– DRAFT –
Human Rights & Web Standards?

<npdoty> now we can hear!

DKA: Good morning everyone

DKA: the topic is human rights and standards

DKA: the focus of this session is on interactive discussion

DKA: we'll start with some scene setting

Simone: welcome all

<wendyreid> Link: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-archive/2025Jul/att-0280/Workshop_Report__Advancing_Human_Rights-Aligned_Standard-Setting.pdf

Simone: there was a report from the UN on human rights and technical standard-setting processees for new and emerging digital technologies, of which a new version was just recently published
… there was a recent meeting in Madrid where some of this was presented
… what's the problem? Standards define technial features, with that they are relevant for human rights
… as a SDO we have the responsibility
… coming from security, pretty much all kinds of technology are related to this
… there are two main challenges. The first is lack of expertise and the second transparancy and participation gaps
… we had a conversation with IETF as they also have a research group on human rights
… another factor is providing training on human rights, which we want to do

<npdoty> while I appreciate the shoutout, I think it's pretty clear that we don't have nearly enough engagement and expertise from civil society. I am a poor substitute for participation from genuine human rights experts

DKA: to add onto what Simone said… last year we had an AC meeting in Hiroshima. It was notable that the Tim Engelhardt from the UN speak on the doc they had been working on in the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights

DKA: the president of Hiroshima University challenged W3C to take proactive actions towards realising a peaceful future

DKA: they referenced the Code of Conduct and the Ethical Web Principles, of which I'm a co-editor. I'm Dan Appelquist, I work for Samsung's open source group and was chair of TAG for a while

DKA: now I'm a co-chair of the Advisory Board

DKA: in that document we said we need to put internationally recognised human rights at the core of the web platform, especially related to the UN Declaration of Human Rights

DKA: some work the TAG has done on privacy principles is trying to push that forward into the web platform

DKA: how can we actually make it part of our requirements rather than just have it as some promise?

IdentityWoman: Human rights is a very broad term. So my question is… which human rights are talking about? All of them? There's like a hundred

<npdoty> UDHR is Universal Declaration of Human Rights

DKA: we're talking specifically about the work that the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights is discussing, specifically their work on technical standards.

IdentityWoman: but that's still broad. People who are more technical struggle to understand what it actually means

DKA: it's not about being nice, it's about specifically looking at what technical requirements can we add into our work

<Ben_Tillyer> Link to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

DKA: coming back to our work on privacy… all work on web privacy hangs off of specific items in the UN declaration of human rights

simone: we are talking about independent standards and human rights as something robust. One of the approaches we're experimenting with is focus on harms

wendyreid: re the last question… one of the things called out in the report is not just about human rights, it's about how do we make the work we do and the processes that feed into that accessible to experts in the fields we're looking to talk to. We need human rights experts, privacy experts, disability experts… we need to make ourselves accessible to them

wendyreid: realistically, even if they don't give us the technical solutions… that's our job… we need to informed by their information and experience

wendyreid: I tried to get folks from the publishing industry to give input on age verification… was actually hard to get them to be involved… they weren't sure how to share their perspective

wendyreid: the hurdle was too high

DKA: that's absolutely right. One thing in the UN report was to encourage NGOs to have more participation from civil society groups

DKA: it's great we have CDT and npdoty, but… we only have CDT… there are many more NGOs and civil society groups that could participate about his

aki: +1 you need to have these different orgs participating… we do have the benefit having more than just industry groups in W3C

aki: I work with ECMA international, another SDO

<Zakim> npdoty, you wanted to make the rights more specific so they can be used in our standards work

aki: how can we actively recruit folks to work on web standards without coming to W3C first?

npdoty: there's some important themes in the UN report… I do think W3C is well positioned being not just industry

npdoty: but I think we're not going as deep and broad as we need to be to be effective… I think horizontal review is a great way to become more effective

