Human Rights and Technology: Using ICT for Justice Delivery

There may be some disquiet, particularly within the human rights community, about the reach or over-reach of the digital realm and its impact on the rights of citizens or groups. Such concerns must be addressed and engaged in. At the same time we can take on board the growing recognition of the use of digital technology in harnessing human potential for positive outcomes. Striking the balance between valid concerns and the drive towards digital possibilities must form our frames of reference in this engagement.We already have examples of the use of digital technology and media in the service of human rights struggles, such as in the Arab Spring. Closer to home we watch keenly the development of community radios and its potential for positive social mobilization. We have already seen a more demonstrable effect of digital technology in the area of citizens’ services such as in healthcare, agriculture and banking. Now we are interested to see how we can use expand this horizon in Bangladesh to make information technology tools to work for human rights and justice.

The basic intent behind organizing this Seminar is to find avenues for exchange between these two sectors so as to achieve maximum gains towards human development. In that sense, it may be said that this Seminar provides a platform for ICT for Development (ICT4D), but with a very specific rights-based focus. At the very least, we wish for this Seminar to open the dialogue on the intersections between human rights, social justice, community empowerment and technology and what is increasingly being termed as “new media” – that is, using digital device for creative participation and community formation around media content which is accessible on demand.

The impressive array of Judges, lawyers, human rights activists, leading development thinkers, civil society members, programmers and entrepreneurs present here today provides an excellent starting point to trigger a conversation in the practice and implementation of human rights and technology projects which will hopefully lead to opportunities to share experiences, best practices, and lessons learned from using ICT for justice delivery services.

On the global stage the effort to bring these two worlds together has been fast gaining ground. In an international conference in 2009 hosted by UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center, titled, Soul of the New Machine it was clearly articulated that … “Information technologies are gaining a significant role in advancing human rights research and advocacy. But technology alone will not make the difference; what will is the combination of human rights defenders with the tools specifically designed to support their work.”[3]

This combination is what BRAC’s Human Rights Programme and ICT Lab have attempted to achieve, through the creation of a software application called iCRESS (Integrated Collaboration and Emergency Support Services). We hope that the demonstration of its possibilities will make a strong case for deploying technology in the field. iCRESS is a sophisticated and real-time application which has been designed to address the comprehensive justice and human rights efforts for the BRAC Human Rights and Legal Aid Services (HRLS) program. This application provides a wide range of services to connect different end points of human rights service delivery operations. We have already piloted this software in our project on land and property rights in Rangpur and Gaibandha where our land entrepreneurs have used and are still using SMS channel to send alerts and receive updates to HRLS at Headquarters and through which HRLS is able to monitor its field operations through tracking applications – all in real time. The highly positive feedback and adoption rate of the application at field sites provides us strong incentive for exploring the possibililty of operationalizing the full range of this application’s services throughout Bangladesh via all of our 12 thousand Barefoot Lawyers and Odhikar Sheboks/Shebikas.

It would be an amazing journey of learning and sharing if sectors working in human rights and justice and digital services in Bangladesh were to look for ways to apply this and other ICT tools to make technology work to promote and protect citizens and communities and democracies. Let the journey begin!

By Dr. Faustina Pereira

Director of BRAC Human Rights and Legal Aid Services Programme[1] Human Rights and Technology Seminar 2012: Using ICT for Justice Delivery. Held on 18th February 2012, at BRAC Centre. Organised by BRAC’s Human Rights and Legal Aid Services Programme (HRLS). Event sponsored and supported by BRAC Enterprises and BRAC Bank.

[2] See supra note 3.

[3] http://icthumanity.com/2011/04/09/human-rights-technology-conference-uc-berkeley/