Session Date/Time: 06 Nov 2023 08:30

hrpc

Summary

The Human Rights Protocol Considerations (HRPC) research group meeting at IETF 118 in Prague featured three presentations: one on ICT infrastructure in Palestine and Israeli controls, another from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights implications of technical standard setting, and a final presentation on gender-based violence and technology, including guidance on creating safe and ethical technology for GBV programming. The group also discussed the status and future direction of the "Draft Association" document and related work items.

Key Discussion Points

ICT Infrastructure in Palestine: The presentation highlighted the challenges and restrictions faced by Palestinians in accessing and developing ICT infrastructure due to Israeli control, including limited frequency allocation, import restrictions, and control over international gateways. The discussion also touched on privacy concerns related to surveillance and data collection by Israeli authorities.
Human Rights and Technical Standards: The UN presentation emphasized the importance of incorporating human rights considerations into technical standard setting processes, citing downstream impacts on privacy, free expression, accessibility, and other fundamental rights. Challenges to implementing human rights in standard setting, such as lack of expertise, resistance, and participation gaps, were also discussed.
Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV): The presentation explored the risks and harms associated with poorly designed technology used in gender-based violence (GBV) programming, including increased gender inequality, offline violence, and technology-facilitated abuse. The need for a safety-by-design approach, user integration, data minimization, and attention to safety, security, and privacy were emphasized.
Draft Association Discussion: The research group discussed the future direction of the "Draft Association" document, considering options for publishing it as a lightly-tweaked essay, or remaining dedicated to the research portion of this exercise, but then revisit some of the or either make it more explicit the methodology or or re up some of those methods and improve the research itself . Concerns about methodological rigor and the need to clarify the scope and claims of the research were raised. Ram from Michigan volunteered to contribute.

Decisions and Action Items

Draft Association: The chairs will solicit further input from the research group via the mailing list to determine the future direction of the "Draft Association" document. The group will consider feedback on the research methodology, scope, and claims of the document.
Solicit feedback: Solicited for more people to read the IPV considerations drafts.
Gather input: Chairs to gather input on which direction the draft association should take.

Next Steps

Solicit the list for what people think about how the "Draft Association" work should be carried forward.
Further develop the intimate partner violence consideration draft in the research group.
Mailing list discussion of the direction of the draft association document.