The Global Digital Compact (GDC) is a pioneering international framework designed to shape an inclusive, sustainable, and secure digital future for all. Focused on harnessing the potential of digital technologies while promoting their responsible regulation, the GDC emphasizes the need for cooperation to ensure that the digital landscape is fair, open, and accessible. While ambitious in scope, the framework also faces scrutiny for certain oversights and gaps, underscoring the importance of continued dialogue and refinement to achieve a truly just and equitable digital future.
What is Global Digital Compact and what we want from it?
The Global Digital Compact is a United Nations initiative aimed at establishing shared principles and guidelines for the global governance of digital technologies. It prioritizes safeguarding human rights in the digital realm and promoting the responsible use of emerging technologies like AI. With a focus on sustainable development, the GDC lays out core principles, objectives, and actionable steps to create a fair, inclusive, and secure digital environment for all.
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC), along with its advocacy partners, emphasized six key areas for the Global Digital Compact (GDC) to address:
1. Digital Inclusion:
APC advocated for greater community participation in policymaking, regulatory frameworks enabling diverse connectivity providers, and financing mechanisms for meaningful community-level connectivity. These measures aim to address digital inequity and foster inclusive access to digital technologies.
2. Human Rights Online:
Strengthening human rights law in all internet operations was a key priority. APC called for internet governance grounded in human rights standards, adhering to the principles of necessity and proportionality. Transparency and accountability from states and corporations, addressing structural inequalities, and fostering democratic values were emphasized. A rights-respecting digital future requires parity between online and offline environments.
3. Data Protection:
Concerns were raised about massive data harvesting by big tech and intrusive state surveillance, with a focus on the gendered dimensions of data exploitation. APC advocated for robust data protection regimes, increased transparency, and legal restrictions on surveillance. Intersectional and feminist approaches to data governance, along with Indigenous data stewardship and equality-driven governance, were highlighted.
4. Harmful and Misleading Content:
APC called for improved accountability for tech companies and states in addressing hate speech, misinformation, and online discrimination. Consistent industry-wide content moderation standards aligned with human rights principles were needed. Concerns were also raised about the inconsistent application of rules and the poor record of states in fostering trustworthy information and protecting freedom of expression.
5. A Gender-Just Digital Society:
A gender-inclusive digital future requires an intersectional feminist perspective. APC advocated for recognizing systemic gender-based discrimination and ensuring the inclusion of diverse genders in governance. Priorities included addressing technology-facilitated gender-based violence, ensuring privacy and digital safety, and promoting transparency and accountability in algorithms and AI systems. The work was grounded in the Feminist Principles of the Internet.
6. Earth Justice and Sustainable Development:
APC underscored the need for a precautionary principle in digitalization, advocating for a circular economy approach in technology design and production. Private companies were urged to ensure transparency regarding socio-environmental impacts, while governments and corporations were called to support community-led connectivity initiatives that respect planetary boundaries and the rights of nature.
These key focus areas aim to create a more inclusive, rights-driven, and sustainable digital ecosystem, addressing the intersecting challenges of equity, justice, and environmental stewardship.
Objectives and Actions of the Global Digital Compact
The Global Digital Compact (GDC) goes beyond principles, offering clear objectives and actionable measures to achieve its vision:
- Strengthening Digital Infrastructure:
Countries are encouraged to collaborate in developing robust digital infrastructure, with a focus on underdeveloped regions. Proposed actions include investments in 5G networks, digital literacy initiatives, and public-private partnerships to ensure universal connectivity. - Governance of AI and Emerging Technologies:
The GDC emphasizes the need for global regulatory frameworks to guide the ethical development and use of AI and emerging technologies. These frameworks aim to prevent the reinforcement of existing inequalities and mitigate potential harms. - Ensuring Data Sovereignty and Privacy:
The Compact advocates for the global protection of data privacy rights. It calls on nations to safeguard citizens’ digital footprints and empower individuals with control over their data through comprehensive regulatory measures. - Addressing Digital Misinformation:
Governments and technology companies are urged to collaborate in combating misinformation, hate speech, and cybercrime. This includes implementing regulations, promoting transparency, and adopting real-time monitoring mechanisms. - Promoting Sustainable Technology Practices:
The GDC underscores the importance of aligning technological advancements with environmental sustainability. It calls for green technology initiatives and digital solutions that actively contribute to combating climate change.
These objectives and actions aim to create a digital future that is inclusive, ethical, and environmentally conscious, fostering collaboration among nations, organizations, and individuals.
