DAY 16 | HUMAN RIGHTS DAY | WHY PRIVACY MATTERS

Since 1950, people all over the world have celebrated Human Rights Day on 10 December to bring attention to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For 2013, observers are highlighting human rights achievements of the past two decades. Just this year the UN launched Free & Equal, a public education campaign for LGBT equality. It’s an important step in extending human rights to all people regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, both of which are complicated by notions of private and public.

 

2013 also saw the UN announce a resolution to protect the right to privacy in the digital age. This means that our privacy rights offline also apply to our rights online. This year Take Back the Tech! has focused on the need to define, demand and respect the right to privacy and to promote women’s right to public participation. We’ve worked toward a world free from violence against women, both offline and online - from our bodies, homes and streets to the spaces we occupy in the digital realm.

 

People from different parts of the world have come together to campaign for these issues and to explore and chart the shifting boundaries of public and private. Over the past 16 days, we’ve drawn our individual and collective lines. Let’s end the campaign with a call for the right to privacy for everyone, including the right of transgender people not to be outed against their will, the right of women to maintain privacy for autonomy and bodily integrity, the right of any person to access information safely and anonymously and more.

 

But there’s no reason to stop today. Tell us why privacy matters to you. And let's keep talking about it.

 

 

How does privacy help you exercise your full range of human rights? Ground rights in your realities. Share your story or sum it up in one statement, and share it with us. Here are some examples:

Chalk it on a sidewalk. Write in on a sticker. Turn it into a poster. Take a pic of your statement and send it to us at ideas@takebackthetech.net, upload the image or simply comment on this page.

 

Or just tweet it using #takebackthetech.

 

We’ll use all the statements to make a feminist quilt on why privacy matters.

 

Say your piece. Tell the world what privacy means to your human rights. Keep talking! Take back the tech!