Privacy and Human Rights in the Digital Age: Challenges of a Technology- Centric Society

Abstract

Digital technologies impact communication across education, healthcare, employment and administration. In addition to increasing communication through technology, the technologies also increased the collection storage and processing of personal data. This paper provides a review of privacy and human rights as they relate to an entire society that is built around technology. This study examines informational privacy, physical privacy, decision privacy. It examines mass surveillance using commercial data, algorithmic discrimination, cybersecurity threats, Digital inequality and weak consent. Additionally, it examines corporate responsibility, artificial intelligence (AI) ethics and the relationship between privacy and security. A framework is developed connecting technologies to data practices and privacy risks; technologies to human rights outcomes and governance responses. These processes include collection, storage sharing profiling and automated decisions making. The process is moderated by standards, public awareness and Digital literacy. The review finds harm results from collecting too much data, lack of oversight over the data collected, unfairness in automated decisions made with respect to data and limited access to remedies.