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Internet surveillance: law and practice in a global digital environment

Prof Douwe Korff ( Professor of International Law, London Metropolitan University )

Surveillance of Internet activities and electronic communications of individuals, and of the patterns of their interactivity, affects a whole range of human rights protected by international (global and regional) human rights treaties. It of course directly impacts on the right to privacy (or “private life”) and correspondence. But it also has a clear effect on other rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of information, and freedom of association. In this talk, Prof. Korff will summarise the international law that is applicable to large-scale state interception activities, and how it interacts with national security and counter-terrorism programmes. He will also discuss whether states have obligations to protect the rights of individuals in other jurisdictions.

Speaker bio

Douwe Korff is Professor of International Law at London Metropolitan University and visiting professor at the Universities of Zagreb and Rijeka in Croatia. He is both a general human rights lawyer and a specialist in data protection. He has worked for Amnesty International in the 1970s and early-80s, taken important cases to the European Court of Human Rights (including the “Gibraltar Shooting” case, McCann v. the UK), and written the Council of Europe Human Rights Handbook on Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (The Right To Life). Prof. Korff has trained judges and prosecutors in many countries, especially in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans, in fair trial and general human rights issues, on behalf of the UN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the EU. As a data protection expert, he has carried out many studies for the European Commission relating to the implementation of the EC directives on data protection, as well as several studies for the UK Information Commissioner.

 

 

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