ARTICLE 19 expresses support for a new resolution on human rights defenders and new and emerging technologies adopted by consensus at the 58th Session of the UN Human Rights Council on 4 April 2025. The resolution was led by Norway, and co-sponsored by over 50 countries, signalling strong international commitment to ensure the protection of human rights defenders worldwide.
At the Human Rights Council, Norway leads a resolution on human rights defenders every three years, each time with a different thematic focus. This new resolution introduces strong commitments to governments and private companies alike on a wide range of digital issues, including biometric technologies, internet shutdowns and restrictions, connectivity, spyware, and other growing trends. It also mandates the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to convene regional workshops to assess additional risks digital technologies create for human rights defenders, and to prepare a report.
ARTICLE 19 closely engaged throughout the process, including through sending written inputs, meeting with delegations, and taking part in negotiations.
While UN resolutions are not binding documents, they represent a strong political commitment by States to act in line with their binding international human rights law obligations and carry significant normative weight. We now urge all governments to translate these new commitments into allocation of resources and political will at the national level to prevent, protect and remedy all human rights violations against human rights defenders.
This blog contains a summary of some highlights in the resolution – it is not an exhaustive list of new developments.
Biometric mass surveillance
The resolution makes major progress by being the first UN resolution to call on governments to ensure that biometric identification and recognition technologies, including facial recognition technologies, are not used by public and private actors for mass surveillance, and used only when consistent with international human rights law and the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality. This builds on other UN resolutions by introducing a much stronger protection from the use of these technologies.
We have long called for a complete ban on biometric mass surveillance in public spaces. Biometric mass surveillance – for example, the use of facial recognition technology through cameras in subways, shopping centres, and streets – has severe chilling effects on the right to freedom of expression and the work of human rights defenders. They have been shown to impact peoples’ behaviour, including by deterring them from participating in public assemblies or expressing their ideas or religious beliefs in public. The victims of biometric mass surveillance are usually unaware they are being targeted by these technologies, impeding their right to access justice.
We now call on all States to implement this new commitment and immediately ban the indiscriminate and untargeted use of biometric technologies to process biometric data in public and publicly accessible spaces. They should perform an adequate case-by-case assessment of the legitimacy, proportionality, and necessity on other uses of biometric technologies.
Internet shutdowns and restrictions
This is also the first UN resolution to call on governments to refrain not only from internet shutdowns but explicitly other practices that impede connectivity, including filtering and throttling measures.
Aside from full-scale shutdowns, authoritarian governments are increasingly ordering internet platforms to block, filter, and throttle certain types of content as a form of censorship. These methods allow authorities to shape, restrict, or monitor internet access and communication, leaving the impression that the internet is ‘still on’ but rendered partially or almost entirely unusable for many practical purposes. This is the most common method of internet disruption seen in certain areas.
We urge all governments to now refrain from a full range of internet restrictions, including shutdowns and blocking, filtering, and throttling measures. We also encourage social media companies to take legal steps to challenge orders to censor online content and to also invest in technical tools to help circumvent such restrictions, such as making their platforms accessible through proxy servers or providing ‘data light’ versions of services that can function even with significantly reduced internet speeds.
Connectivity
In line with progress made in other recent resolutions, this resolution recognises that universal and meaningful connectivity is essential for the enjoyment of human rights and encourages governments to implement diverse and human rights-respecting technological solutions to advance connectivity, including by creating an enabling and inclusive regulatory environment for small, non-profit, and community internet operators.
In the digital age, the internet has become the key enabler of human rights. Without it, human rights defenders are prevented from accessing the information and tools they need to conduct their vital work. Across the globe, a major impediment to connectivity is the dominance of large telecommunications operators, who often lack incentives to invest in infrastructure for remote or rural communities. As such, small, non-profit, and community operators are playing a vital role in ensuring all human rights defenders have access to the internet.
We urge all governments to implement these solutions to connectivity with meaningful, transparent, and inclusive participation with civil society, including remote and rural communities and other groups at risk of being disconnected from the internet.
Spyware
The resolution builds on existing international standards on spyware, including calling on governments to refrain from or cease the use or transfer of spyware that is impossible to operate in compliance with international human rights law, as well as to make available mechanisms to provide appropriate remedies for victims of surveillance-related violations.
The use of spyware against human rights defenders is not only a violation of their right to privacy but poses an overwhelming threat to civic space and democracy by hindering their ability to hold power accountable. The proliferation of such technologies has been enabled by weak controls on their sale and transfer worldwide.
As a starting point, all governments must take heed of these commitments and immediately cease their use of spyware against human rights defenders. However, we call for all future relevant UN resolutions to recognise the need for a global moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of surveillance technology. At the same time, future resolutions must also explicitly call on companies that develop spyware to conduct and publicly disclose robust human rights due diligence for all proposed sales, exports and transfers of their technologies, ensuring they refrain from doing do if there is a significant risk they will be used to commit human rights violations.
SLAPPs
Similarly to recent resolutions on the safety of journalists and freedom of opinion and expression, this resolution calls on governments to adopt and implement laws and policies that discourage strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). However, we regret that earlier drafts of the resolution had stronger language that was lost during negotiations, including on specific measures to prevent these lawsuits.
Worldwide, we are witnessing powerful politicians and wealthy individuals filing frivolous lawsuits to harass human rights defenders who expose their corruption and wrongdoings. Their purpose is not necessarily to win but to place journalists under severe financial and psychological strain and push them into silence.
We now urge all States to adopt specific laws and policies related to strategic lawsuits against public participation, notably those that allow for early dismissal, limit the damages claimed, and permit a public interest defence. We also call for future resolutions – including on the resolution on the safety of journalists at the upcoming session – to explicitly list these policies.
Transnational repression
While we commend Norway for including strong language on transnational repression in earlier drafts of the resolution, and welcome the indirect references in the final document, we regret that an explicit reference to this growing trend was lost during negotiations due to pressure from some delegations.
In recent years, authoritarian governments have increasingly reached beyond their own borders to commit egregious human rights violations against those expressing critical or dissenting views – from killings to physical attacks, abductions, surveillance, and other forms of harassment. The rise of transnational repression is having an existential impact on human rights in every corner of the globe, creating a world where human rights defenders and other civil society actors – as well as their families – have nowhere to hide from the grip of authoritarian regimes.
We urge State delegations to ensure all future resolutions in this space contend with transnational repression, not only calling on governments to cease such acts, but also providing solutions to third countries to prevent, mitigate and remedy acts happening within their borders.