<Ben_Tillyer> The UN report that has been referenced multiple times "Human rights and technical standard-setting processes for new and emerging digital technologies" 2023 - https://docs.un.org/a/hrc/53/42

npdoty: we could gather people with expertise in privacy for instance and see how it applies… and same for other rights liek freedom of association and expression

npdoty: we need them to explain implication. We need more engagement but I don't think we can expect we'll have many civil society orgs to try and keep up with all of our standards and working groups all the time

npdoty: but we can more affirmatively experct us to be succesful in reaching more groups and making hte actionable principles

<npdoty> my blog post on what we should work on for implementing the recommendations: https://cdt.org/insights/implementing-recommendations-for-supporting-human-rights-in-web-standards/

JenStrickland: following aki's example… I'm Jen, was in industry, primarily work with US gov now. I also chair the Equity CG

<npdoty> (transparency is also a topic that does more to enable access and participation, and again an area where W3C is doing better than many SDOs, but also still isn't fully successful)

JenStrickland: we're working on the Equity maturity model. I am also doing a masters in public administration, and a public speaker

JenStrickland: one of the things I'm hearing is we need to make W3C more accessible to others that we need in these conversations

JenStrickland: I think rather us opening the door, we need to get our of our ivory tower, include people not in technical orgs

JenStrickland: we need to talk to people on the ground with lived experiences

JenStrickland: to make people aware and show them we want their input. We have big gaps in our coverage. We need to go to them rather than put the onus on them

<JenStrickland> +1 to lola

lola: re Jen's point… before I joined Bocoup they did a number of community-based standards work, out side the W3C, engaging people who were doing the kind of work we're talking about., looking for collaboration and getting folks to share their expertise, without needing them to be embroiled into the kinds of politics we have at W3C.

lola: They just come to bring their expertise to very specific, while they're shielded from things that can feel intimidating

lola: W3C needs some kind of advocacy program

lola: so while we advocate for specs and tech, we also need to actively send members to communities where we can expect impact

<npdoty> W3C ambassadors/advocates to reach out to different communities and explain what's going on, or solicit feedback

DKA: do you think that should be a function of the Team or membership?

lola: not sure where… Marie Claire is doing training and Sylvia is doing outreach too

lola: we can identify a number of working groups that need this kind of integrated work

lola: and we can make sure community members feel t hey can participate and allow them to be invited experts

simone: even as technical people we don't always understand these kinds of abstract topics

simone: we should not just put people together but also define the process and share competences, developrs struggle using the examples

simone: we need training on both sides

JenStrickland: the purpose of today's meeting is to discuss the general area… one thing that could be useful is to document follow up actions, eg brainstorm how we might engage how to encorporate the community

JenStrickland: at the government we had relationships with local community organisations and academia

JenStrickland: out of compassion for them would like to keep them far away from us and our culture, as their expertise is of tremendous value

JenStrickland: wouldn't like to just excavate their expertise

DKA: I'm looking for helping defining what we can do as a community, what AB can do as well.

DKA: the AB has a 2026 priority projects to engage with policy and regulatory, this kind of fits under that umbrella. Are there work items or specific things … how can we help AB frame that work item?

koalie: I'm Coralie Mercier, head of marketing and communications… ever since I read the UN report I have been hoping that W3C could create a horizontal that looks at human rights

<npdoty> I had an email thread going for a while about human rights horizontal review ... but some people seemed to think it was too abstract to act upon

DKA: do we need a specific human rights threats and harms, say, interest or community group, do you think the time is right for that?

koalie: that's too focused of a question, we don't have CGs or IGs for all of our horizontals… might use those as a mechanism to make that work

koalie: at Process level, I want to look at the mechanisms we have or can have in place

<Zakim> npdoty, you wanted to comment on new technical work that could help address particular community concerns, not just review. (gender-based violence as an area, for example)

koalie: many specs might benefit from a human rights related horizontal review

npdoty: another way we could work on this topic, there may be new substantive technical work that's needed to support specific human rights

