Internet and Human rights. Human Right to be Offline

Description

LL.M Ilze Berzina, Riga Stradiņš University, Faculty of Social Sciences, lecturer and researcher

Research presentation Based on Abstract
Societal and Ethical Implications of Cybersecurity Technologies - Balancing security measures with individual rights - Social implications (Section 7)

Internet and Human rights. Human Right to be Offline

The notion of a "right to be offline" is an emerging area within human rights, particularly in the legal context. The abstract suggests a unique approach by highlighting both legal and ethical aspects, which sets it apart from more common discussions solely focused on data privacy and online rights.
There is no common definition of Human rights to be offline yet adopted, but mostly it is defined as a right to disconnect from work and primarily not to engage in work related electronic communication such as e-mails and other digital tasks, but it is starting to affect not only the work-life balance, but also other fields of life such and private life and data protection. As a reaction to increasing tempus of life, discussion about legal and ethical aspects of a right to be disconnect among sociologists, lawyers and psychologists about the right of the person to be offline and it is becoming an increasingly important topic. An author of the presentation will give an insight and newest information about both: the legal and ethical discussions and documents adopted about the right to be offline as a human right and a right to have balance between work and private life.
Can we guarantee the same human rights online as offline? Can existing United Nations, Council of Europe and European Union treaties and other documents secure our rights or do we have to recreate a new special “online human rights”? Mainly led by the legal scholars, movements about securing technology free time for people are increasingly important. For example, initiative www.righttooffline.eu is calling to share concerns about the fact that more and more essential services for people are accessible only online without giving a choice to have other options. In the meantime, also other aspects of persons privacy are continuously affected by the actual lack of full privacy without technologies or online profile registration. Most of the national and international legal documents are written about how to be online, but not about how to be offline or right to disconnect. Legal developments currently cover mostly work and working hours related legislation about being online and offline, which should be in the accordance with international treaties and local labor laws, but not yet enough covering the other privacy and data protection aspects.
Obviously, there is a lack of alignment between human rights protections and mechanisms to balance individual’s freedom from constant connectivity. Human rights developments concerning personal data protection and a right to privacy in the internet are currently behind on the actual violations of privacy and usage of technologies 24/7.

Period	5 Dec 2024
Event title	Baltic Cybersecurity Innovation Forum "CyberBazaar 2024" : CyberBazaar 2024 Research track
Event type	Forum
Location	Riga, LatviaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International