 Today I'll talk about how free software affects your fundamental rights Yeah, so Let's quickly go over what the agenda we have for this talk today So first of all, I will deal with some definitions. What are human rights? You know what what is human rights law? We'll also take a look at the categories of human rights that we all enjoy and Yeah, we'll explore whether there are human rights relating to free software And finally, we'll also talk briefly about how free software can Effect or enable the enjoyment of our fundamental rights So what are human rights? So basically human rights are the rights that every person enjoys intrinsically Basically, that means that you know These are rights that you have by virtue of the fact that you're human, you know You are born with these rights. You don't have to do anything to earn them And They cannot be taken away from you except in certain exceptions that are provided for by the law So this is the basic concept behind human rights that everybody is born with them that they are available to you intrinsically And this concept is the basic foundation on which all human rights law is built upon I mean, of course, you know, things get complicated down the line when we have to talk about Things like how to balance one right against another because you know, people have different values people put different values on different rights And that's where all the disagreements And how to govern with human rights comes about So human rights are universal Yeah, as I said, that means every person is equally entitled to enjoy these rights and they're also Inalienable that means that they cannot be taken away from you or given away So under human rights law, that means that they should not be taken away from you unless in accordance with certain acceptable procedures or Situations, you know, for example, let's say you have the human right to liberty of movement or Liberty and security of your person But let's say you commit a crime and you're put in prison in accordance with the law You've had a fair trial and you've been put in prison So what happens now is your human right to liberty is being restricted But that restricted that restriction itself is not a violation of human rights law because it's been done in accordance with certain procedures Yes, as mentioned before, it's very difficult to balance these rights how people choose to justify restricting a human right is always difficult And so the exceptions under which your rights can be restricted It's the basis of like I said every argument in human rights law. So what kind of rights do we have? It's it's a very complicated List and it's a very long list and I'm sure a lot of you have an idea already of what kind of rights you have under law so to simplify things I will just kind of categorize them into the two popular Or two mainly understood categories of human rights law Basically, these are your civil and your civil and political rights as well as your economic social and cultural rights Yes, so civil and political rights are basically the rights that ensure your ability to participate in civil society Yeah, without any discrimination or repression So for your civil rights, you would have your things like your right to vote your right to freedom of association Your right to be free from discrimination And also things like free free speech Freedom of religion and thought etc etc and for political rights These would be things like rights to a fair trial rights to participation in civil society and political life The other main category of rights would be your economic social and cultural rights. So Yeah, these deal with rights that you you need in order to Enjoy a fulfilling life or enjoy or to be able to participate meaningfully in society and economically So these would deal with things like, you know, your right to housing your right to Education your right to health your right to be Your right to adequate standard of living food and water things like that Right. So, you know when we talk about human rights, it tends to concern itself a lot with very fundamental issues that go to the core of Human beings being able to live a fulfilling life. So many of these rights and laws They were drafted in times when, you know, the most Technologically advanced thing that people had in their houses was a radio A lot of these human rights treaties were drafted after the Second World War. So the most important ones especially were drafted in 1962 So I would say, you know, when these rights were kind of conceptualized They were done in a time where, you know, we had no idea or humanity had no idea of the influence that, you know The internet digital technology software would have on our lives Yeah, but I think that, you know, even as the world changes the core principles of what we as human beings Are entitled to enjoy in order to have a fulfilling life They remain the same and we just have to figure out how to protect these core principles while we deal with the new challenges that Digital technology brings with it Yeah, and I say this because, you know, a lot of modern life these days across the world depend on software. I mean, I think gone are the days where we can say that Just participation in digital, in the digital space Access to internet that these are a privilege enjoyed by the developed world I mean, even today we see now that, you know, these are essential things the internet and software These are essential things even in the even in the developing world and Because so much of our lives depend on, you know The functioning of software it is vital that we are guaranteed some kind of freedom over software and rights over software Over these tools that we see can essentially run aspects of our lives Yeah, you know these days and individuals rights can be affected by how software Operates even if that individual chooses not to use software. So how can free software support our human rights? Yeah, philosophically I Would say, you know, we maintain our freedoms by maintaining control over our technology, you know Think of how pervasive software is in everyday life. We use it to work. We use it for entertainment We use it even in