civil rights

who has data on us?

- college or school
- work
- the uk government
- DVLA
- hospital/ NHS
- national insurance
- pention schemes
- websites
   - facebook
   - twitter
   - google
   - youtube
   - email services
   - places where you shop
- the bank
- certain shops take your information
- airports/ passport
- apple/ itunes

The 'digital divide'

Communication via computer networks, and the use of digital media in general, is significantly restricted by the issue of access. There are significant barriers to the exercise of rights relating to digital media:

• Access to the equipment necessary for communication - this includes hardware, operating software, telecommunications links, and the costs entailed in obtaining them, and as such is greatest obstacle to be overcome;
  
  
• Access to education and skills is necessary in order to be able to use the new media - the ability to use computers and information technology will become increasingly crucial in our society;
  
  
• The language in which these new media can be accessed - the electronic media are dominated by English, and the languages of the other main industrialised nations. Many people are not able to access significant parts of the Internet, for example, in their first language.
  

These barriers make up the digital divide - that is, the gap between people who have the ability to access the new digital media, and people who do not. The digital divide is a clear example of the failure to address human rights within the initial development of new digital media, both within states (at the level of individual rights), and between them (at the global level - some countries have become networked whilst others have not).

The digital divide is not always clear or constant. Most often it is shows up as a lack of access to computers or the Internet. Even when people have access to the Internet, it can be seen as arising through other inequalities in society. The current emphasis on the Internet as a means of buying things, and the necessity of having a bank account and a credit card to do this, is a good example of how many poorer people, who are unable to obtain credit, are excluded from participation. As we noted above, another example of the digital divide is where people have problems in accessing computers or the Internet in their first language. This is partly because most software is produced by companies in the main industrialised nations, but also because it can be difficult to obtain software, and hardware (such as keyboards) outside the country where they were developed, due to copyright or patent licensing restrictions.

There has been little research on the digital divide in the UK. Research by the Information Society Commission in the Republic of Ireland has resulted in a number of reports on social implications, however. It shows that despite government initiatives, many poorer people are still not participating in the new information society. A recent survey found that 41% of the Republic's population had access to the Internet; 54% of adults were familiar with the use of personal computers, 43% with the use of the Internet and 41% with the use of email. But the study also found that 30% of the unemployed had no understanding of personal computers; only 13% had some familiarity with the Internet, and only 10% were familiar with email, compared to 64% 45% and 39% respectively for those in employment.

So far, the Internet has largely developed on laissez faire basis, with little state involvement. As has moved from being a minority interest to a means of mass communication, however, the attitudes of governments have changed. States have begun to perceive public use of the Internet by the public as a potential threat to the state - either because it is difficult to control (in terms of content, for example, and in particular content that is critical of the state), or because encryption systems prevent the state monitoring what people are sending to each other. This has led to a variety of responses:

• In the UK, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 was developed to allow the widespread tapping of the Internet, and to require the decryption of encrypted data on demand. The new Anti-Terrorism Act 2001 widens state powers still further;
  
  
• In Singapore, new laws require web sites to be registered; otherwise, their transit across telecommunications systems is blocked so that the public cannot access them (originally intended for hate or pornography sites, in August 2001 the government minister responsible indicated that these measures would be enforced against 'political' sites);
  
  
• In the USA, following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, new laws seek to implement not only powers to monitor the use of the Internet, but also to control activities such as Internet gambling, or the use of the new digital media for activities that might involve proprietary information.
  

Some regulation of the Internet is of course necessary in order to protect the rights of individuals and to prevent the spread of racial or sectarian hatred via the Internet. But it can be argued, in Europe at least, that current proposals for regulation of the Internet do not strike an appropriate balance between the threat presented by serious crime or terrorism using the Internet and the rights people have to use the new media for expression and communication under Article 10 of the ECHR (for a good analysis of the UK regulatory situation see the FIPR web site).

Individual states' approaches to Internet regulation threaten the right under Article 19 of the UN Convention (see above) of people to communicate 'regardless of frontiers'. Regulation may block communication or access to information between those within a state, and also between states. People who carry out activities that are lawful in one state may be criminalised under the law of another. The applies, for example, to the use of the Internet to express dissent against repressive states.

The recent rush to develop laws in relation to the Internet therefore represents another form of digital divide - between those to whom the Internet is freely available, and those for whom the same uses may carry legal penalties.

If steps are not taken to make new technologies and means of communication available to everyone, people who are already disadvantaged within society will be further excluded. At the global level, too, the divide between those states who are networked, and those who are not, will further reinforce economic divides between countries.