IGF 2014

How can we protect our privacy when our most private communications can be covertly collected and analysed by States all around the world? How can freedom of expression exist if every time we read a text or article by a controversial author, our actions are automatically logged and stored by the machines, algorithms, and agents of the state?

Since the Snowden revelations, many people have begun to realise that the laws of their own country provide only ineffective protection against mass surveillance and the laws of other countries provide them with no protection at all. The world is waking up to the reality that most governments treat the private communications of non-residents and foreign nationals as fair game. The UN Human Rights Committee has for the first time remonstrated the US government for failing to provide extra-territorial protection for the privacy of non-citizens and legal challenges are being brought against bulk surveillance of foreign communications around the world.

The purpose of this roundtable is to build upon these developments and discuss what needs to be done to ensure established international human rights law is respected in the context of transnational surveillance. Among the questions to be addressed are:

Should we allow the intelligence services of one country to snoop on the residents of another without restraint?
Can any country freely violate the rights of foreigners by claiming they fall outside their jurisdiction?
Are existing surveillance laws compatible with the right to non-discrimination under international law?