A/HRC/41/41 reproduce bias and discrimination, to the detriment of democratic development. These measures can also have a disproportionate effect on already marginalized or at-risk groups, including women. 93 Algorithmic systems are obscure and constantly changing, affecting individuals’ and groups’ visibility online without them “being able to investigate or understand why, how or on what basis”.94 61. Policies and features on user privacy and security of communications can also affect the enjoyment of the rights of peaceful assembly and association. Only a few digital technology companies allow the use of pseudonyms or other ways to mask an individual’s identity, or provide for encrypted communications. The Special Rapporteur welcomes efforts made by social media platform Grindr to devise and introduce security features on its platform to help protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons in Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Lebanon who face police harassment, torture and imprisonment. 62. While some efforts to include the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy in the risk assessments and due diligence processes of some digital technology companies have been taken into account, the Special Rapporteur observes that the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association have not been considered. In his meetings with the digital technology companies, he was able to determine that many such companies recognized the value and importance of these rights in a democratic society, but had not yet issued a high-level policy commitment in that regard. 63. The Special Rapporteur calls on digital technology companies to meet their responsibilities to respect internationally accepted human rights standards, including the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. To that end, the effective implementation of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights should be a priority for these companies. Models that include an independent impact assessment oversight, such as the ones promoted by the Global Network Initiative, 95 should be scaled up. Digital technology companies should make policy commitments to respect peaceful assembly and association rights (in addition to existing commitments to respect freedom of expression and privacy rights), conduct due diligence in relation to these fundamental freedoms, including through regular human rights impact assessments, and establish effective remediation processes to provide compensation and other forms of redress when violations occur. States should adopt and enforce laws and policies that focus on creating mandatory requirements for digital technology companies to exercise due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address, human rights impacts of their business and products, as well as for robust transparency and remediation mechanisms. These laws and policies must “have at their core the objective of universal access and the enjoyment of human rights”96 and be consistent with guidance following from international standards and norms. They should be adopted only after a fully inclusive and participatory consultation process with the relevant stakeholders. 64. The Special Rapporteur believes the international human rights law framework should govern digital technology companies’ responses to government requests, content moderation and engineering choices, including computational curation of content. This means that standards of legality, necessity and legitimacy should be applicable to companies’ decisions that affect peaceful assembly and association rights. The Special Rapporteur refers to recent reports of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, on the subject of online platforms’ content moderation and artificial intelligence, which detail the complexity and extent of these problems and set forth important recommendations. 97 93 94 95 96 97 16 A/HRC/35/9, para. 41. A/73/348, para. 32. Global Network Initiative is a multi-stakeholder platform launched in 2008 “to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT industry by setting a global standard for responsible company decision-making”. See https://globalnetworkinitiative.org/team/our-mission/. Human Rights Council resolution 38/7, para. 18. A/HRC/38/35, para. 61.