RightsCon Toronto 2018

Over the past seven years a striking increase in voluntary company disclosure by internet and telecommunications companies of government requests for user data has substantially increased our collective ability to defend and protect the human right to privacy.

However, the new frontier for law enforcement relationship reporting will be to spread the practice to two categories of organizations:

* Companies in other industries that also receive requests for data and assistance from law enforcement agencies.

* Civil society and academic organizations publishing reports that use and interpret data and information published by governments.

There are many reasons why companies in other industries will collaborate with law enforcement agencies, such as transport companies addressing human trafficking, tourism companies seeking to prevent child sexual abuse, and financial services companies tackling money laundering, in addition to criminal investigations or matters of national security. Collaboration with law enforcement in these industries will only grow with the internet of things, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence—however, the public currently lacks sufficient insight into how companies are navigating this challenge.

There are also many reasons why civil society and academic organizations will seek to publish the transparency reports related to their local government. For example, all data or content requests are undertaken by government, meaning that if governments could be supervised directly to follow rule of law and make proportionate and necessary requests, citizens could efficiently make sure their digital rights are well protected. Recent transparency reports issued in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea are excellent examples of this trend in practice.

This session will discuss what needs to happen to achieve this goal of spreading the practice of law enforcement relationship reporting to (1) companies in other industries and (2) civil society and academic organizations publishing their own analysis, and discuss lessons learned from some of the leading cases to date—including how to ensure that readers make good use of the reported information.