A/HRC/41/35
on many areas of human rights law and thus many mandates of special procedures –
interfere with fundamental human rights.
V. Recommendations
66.
For States:
(a)
States should impose an immediate moratorium on the export, sale,
transfer, use or servicing of privately developed surveillance tools until a human
rights-compliant safeguards regime is in place;
(b)
States that purchase or use surveillance technologies (“purchasing
States”) should ensure that domestic laws permit their use only in accordance with the
human rights standards of legality, necessity and legitimacy of objectives, and
establish legal mechanisms of redress consistent with their obligation to provide
victims of surveillance-related abuses with an effective remedy;
(c)
Purchasing States should also establish mechanisms that ensure public
or community approval, oversight and control of the purchase of surveillance
technologies;
(d)
States that export or permit the export of surveillance technologies
(“exporting States”) should ensure that the relevant government agencies solicit
public input and conduct multi-stakeholder consultations when they are processing
applications for export licences. All records pertaining to export licences should be
stored and made available to the greatest extent possible. They should also establish
safe harbours for security research and exempt encryption items from export control
restrictions;
(e)
Exporting States should join the Wassenaar Arrangement and abide by
its rules and standards to the extent that these are consistent with international
human rights law;
(f)
States participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement should develop a
framework by which the licensing of any technology would be conditional upon a
national human rights review and companies’ compliance with the Guiding Principles
on Business and Human Rights. Such a framework could be developed through a
specially established human rights working group. Additionally, they should set clear
and enforceable guidelines on transparency and accountability with respect to
licensing decisions, surveillance-related human rights abuses and the treatment of
digital vulnerabilities.
67.
For companies:
(a)
Private surveillance companies should publicly affirm their
responsibility to respect freedom of expression, privacy and related human rights, and
integrate human rights due diligence processes from the earliest stages of product
development and throughout their operations. These processes should establish
human rights by design, regular consultations with civil society (particularly groups at
risk of surveillance), and robust transparency reporting on business activities that
have an impact on human rights;
(b)
Companies should also put in place robust safeguards to ensure that any
use of their products or services is compliant with human rights standards. These
safeguards include contractual clauses that prohibit the customization, targeting,
servicing or other use that violates international human rights law, technical design
features to flag, prevent or mitigate misuse, and human rights audits and verification
processes;
(c)
When companies detect misuses of their products and services to commit
human rights abuses, they should promptly report them to the relevant domestic,
regional or international oversight bodies. They should also establish effective
20
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents