire 
Agnès Callamard - Secretary General, Amnesty International  
Mary Lawlor - UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders 
Mohammed Al Maskati, Bahraini human rights activist and digital security consultant, Front Line Defenders
Emily Martinez, Director, Human Rights Initiative, OSF 
Mark Zellenrath, Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands at the UN

Moderator: 
Brett Solomon - Executive Director, Access Now