Sarah Altschuller

The Rio de Janeiro Human Rights & Technology Conference (RightsCon: Rio), hosted by Access in partnership with the Fundação Getulio Vargas’ Center for Technology & Society, will examine how the information and communications technology (ICT) industry can better plan for and manage the human rights implications of their technologies. Intended as an outcome-oriented event, the conference will be centered on a mix of private roundtables and public panel discussions, bringing entrepreneurs, executives, and engineers together with policy analysts, government representatives, human rights advocates, and technologists.
RightsCon: Rio is designed to continue and expand the conversations initiated at the 2011 Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference in San Francisco.
RightsCon: Silicon Valley created a unique environment for representatives of the ICT and the civil society sectors to come together to discuss the human rights implications of their products and services. At RightsCon: Rio, these issues will be examined with an emphasis on the current digital human rights challenges and opportunities faced by businesses, governments, and civil society in Latin America in addition to topics with broader global implications.

RightsCon: Silicon Valley opened a line of dialogue about how companies can anticipate and respond to human rights challenges in a way that is mutually beneficial both for business and users. RightsCon: Rio will expand on those discussions, with a particular focus on the emerging world, where there are great investment opportunities but also significant challenges. To this end, RightsCon: Rio aims to promote high- level, candid conversations between businesses, governments and civil society, examining both the Latin American region and the crossover lessons that can be applied elsewhere.
In recent years, a number of Latin American countries have emerged as global leaders on internet policy. The Brazilian Congress is preparing to approve broad legislation protecting digital rights in the country; Chile has recently passed a bill enshrining net neutrality into law; and the Constitutional Court of Costa Rica has recognized access to the internet as a fundamental right of all citizens. Accordingly, this is an ideal time for actors from all sectors to come together to discuss the lessons that can be learned from these legislative initiatives, and how they can be leveraged to promote an environment conducive to innovation, investment, and human rights, in the region and around the world.
This conference is a must for anyone seeking to understand the changing digital regulatory environment in the emerging world—from governments looking to emulate the leaders in this area to companies struggling to create rights-respecting policies that are also good for their bottom line. Regional and global attendees will discuss the human rights models that have already been implemented; management tactics that have proven successful in other sectors; how digital rights integration into business practices works; and the benefits of a multi-stakeholder approach to these issues.