<wendyreid> +1 npdoty

npdoty: and to reach out to specific communities

<hdv> +1 npdoty

npdoty: an IETF example… we identified this area where BT location trackers where used for stalking and intimate partner violence… that affected a certain community and we spoke to experts and groups who work with survivors of domestic violence to find out about mitigations against that type of location tracking

npdoty: that was new substantive work for a particular human rights concern we had identified

npdoty: if we had the ambassador idea… when we hear a particular policy need or a concern re harms that people see from web technology… we can then potentially charter new work based on those topics

npdoty: there are particular areas, like gender based violence, there are many other areas we can think of, where we can identify new work proactively

DKA: ongoing tech review can also increase quality and work to mitigate, to make things better

<JenStrickland> I wonder if a horizontal review process takes time to develop: research, analysis, design, review, iterate, then document, etc.… So, for a long tail goal, I see it as helpful. For a shorter term vision, having the discussions, opening collaboration, it takes quite a bit of time to develop the relationships, trust, rapport, etc., for these network

<JenStrickland> efforts. These would then inform the development or evolution of a horizontal review process.

<npdoty> @koalie you're absolutely right. horizontals shouldn't just be for review, but some of us who work in horizontals have more often been focused on review :)

<npdoty> but even for Privacy in particular, re-chartering as a Privacy Working Group was so that we could both do horizontal review and new standards work as needed

DKA: in the TAG review of the Web of Things work, a number of years back, we came back with probing questions re abuse cases of IoT devices, like surveillance and stalking, that really wasn't something they had thought about, but after the review they did

<Zakim> DKA, you wanted to give another example - the societal impact questionnaire from TAG: https://www.w3.org/TR/societal-impact-questionnaire/

<JenStrickland> Note: some of these devices are also used by us survivors to protect us, to know where the perpetrators are to avoid dangers.

DKA: in that same context… TAG just released a note, the societal impact questionnaire

DKA: many specs developed by people in industry have not had potential societal impacts considered, but we can prompt them with documents like these

DKA: that's also an effective approach, ambient info that relates back to rights questions

<npdoty> "not subjecting people" is a real concern. I was pretty cautious about introducing people to IETF, and still worry about having done that.

aki: Jen earlier mentioned 'not subjecting people to this'… standards people talk about this a lot… this can be hard when it is not your background. I worked in standards for many many years and recently started at a new standards org and very nearly quit after the first day. It was a hostile environment, don't think anyone meant it that way, but it made me feel confused

<DKA> +1 to aki

<wendyreid> +100000

<JenStrickland> +1 to @aki's point. I know I am among many who regularly consider leaving the W3C -- and I know many who have left the W3C because of cultural "splinters".

aki: so I think it makes sense to sit with folks for a while before trying to get them to actually sit here, as otherwise it can be very intimidating and/or isolating

<npdoty> I think it does matter how much we make it a welcoming place! but I agree that it's not enough to do that.

wendyreid: +100^100 to what aki said

<DKA> +1 to joining PWEtf

wendyreid: training chairs helps improve the environment we work on

wendyreid: join the PWETF!

wendyreid: an area we should look into, hopefully the AB can… is how can we diversify how feedback comes into our work

<npdoty> +1 for getting more pathways for feedback

wendyreid: having worked on getting docs through the publication process, I also know that horizontal review is hard and could get a lot of negative feedback from folks going through

wendyreid: timing matters, you don't want to find out about a massive human rights mistake and have to rewrite your whole spec just before publication

<JenStrickland> I would also like to invite interested folks to join the Equity Community Group. Full disclosure, though, we're in a very grueling literature review phase. https://www.w3.org/community/equity/

<npdoty> +1 for plain language blog posts for more transparency and channels

wendyreid: to get wider feedback, we can encourage folks to talk more publicly about their work, post on LinkedIn, Bluesky, your own blog… share it in as many channels as possible, this way we could get more diverse feedback

<JenStrickland> Yeah, a group gets a survivor in it and then dismisses concerns raised… it is really hard in the W3C sometimes, speaking from experience.

