Committee Summary

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has been tasked with confronting the rapid expansion of digital surveillance and its threat to the human right to privacy. In modern times, both governments and corporations have increased their use of tools like spyware, biometric identification, and facial recognition to monitor communication, movement, and online activity of both individuals and entire populations. In 2021, Amnesty International found that government clients had used NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to select more than 50,000 phone numbers as potential surveillance targets, including journalists, activists, and opposition politicians across at least ten countries, such as Palestine, Kazakhstan, Bahrain, Jordan, and more. This committee will examine the political and economic forces driving the current growth of digital surveillance, including profit incentives for corporations and the shortage of data protection laws in developing countries. Delegates will study the current tools used by countries such as the facial-recognition checkpoints in China’s Xinjiang region to reflect on existing international regulations from entities like the UN General Assembly and the European Union. As the internet grows along with digital surveillance, UNHRC’s ultimate goal is to implement standards that respect the rights of individuals, protect the privacy of everyone, and respect the security needs of countries. You as delegates would be a part of that change!