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Joint Submission to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
The Right to Privacy in the Digital Age: Mass surveillance, Digital Contact-tracing, Social Media Monitoring, and Data Requests in Southeast Asia
June 2022
In June 2022, Manushya Foundation and the ASEAN Regional Coalition to #StopDigitalDictatorship submitted a Joint Submission to the High Commissioner for Human Rights to inform the report on the right to privacy in the digital age at its 51th session in 2022.
The Submission highlights privacy threats and challenges in nine countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and focuses on the following issues:
A. State-sponsored targeted and mass surveillance;
B. COVID-19 and digital contact-tracing and monitoring tools;
C. Monitoring of social media activities; and
D. Control over and requests for data handover to tech companies.
In response to these trends, the ASEAN Regional Coalition to #StopDigitalDictatorship provides a set of recommendations to governments and businesses on the basis of prevailing privacy rights principles and best practices.
