Guidance on Human Rights Impact Assessment of Digital Activities

More and more individuals have internet access, and the world is currently going through an unprecedented digital transition. With that, the potential and actual negative human rights impacts related to the design, development, application and use of digital services and products by private as well as public actors are increasing. While digital transformation can lead to increased opportunities and enjoyment of human rights it also comes with great risks.

The Human Rights Council clarified that “the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online”, meaning that human rights considerations must be central in the current and future digital transformation. Considering the significant scope of potential negative impacts and the constantly growing number of cases of severe actual impacts that digital products and services cause, contribute to or otherwise are directly linked to, the calls on businesses and other actors to assess and address their human rights impacts, and to conduct human rights impact assessments (HRIAs), have increased in recent years. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights restated the need to “address the human rights challenges raised by digital technology” and that the human rights framework will be essential in ensuring adequate responses by technology companies to their negative impacts. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) generally outline the requirement on businesses to identify, assess and address their negative human rights impacts through the conduct of human rights due diligence. The B-Tech Project at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, is working to provide general guidance on the implementation of the UNGPs in the technology space, in relation to a number of strategic focus areas.

With increased attention paid to the accountability of businesses for their human rights impacts related to digital projects, products and services, Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) is gaining traction as one useful tool in the human rights due diligence toolbox that is available to the private sector.7 The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression has called on information and communications technology (ICT) companies to conduct HRIAs for product and policy development as well as conduct ongoing assessments during operations, including ensuring meaningful public and civil society consultation. However, existing guidance and methodologies for conducting HRIA, have been largely focused on site-level projects and supply chains with clear ‘physical footprints’, partly because the HRIA methodology has been modelled on Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA) for such large-scale projects. As such, there has been a lack of guidance for assessing and addressing the particular kinds of impacts that digital projects, products and services can cause, contribute to or otherwise be linked to, whether by technology companies themselves or other entities developing digital projects, or using or applying digital products or services. HRIA of digital projects, products and services is however an emerging practice. Efforts are being undertaken to share experiences and lessons learnt of such HRIAs; however, this field would benefit from further dialogue amongst stakeholders and strengthening the HRIA approach, in order to ensure that a human rights-based approach is applied. In light of the above, the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) initiated dialogue and convened key stakeholders to develop guidance on how companies and other stakeholders involved in the digital ecosystem can improve their efforts to assess and address negative human rights impacts related to digital projects, products and services. The purpose of the Guidance is to provide those who are involved in conducting, commissioning, reviewing or monitoring HRIAs of digital activities (i.e. projects, products or services of a digital nature) with guidance and practical examples, and to support in ensuring that HRIAs apply a human rights-based approach and are consistent with the UNGPs.