Digital Privacy Rights Resource

About

Digital authoritarianism is on the rise around the globe. In many countries, the rule of law is becoming rule by law, with executive priorities dictating legislative action and overriding judicial checks on government regulation of the internet. This enables widespread abuses that impact freedom of expression, privacy, and due process, among other fundamental rights. In particular, expanded government authority and the aggressive online surveillance it enables are being coded into laws and public policies, to give government overreach the garb of legality and require compliance by domestic and foreign internet service providers (ISPs). This compliance is typically tied to the State’s deployment of intrusive tech tools to monitor and access user communications and data, usually without public oversight.

Pakistan’s trajectory is a troubling example of this trend. From the deployment in recent years of a national "firewall” to the discovery of a "Lawful Intercept Management System,” user data and citizen privacy remain hostage to political ambitions and corporate collusion. This year (2025) marks a decade of collaboration between Bolo Bhi and the George Washington University Law School around digital rights and democracy in Pakistan. Together we have worked with Professor Carrillo’s law students on a range of research projects and comparative law studies promoting digital rights domestically and globally, including an article contrasting different domestic approaches to content moderation and another article analyzing criminal defamation laws under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Additional student publications on data localization, restorative justice, and content moderation are available on the Bolo Bhi-GW Law Collaboration website.

This year, as the culmination of joint work with students since 2022, we are delighted to launch the Digital Rights Privacy Resource (DPRR). The DPRR, composed of articles by practitioners and law students, is anchored by case studies from Pakistan and South Korea that illustrate how blanket State surveillance enabled by advancing technologies can undermine privacy and other human rights. It features an article addressing the legal obligations of States under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), with an emphasis on the exceptions regime that governs the lawful restriction of such rights. Another timely article unpacks the Responsibility to Respect of companies under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) as applied to the ICT sector, with a focus on how such companies should respond to government demands to enable overbroad State surveillance that negatively impacts human rights. Additional articles will be posted in the near future.

We would like to thank the many contributors to the DPRR, beginning with Faaiza Qazi, the Pakistani lawyer and technology law expert who authored the Pakistan case study. We are similarly grateful to the GW Law students (now lawyers) who wrote the remaining articles – Laura Zecca, Ananda de Almeida, Yessica Chong, and Philip Paik – as well as those who edited or otherwise contributed to their preparation – Prescott Robinson, Cole Vick, Emily Fallin, Razi Hashmi, and Navya Nagubadi. 

The rule of law increasingly seems like an empty aspiration in today’s world. We are witnessing a steady erosion of the protections that it once guaranteed, and upon which functional democracies rely. The pillars of this new world order are naked authoritarianism and the rise of a global tech oligarchy. We hope that resources like the DPRR can capture and preserve at least part of the normative frameworks that underline what democracy and human rights must protect, online and off.

Resource Articles

Digital Privacy Rights in Pakistan: A Case Study

• The Politics of Exposure: Audio Leaks and the Erosion of Privacy and Democracy in Pakistan, by Faaiza Qazi

Privacy Rights Under International Law

• The ICCPR Privacy Exceptions Regime Applied to State-Sponsored Mass Surveillance, by Laura Zecca

Comparative Law Studies

• Navigating the Digital Frontier: Understanding U.S. Laws on Electronic Search and Seizure by Ananda de Almeida
• Surveillance, Scandals, and Secrets: The Relevance of South Korean Government Surveillance to the Audio Leaks Case in Pakistan by Yessica Chong

Digital Privacy Rights and Corporate Responsibility Under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

• Saving Privacy Rights: ICT Companies, Government Surveillance, and the Battle for Privacy in Pakistan by Philip Paik