lola: Sarven and I are co-editors of the Societal Impact questionnaire

<wendyreid> Positive Work Environment: https://www.w3.org/community/pwe/

lola: it's not part of horizontal review, it's kind of late to find out about these things during horizontal review … we want folks to think about societal impact much earlier

lola: the UK government is interested in participaton in standards, they're trying to improve it; I wonder if there's opportunity for us to collaborate with the UK goverment with this kind of work

<npdoty> getting harder to find non-hostile governments for some of us

lola: the EU is also interested in standards stuff… are there other bodies interested in getting more diverse voices?

aki: the EU wants to get involved and there is an opportunity right now to add comments to, you can do before December 17th, will drop a link

simone: +1 to others, horizontal review is too late… it's impossible and impractical to make suggestions at that pint

simone: when the features are ready we should start monitoring human rights

simone: we need to focus on the user. Taking some frameworks, in particular one from Microsoft that is also in the RFC for human rights… we need to understand stakeholders. That can be the user, different users… but also non-users

simone: to work in the UK you need digital credentials…so it's also non-users we should consider

simone: we are also working on a diagram to put hundreds of spec pages into something easier to understand

simone: this helps start mitigating the threads

<aki> This link for the European Commission's "Have your say" regarding European Standards provides background of the process so far. The link to contribute your voice is about ⅔ down the page and says "Go to consultation" https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14511-Standardisation-Regulation-revision_en

Ben_Tillyer: I work for the Uni of Oxford and we are bound by the Public Sector Equality Duty

<simone> npdoty yes, non-users are important, to find discrimination if you don't use the technology

Ben_Tillyer: so every time I need to make a decision I am bound by this… it asks me to think about whether the decision I am making does not result in unlawful discrimination according to UK law, asks me to consider equality of opportunity

<npdoty> have people found the PSED actionable? or successful?

Ben_Tillyer: when I saw this breakout session today, I thought the W3C might be able to take learnings from what the PSED has achieved in the UK and look to see whether some version of it could be implemented as part of horizontal review and/or as something for chairs

<npdoty> https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-sector-equality-duty

Ben_Tillyer: there's a legal expectation in the UK for written records with evidence of your considerations about key decisions. Without increasing chair's workload, how can we make something like this work for this?

DKA: there are a couple of documents recently published as W3C Statements, like the Vision for W3C… they are not binding but they can hopefully help people focusing on these areas. They don't have teeth, is it apt to have teeth?

IdentityWoman: wanted to share something I heard about… 'programmable human rights'… sounded like code word for censoring things we don't like… 

IdentityWoman: as a value-oriented technoligst, I came to the work via civil society. I was in a community that published a paper called the Augmented Social Network

IdentityWoman: holding onto the vision and making technology you work with industry folks as well as civil society

<Ben_Tillyer> Some links: 1) Intro to PSED: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-sector-equality-duty-guidance-for-public-authorities/public-sector-equality-duty-guidance-for-public-authorities#introduction 2) A guide to PSED for civil servants in the UK: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63568bca8fa8f557cc0b8f97/The_Judge_Over_Your_Shoulder_accessible_PDF.pdf 3)

<Ben_Tillyer> s/ 3) /

IdentityWoman: in a forum we've hosted called Internet Identity workshop we had Jay Stanley from ACLU to come.

<npdoty> I can't find anything online about "programmable human rights"

<npdoty> thanks Ben_Tillyer for those links

IdentityWoman: I believe those dollars could have more impact by showing up more often in technical forums

<JenStrickland> RightsCon is one potential "partner" I thought could be where we might reach out. https://www.rightscon.org

<npdoty> +1 JenStrickland, RightsCon is a useful venue

<Zakim> DKA, you wanted to also mention the draft finding on "preventing abuse of digital credentials" https://w3ctag.github.io/prevent-credential-abuse/

<denkeni> +1 to RightsCon, lots of professionals there

DKA: I and Martin Thomson worked on a finding called Preventing Abuse of Digital Credentials

DKA: at W3C we can give people the feeling that they can spend their time and energy on human rights

JenStrickland: maybe there's a way to providing cover for more hostile situations?

DKA: something to think about

DKA: thanks everyone for participating

DKA: please talk more about this in the break and continue to engage