Human rights in the age of

Rights to life, liberty and security, equality before the courts, a fair trial
61
“
Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or 
detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such 
procedure as are established by law.” - Article 9 of the ICCPR 
“
All persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals. In the determination of any criminal charge 
against him, or of his rights and obligations in a suit at law, everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public 
hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law [...] Everyone charged with a 
criminal offense shall have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law.” - Article 
14 of the ICCPR 
55 “The Toronto Declaration: Protecting the right to equality and non-discrimination in machine learning systems, https://www.accessnow.org/cms/
assets/uploads/2018/05/Toronto-Declaration-D0V2.pdf.
56 Human Rights not included are: freedom from torture, right not to be enslaved, rights of detainees, right not to be imprisoned merely based on 
inability to fulfill a contractual obligation, rights of aliens, and the right to social security. This does not mean that AI cannot ultimately impact these 
rights, merely that we found no current documented violations, nor and prospective violations we believed could occur in the near future.
57 Note that although there are many regional human rights systems that are more comprehensive, we mostly limited our analysis to the UN-based 
system in the interest of universal applicability. The exception to this is the right to data protection, which Access Now recognizes as a right and is 
particularly relevant in the context of AI. Further analysis of AI relating to the rights enumerated in these regional systems is merited. For example, the 
European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights are far more comprehensive when it comes to workers’ rights, and 
use of AI by employers to monitor and police employee activity may violate European human rights.
58 See https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/InternationalLaw.aspx for more information
59 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:12012P/TXT&from=EN
60 For a more in-depth examination of how this plays out in the U.S., see Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks. See also https://harpers.org/
archive/2018/01/the-digital-poorhouse/ (“the most marginalized in our society face higher levels of data collection when they access public benefits, walk 
through heavily policed neighborhoods, enter the health care system, or cross national borders. That data reinforces their marginality when it is used to 
target them for extra scrutiny. Groups seen as undeserving of social support and political inclusion are singled out for punitive public policy and more 
intense surveillance, and the cycle begins again. It is a feedback loop of injustice.”).
61 Article 3, 6, 7, 8, and 10 of UDHR, Articles 9 and 14 of the ICCPR

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