Experts in UNHRC call for protecting human rights from AI challenges

CAIRO – 23 September 2022: A number of international experts in artificial intelligence (AI) and human rights, along with international organizations and individuals, called for a unified effort through an international action and legal framework to protect human rights privacy when it comes to adopting AI technologies.

The experts’ call was stated during a workshop organized by the Arab-European Forum for Dialogue and Human Rights in Geneva, and Jusoor International for Media and Development, at the Geneva-based UN for Human Rights Palace, on the sidelines of the ongoing 51st regular session of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) held from September 12 until October 7.

The workshop shed light on the challenges imposed by artificial intelligence, besides how it serves humanity.

It also focused on AI’s great contributions to achieving development despite the lack of interest in the issues of AI and digital information technologies.

“Taking an early action and redoubling of efforts to reach real treatments, which contribute to achieving a better reality of the approach between artificial intelligence and human rights, is a must,” said President of Arab-European Forum for Dialogue and Human Rights, Ayman Nasri.

Meanwhile, Akram Hazzam, Professor of Modern Digital Technologies and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Geneva discussed the threats represented by the revolution of technical information, “especially when it comes to collecting and using an individual's personal information, which is a serious threat to people’s security and safety and represents a violation of their rights and freedoms.”

“Collection, storage and use of information represent a major and serious violation that threatens human privacy and freedom and may expand to more dangerous aspects related to their security, safety and stability,” said Mohammed Sharif Ferjani, an international expert in political science and humanitarian studies.

“Ferjani criticized the major democratic nations’ practices related to the acquisition of AI technicalities in order to collect information that can serve goals that contradict the values and principals of humanity, relying on policies based on discrimination, in order to realize unethical and illegal goals that enable those nations to acquire international dominance, setting general trends for societies, and realizing media influence capable of leading and directing the global public opinion,” Jusoor said in a statement.

The President of Jusoor International for Media and Development, Mohamed Al Hammadi addressed the negative practices of the very same technologies that increase the suffering of people and widen the technology gap between societies, saying “such actions that represent a violation against people and deprive them of their basic rights and freedoms.”

He called for unifying efforts to ensure a humanitarian discourse of AI researches and practices in a way that preserve and respect human rights through an international movement and in accordance with legal and ethical policies to face the challenges posed by the AI in the field of human rights.

“a universal charter on human digital rights is essential” to protect and enhance the human rights system in light of the challenges posed by technology in today’s world, he said.