Session
Organizer 1: Víctor Práxedes Saavedra Rionda, International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations - INCLO
Organizer 2: Olga Cronin, 🔒
Speaker 1: Sherylle Dass, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 2: Kirill Koroteev, Civil Society, Eastern European Group
Speaker 3: Paula Litvachky, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Víctor Práxedes Saavedra Rionda, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Olga Cronin, Civil Society, African Group
Olga Cronin, Civil Society, African Group
Round Table - 90 Min
- What role can civil society organizations in the Global South play locally and internationally given the growth of surveillance biometric technologies and growing sophistication of AI systems?
- How should civil society organizations overcome the legal, political and social challenges they face when addressing the deployment of FRT systems in their jurisdictions?
- How should civil society organizations in the Global South educate and meaningfully mobilise the public, especially younger generations, about the dangers of surveillance technologies on fundamental rights?
What will participants gain from attending this session? Participants will leave the session empowered with a deeper understanding of how civil society in the Global North and Global South are pushing back against intrusive and privacy-disrespecting biometric technologies such as Facial Recognition Technology. They will gain knowledge about successful strategies in other jurisdictions and how civil society can work to overcome obstacles in relation to this emerging technology - legal, social, political or otherwise - and leave the session with the understanding and tools of how to apply those strategies in their own jurisdictions. They will ultimately learn creative and imaginative ways to intervene against the use of Facial Recognition Technologies in their jurisdictions and how to engage the public on the same.
Description:
Facial Recognition Technology systems are increasingly being adopted for policing purposes around the globe, despite extensive evidence detailing how FRT systems unjustifiably infringe people’s fundamental rights and how they are incompatible with current privacy and due process standards. This take-up of FRT has been vehemently opposed by civil society organizations around the world, with different campaigns experiencing different success rates whether those campaigns called for bans, moratoriums or regulation. Much of the discourse on this topic is focused on the activities of civil society in the Global North.
As the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations (INCLO), with member organizations in 15 countires in the Global North and South, we aim to rectify that imbalance by bringing the experience of Global South civil society organizations to the fore in this global discussion about FRT. In this session, we will increase the visibility of their actions, the challenges they face, and their successes. We will provide a space for Global South civil society organizations to exchange strategies and share lessons learned about the social, legal and institutional obstacles they face when addressing the challenges of FRT in their jurisdictions. The hybrid session will include representatives from a wide range of civil society organizations around the world, and contributions from those in the Global North, who will share their perspectives, experiences, successes and challenges to further enrich the discussion for all attendees.
We expect our participants and attendees to:
1. Connect, and/or strengthen their connection, with each other, with a view to collaborating on collective joint actions in respect of FRT in the future;
2. Benefit from the sharing of experiences, challenges and concrete success stories by using that knowledge when they return to their national advocacy work on FRT - whether that’s lessons on communications, messaging, litigation or strategies on advocacy; and
3. Following the roundtable discussion, the participants will use the discussion to engage further and publish a toolkit for Global South civil society organizations working in this area.
Hybrid Format: We would organize the roundtable with a square shape, being one of the sides for online participants. That is to say, having a screen on such a side where online participants would be projected. In the center of the roundtable we would like to use an Owl-like device with a camera that can follow the speakers onsite and capture audio. Alternatively, this can be done with cameras and table mics.
As for the discussion, we would like to propose a set of three simple questions that will both guide the presentation of the proposed participants but that would enable anyone onsite and online to present their experiences to be discussed. We would like the roundtable attendees to be as active participants as possible, so ideally, should that be the case, we would like the first presentations to a maximum of 30 to 45 minutes.