The Digital Rights Now pledge is a joint initiative between the Digital Justice Lab, Centre for Digital Rights, and Tech Reset Canada.
We’re excited to see a call for a national digital rights strategy that will protect residents of Canada who have to use digital tools for their work and life. The conversation about digital rights, according to the pledge, should include
- Data collection, ownership, use, and rights
- Privacy as a public good
- Consent
- Equitable internet access
- Fair competition
- Future prosperity
As a heritage nonprofit, we’re particularly interested in equitable internet access, especially in remote and rural communities, that allow people to both access our shared cultural heritage and contribute to it through their own media and stories.
We care about ethical data collection and privacy for our users, as well as ethical sharing: making sure the materials we put online both accurately represent the great diversity in our country, while we also also protect people whose online presence may make them vulnerable to unwanted attention and harassment.
Digital opportunities come with responsibilities to each other, and to those whose lack of access to those opportunities may put them at a disadvantage. That’s our ethos – not just as digitizers and technologists but as stewards of our shared history.
We encourage you to sign the Digital Rights Now pledge on behalf of yourself or your organization and to help start this conversation towards digital rights enshrined in federal law. You can also get involved by preparing your thoughts about what such a law might include, and by reaching out to those whose access to technology is limited, and whose perspectives need to be heard in this conversation.