our homes for everyday chores You have software in your microwave your software in your washing machine these days, you know and If you do not have some kind of control or transparency over any particular piece of software Your rights can and in most cases will be affected in some way And I think the biggest human right that you know people always think about when we think of Digital technology is the right to privacy. That's a very big topic these days Yeah, we are all affected by the services of big tech these days, you know It's almost impossible to avoid its influence when you use the internet And we live in economic systems where it's very profitable for a lot of these big companies to harvest and sell off your data and and of course these actions violate your your rights to privacy in the process and So when you use proprietary software, you always run the risk that your rights are Being four feet in some way, especially the right to privacy So if you use free software, how does that help with privacy then? So one major factor of free software is community management community motivation and dedication to ensure privacy So we can see this happening in many free software communities. I mean one one example is in the early 2010s you had the release of Ubuntu 12 12.10 which started establishing certain internet connections for local searches to the Amazon to display Amazon ads and also to share data with Facebook and Twitter just by virtue of using that operating system and the backlash from the community was immense because they could see these connections being made through the code and It was such a massive backlash that Canonical which is the company that Develops Ubuntu they had to respond and they ended up removing online searches and the Amazon web app You know more recently the free software Audio editor and recording app audacity they also received loads of backlash because They proposed adopting telemetry via the implementation of Google Analytics and Yandex to its software so yeah the outcry from the community was immense and It eventually caused them to to renounce their plans to do so So why is this relevant? You know so if you have the freedom to use the scope to study and to use the source code and the freedom to improve on it It means that the source code is decentralized and you do away with single points of failure Or massive data breaches and you also have a larger community Acting as kind of a watchdog over the software over what the code can and cannot do To its users to violate their their rights to privacy And yeah from these examples that I've raised you know what you what we can see is that real privacy solutions Must start with free software So another example, you know think of your right to vote Imagine if your country switches over from paper paper voting to Voting machines. Yeah, I mean we just had we just saw an election in the United States where a lot of states used Voting machines to record votes from voters so Would you be comfortable if you if you had the knowledge that these voting machines were being run on proprietary software that you have? No access to the source code and you can't see exactly what the code is doing to your vote. I mean you have no kind of ability to confirm whether or not the machine is Intentionally or accidentally through badly programmed code, you know, if it's actually changing your vote if it's not recording your vote properly Or if it's not communicating your vote, you know to a server where it's being counted or etc You know what happens if it's something is written into into the code to Discount your vote in that case your right to be heard as a Private citizen voting is being taken away So we need this transparency to preserve our trust in democratic processes And if we don't get transparency in the software that prepares And that prepares and processes these procedures in voting Then this can have negative social Effects and it can also reduce the trust that the public has in the democratic process And if you think about something more broad in general, you know, you're right to be free from discrimination so imagine if you live in Germany as I do and You are applying for a job. So you start sending out your CV to lots and lots of companies Some big companies they receive hundreds of CVs a day for various job openings. So what they do is they They use software to sort through their CVs if They're using a proprietary software to do so There's no way that you can be sure that they are discarding CVs that for example, don't have a traditionally German sounding name or you know it this this Creates uncertainty in your mind about whether you are being rejected from the job because you are legitimately not qualified or because you know, there is some Discrimination against you going on So yeah with without free software, there's no way that you can know for sure And there's no way that you can know if it's violating a fundamental right with free software if this is actually happening You can hold them accountable for their actions and say look my rights are being violated And I would like to have this violation be rectified So I'm coming to the end of my talk now. I'm running out of time I'll go with the session is basically for you to think about how software affects your fundamental rights and how Control of a technology can help you to enjoy your rights as a whole. I mean we can go through every single human right That's provided for by the laws in the various treaties That's adopted in the European Union these days and I'm sure for Pretty much all of them. You can find a way in which software Affects it in a real and practical manner And if software is such a widespread and compulsory tool in how we live our lives then openness and transparency Really is essential to having positive outcomes to how it affects society and in how we enjoy our human rights And yeah, so on this note as we go through this legal education track I would like to ask all of you after today to think about your use of software think about Free software and yeah, basically how it supports your rights and maintain Democratic and open society. Yeah, thank you very much