Digital Rights are your existing human rights when you are online, using a smartphone  or other digital device.  

Your human rights are guaranteed in international law and all of the same human rights that you have offline must be respected equally when you are online. 

For example, you have the right to privacy when instant messaging or sharing information with an online service provider and you have the right to freedom of assembly and speech when using social media. 

Protecting digital rights is important because our social, economic and political life is increasingly conducted online where we face new risks such as digital surveillance, disinformation, scammers, and algorithmic discrimination.

Everybody possesses the same digital rights no matter their age, sex, ability, ethnicity, religion or sexuality. These digital rights do not need to be activated to be claimed, and nobody can take them away. Digital rights apply to everybody, equally.

Digital rights include, for example:

· The right to privacy when shopping online.

· The right to free expression and freedom from violence when on social media.

· The right to access online information, communication and government services including social protection.

· The right to data protection when sharing personal information with companies or government agencies.

Digital rights apply when you are using digital tools like email, sending instant messages on social media, or when accesssing online government services or using company wesbites. Digital rights also apply to information held about you in apps, by platform companies, or government agencies. 

Digital rights apply to all current and all future digital information and communicaiton technologies – even those not yet in use or not yet invented. 

Digital rights organisations exist because human rights law was written before the internet, mobile phones, and social media existed. We are working to understand for example how automated algorithmic systems impact human rights and what needs to be done in terms of awareness raising, regulation, and governance to ensure the benefits of digitalisation do not come at the expense of our fundamental human right.

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