From 30 March to 1 April, San Francisco will be the world’s capital for discussions around freedom of expression, privacy, encryption, and many other issues related to rights in the digital environment.
Organized for the past few years by Access Now, RightsCon gathers human rights experts, business leaders, technologists, engineers, investors, activists, and government representatives to discuss hot issues related to the Internet and fundamental rights.
During this 2016 edition, key speakers will include Bruce Schneier, David Kaye, Edward Snowden and many more.
The Internet Society, while rooted in the community that creates the building blocks for the Internet to function, strongly believes that technology should be harnessed as a force of empowerment and as an enabler or rights. This is reflected in our continuous engagement in global dialogues at the intersection of the Internet and online freedoms, and in the partnerships we seek.
So what will the Internet Society be doing at RightsCon? We have have a few activities and engagements lined up:
- Our ISOC Board of Trustee Walid Al-Saqaf will speak in several sessions.
- We will organise a workshop on big data breaches, including panelists Bruce Schneier and others.
- We will launch a new section on the ISOC website dedicated to resources around Internet & Human Rights issues.
- We will talk to civil society leaders to get their views on the future of the Internet.
- ISOC speakers will speak on a variety of panels…
… and much more.
We will communicate about our activities during the week on our social media channels, so don’t hesitate to keep a look there. You can keep up with the conference activities in general using the #RightsCon hashtag across social media.
You can also find information on our ISOC @ RightsCon event page about our specific activities and announcements.
We are looking forward to a great event and continuing our work to bring about an open, trusted Internet that is available to all – and where people have the same rights online that they do offline. If you are there are RightsCon in San Francisco, please do find us and say hello!
P.S. For an understanding of the Internet Society’s views on the Internet and human rights, please read our policy brief on the topic.