Transcript Title goes here - Consumidores Arg

CI Global Meeting on A2K
Consumers International
21-22 April 2010
Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Khalilur Rahman Sajal
Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB)
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]
Website: www.consumerbd.org
Introduction
Human rights is the “Rights essential for human beings to live a humane life”.
Every Individual is born with and entitled to the inherent and inalienable rights,
and most nations around the world have laws to guarantee their people human
rights. In particular, fundamental freedoms and rights described in the national
constitution.
Information society is not a separate world from what we live in now.
Human rights in the information society means the human rights described in the
UDHR and in the related international laws.
Universal Declaration of
Human Rights
Article 19
Freedom of opinion and express
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to
hold opinions without interferences and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas
through any media and regardless of frontiers.
In order to protect societies against possible abuses of the right to freedom of speech,
international human rights law also provided for a series of limitations on this freedom.
Article 27
Sharing benefits from the development of technology
The right to access to technology is provided in Article 27.1 of the UDHR where it is stated that
` Everyone has the right freely to ... share in scientific advancement and its benefits.’ This right
is inspired by the basic moral principle of equality and the notion that science and technology
belong to the common heritage of humankind.
Article 28
Social and international order
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set
forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Key Actors in Information
Society
Key Actors
States
 States need to demonstrate their national legislation and
policies on human rights complaints
Civil Society
 Civil Society should show awareness and willingness to
address the specific human rights challenges within an
information society context
Corporate
 Corporate Social Responsibility
Dimensions and Human Rights
provisions for the Information Society
 Technology
 Access to technical education
 Use of technology to promote human rights
 Equal sharing benefits of technology
 Protection against harmful effects
 Participation in public policy making
 Attention for the needs of disadvantaged groups
Dimensions and Human Rights
provisions for the Information Society
 Culture
 Self determination of culture development
 Diversity of creative work and media contents
 Participation in culture life
 Recognition of cultural practices
 Sharing benefits of scientific developments
 Protection of cultural heritage
 Use of the mother tongue
 Involvement in cultural policies
Dimensions and Human Rights
provisions for the Information Society
 Politics
 Freedom of expression
 Freedom of opinion
 Protection of privacy
 Responsibility to provide information about matters
of public interest
Dimensions and Human Rights
provisions for the Information Society
 Economy
 Self-determination of economic development
 Right to development
 Corporate responsibility
 Privacy/security
 Corporate ownership
Causes of access to information
inequality
 Economic causes
 Social and cultural causes
 Education
 Gender
 Disability
 Age
 Race
 Nationality
 Legislative causes
Digital Divide
Right to access information, knowledge is a constitutional right of every
individuals
But many individuals are being deprived of such rights because of disparity
in opportunity, which is termed as Digital
Divide
Priority must be given to those who today are excluded from the information
society
Digital Divide
Access to and the ability to effectively use ICTs to obtain accurate, sufficient and
timely information and services are becoming increasingly important to fully
participate in Information Society.
In order to get benefits from the information society, we require to have more
knowledge and money, which leads to the digital divide
Digital Divide can be best described by the disparity in access and use of
information caused by inability to access computers and the internet due to
economic reasons, educational backgrounds, disability, age and regions.
Indicators of Human
Development Index

Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity

Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate and
the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross income ratio.

Standard of living, as measured by gross domestic product per capita
at purchasing power parity.
Indicators of ICT
Development Index
ICT Access- Fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants, mobile
telephone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, International Internet
bandwidth per Internet user, proportion of households with a computer,
proportion of households with Internet access at home
ICT Use- Internet users per 100 inhabitants, fixed broadband Internet
subscribers per 100 inhabitants, mobile broadband subscriptions per
100 inhabitants
ICT Skills- Adult literacy rate, secondary gross enrolment ratio, tertiary
gross enrolment ratio
HDI & IDI
HDI Ranking
HDI Ranking
IDI Ranking
IDI Ranking
Top 10 Countries with lowest ranking
Top 10 Countries with highest ranking
1
Norway
Sweden
1
173
Guinea-Bissau
Congo
150
2
Australia
Luxembourg
2
174
Burundi
151
3
Iceland
Korea
3
Papua New
Guinea
4
Canada
Denmark
4
175
Chad
Eritrea
152
5
Ireland
Netherlands
5
176
Congo
Mozambique
153
6
Netherlands
Iceland
6
177
Burkina Faso
Ethiopia
154
7
Sweden
Switzerland
7
178
Mali
Burkina Faso
155
8
France
Japan
8
179
Central African Republic
Guinea-Bissau
156
9
Switzerland
Norway
9
180
Sierra Leone
Guinea
157
Japan
United Kingdom
10
181
Afghanistan
Niger
158
182
Niger
Chad
159
10
Source: UN Human Development Index 2009 & International
Telecommunication Union, Measuring the Information Society 2010
HDI & IDI
Developed countries have much higher levels of ICT access, use and skills but
developing countries have made larger improvements on ICT access over the five
year period and are therefore likely to catch up slowly with developed countries
on ICT access.

HDI and IDI have an inter-relationship in Information Society

Human rights should be ensured in information society related to
technological, cultural, sociopolitical and economic aspects.
Obligatory international
funding mechanism
Innovative and binding international funding mechanism
(fund, subsidies) for the development of infrastructure and
skills at the international, regional and national levels aimed
at the least developed and developing countries.
Links between traditional
media and new information
technologies
Develop links between traditional & new information technology and
promote community access to information and communication.
Community media support as a means to meet the needs of specific
population and other groups and stimulate the production of appropriate
content/messages.
ICT in private and public
administration
Authentic tripartite structures e.g. government, civil society and private
sector in all international regulatory bodies linked to the information
society, notably in the framework of WTO, ITU, WIPO and others
Enhance transparency, access to information and democratic
participation.
Special emphasis on implementation of policies and tools facilitating
participation by under-privileged regions and communities at local,
regional and national policies.
Transfer of knowledge
Encourage transfer of knowledge in local language corresponding to their
needs and reflecting their aspirations
Invest in the development of skills specially for women and marginalized
section of the community through training program in order to increase their
political, cultural and social participation
Use of Open source software
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software
as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from
several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for
such sale.
The program must include source code and must allow distribution in source
code as well as compiled form.
Must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program.
Use of Open source software
Deliberately complicated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such
as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or
style of interface.
Freedom from license restrictions
on primary software code
Free software is a matter of liberty, not price.
They are essential, not just for the individual users' sake, but for society as a whole
because they promote social solidarity
Users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software,
improved reproducibility of experimental results, quicker detection of errors,
accelerated scientific progress, and faster adoption of machine learning methods in
other disciplines and in the industry ultimately lead to highly usable, flexible and
scalable software whole community in accelerating research.
Conclusion
Global Information Society is composed of relationships between
ICT networks and non-ICT firms, governments, NGOs, consumers
etc., each of which participates in a variety of roles; so it is also a
multilayered and complex system.
Only responsible behavior of key actors can promote human rights in the
information society.
It is very important to identify “responsible” & “irresponsible” behavior by key
actors, and also to develop and follow guidelines to promote “responsible”
behavior by key actors.
Conclusion
In order to meet the challenges, a new multilayered, multi-stakeholder
dynamic concept of responsibility is necessary. Individual stakeholders and
the sector as a whole must engage in effective, collaborative ways,
balancing the benefits of inclusiveness and consultation on one side and
effectiveness in directing and enforcement on the other.
Thank You.