Gaps in the Global Digital Compact
The final text of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) falls short in addressing many critical advocacy points raised by civil society and other stakeholders. Several gaps in the Compact highlight areas of concern:
1. Human Rights
- The GDC’s language on human rights lacks strength and consistency. References to “international law” are used instead of the more robust “international human rights law.”
- The Compact does not adequately address state obligations to refrain from mass surveillance or ensure that targeted surveillance complies with principles of legality, legitimacy, necessity, and proportionality.
- New technologies, such as AI, pose significant risks to human rights, yet the GDC fails to apply human rights obligations consistently throughout the technology lifecycle, from design to application.
- Restrictions on states and companies deploying technologies incompatible with human rights principles are insufficiently outlined.
- The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is under-supported. Its critical work on technology, business, and human rights is weakened by a reliance on voluntary funding mechanisms rather than robust institutional backing.
2. Inclusive Internet Governance
- The GDC undermines the multistakeholder approach, a cornerstone of effective internet governance, by failing to meaningfully include civil society, academia, the private sector, the technical community, and grassroots groups in consultations, implementation, or follow-ups.
- Proposed mechanisms risk centralising and nationalising internet governance through state structures, privileging the private sector while marginalising non-state actors.
- The GDC does not prioritize multistakeholder input in designing new bodies or mechanisms, nor in developing financing initiatives and digital public infrastructure. This omission increases the risk of technologies being adopted primarily for data collection without adequate accountability.
These weaknesses reveal the need for stronger commitments to human rights and inclusivity in global digital governance, ensuring that the GDC fulfills its promise of a just and equitable digital future.
Addressing Deficiencies in the Global Digital Compact: Key Areas for Action
While the GDC has notable gaps, many of these can be addressed through careful and vigilant implementation. Civil society has a critical role to play in ensuring that mechanisms, bodies, and processes align with the overarching goal of an “inclusive, open, sustainable, fair, safe, and secure digital future for all.”
Cross-Cutting Areas Requiring Attention:
- Strengthened Multistakeholder Cooperation and Coordination
- Enhanced Collaboration: Governments, civil society, the private sector, and the technical community must work together more effectively at all levels.
- Streamlining Global Processes: The GDC fails to address the fragmentation among UN and other global digital initiatives. Better coordination is needed among processes like WSIS+20, IGF, and Beijing+30.
- Civil Society’s Role: Civil society must identify gaps and links between the GDC and other critical areas, including cybersecurity, trade negotiations, consumer rights, food security, labour, intellectual property, and climate justice.
- Emerging Fields: Big Tech’s ventures, such as investments in nuclear power for data centres and AgTech, highlight the need for cross-field advocacy that integrates digital rights into diverse forums and sectors.
- Human Rights as the Cornerstone of Digital Policy
- Centrality of Human Rights: Digital policy must reaffirm human rights, focusing on development and placing people at the centre.
- Strengthening Existing Tools: Implementation should leverage and reinforce existing human rights frameworks, particularly in the context of digital standards.
- Collective Advocacy: Resistance from some states and businesses necessitates coordinated civil society strategies to uphold human rights in digital spaces.
- Equitable Distribution of Digital Benefits
- Inclusion of Marginalized Communities: Implementation must prioritize the participation of excluded groups through mechanisms, mentoring, capacity-building programs, and regional consultations.
- Capacity Building: Initiatives like AfriSIG and inter-regional consultations should be expanded and strengthened to support effective participation.
- Gender Inclusion: Connecting the GDC to gender-focused initiatives, such as Beijing+30, is essential for equitable outcomes.
- Scrutiny of Financing Mechanisms
- Risks of Private Sector Domination: Blended financing models must not disproportionately empower the private sector to dictate terms, especially in regions with weaker governmental contributions.
- Market-First Model Failures: Emphasis should shift from market-first connectivity models, which have left many underserved, to inclusive and equitable financing approaches.
- Universal Connectivity: Financing mechanisms must prioritize universal access while avoiding further marginalization of vulnerable communities.
- Accountability of Big Tech
- Regulating Corporate Practices: The GDC must ensure that big tech accountability is embedded in its frameworks, focusing on harms caused by their practices.
- Human Rights Framework: States must be challenged to regulate corporations effectively within a human rights framework.
- OHCHR Support: Adequate funding for the OHCHR is crucial to enabling oversight of state and corporate compliance with human rights standards.
Conclusion
The success of the GDC will depend heavily on how its principles are operationalized. Vigilance and proactive advocacy by civil society are essential to ensuring that its mechanisms and processes promote an inclusive, fair, and human-rights-respecting digital future.