Digital Rights and the Public Sector

What are Digital Rights?

Digital rights are human rights that exist online as well as offline. They are your existing human rights that you carry with you when you are online and using the Internet. Data protection and privacy, digital identity, the use of surveillance technologies, online violence and harassment, are of particular concern.

Work We've Done So Far

We initiated this work on digital rights as part of an open call to mainstream digital rights in the public sector. The open call was organised by UN-Habitat, the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights, Eurocities, and UCLG. Dublin, along with Brussels, Sofia and Tirana, was one of the four European cities selected in March 2022. These four cities piloted the Digital Rights Governance Project.

In Dublin, we prototyped and developed foundational educational modules on digital rights, to promote the principles of ethics and privacy with regards to new and emerging technologies. These modules were delivered to three different audiences: young people, local authority staffers in Dublin City Council, and community members.

Digital Rights and the Public Sector

Dublin City Council is embracing the digital transformation and will be rolling out more digital services to meet the needs of citizens and communities. It is crucial that the Council is conscious of preserving, protecting and promoting data privacy, ethics and digital rights as we procure and implement new technologies.

Cities Coalition for Digital Rights

Dublin has been involved with the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights since 2018. The Cities Coalition for Digital Rights is a network of cities helping each other in the greenfield of digital rights based policy-making. The Coalition is committed to promoting and defending digital rights in urban context through city action, to resolve common digital challenges and work towards legal, ethical and operational frameworks to advance human rights in digital environments. Read more about the work being done with Cities Coalition for Digital Rights here!