由下而上建立值得人民信賴的司法

Digital Bill of Rights: A Systematic Bottom-Up Approach Towards Freedom in the Digital Age

▶ Drafted by: Judicial Reform Foundation - Digital Law Taskforce (Taiwan)
▶ Work-in-Progress, Ver 1.1 (Last Updated 2024/07/18)
Mandarin version(中文版)
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~ Before you read ~

In solidarity, Judicial Reform Foundation invites you to join this bottom-up global movement. 
Please email [email protected] to join us and together explore ways to collaborate in drafting, strategizing, advocacy, and localizing efforts around the Digital Bill of Rights. 

~ WHY is this important~

“We, the People” In combating digital authoritarianism and allowing civil societies to flourish in an increasingly surveilled and censored Brave New World, it is imperative to focus on the fundamental rights.

What we need is a Bill of Rights — an impactful and comprehensive inventory of rights that the people innately possess that is unalienable by the State. This “Digital Bill of Rights”, as we like to call it, is a systematic, fundamental, and preventive initiative against digital authoritarianism and surveillance capitalism. With this Digital Bill of Rights drafted, promulgated, and ultimately codified domestically and internationally, we begin the critical effort to engineer the legal structure of a free society and internet that is for the people, by the people, and of the people.

Share your ideas and keep in touch!

To make improvement and include more comprehensive perspectives, we would love to learn of your feedback regarding this draft1.1. Please leave your thoughts below and click on the box in the very end to follow JRF’s digital rights movement (including updates to the drafts) as we continue to progress.

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Preamble

We, the People” To allow civil societies to flourish in an increasingly surveilled and censored Brave New World, it is imperative to focus on the fundamental rights. This “Digital Bill of Rights,” is a systematic, fundamental, and preventive initiative against digital authoritarianism and surveillance capitalism. 

We are now living in a vast construction site we call "the Internet”, where a digital human society is being built. This new society embodies the potential of universal persistent interconnection, as well as the possibility of perfect despotism; the elimination of ignorance and the transformation of work; the economy of attention and surveillance; the redefinition of the very purpose of human thought—all these profound and fundamental challenges to our understanding of the human identity and society are already before us.


The emerging networked systems surveil, correlate, analyze and affect the personal behavior of billions of individuals, by direct intervention, trillions of times a day. And soon these emerging  forms of large-scale social control will have matured and within which every human mind will then develop, from birth to death, in direct connection to the internet. 

Today, we're at a construction site that has not yet become a prison. The Net we are building may already be shaping human minds as we shape it, but it's still our creation and can be altered. 

We, the last generation of people who still have a choice, must unite and collectively work to ensure that foundations of freedom and democracy are sturdily embedded in this construction site.


With the ultimate goal of constructing a shared digital future that is for the people, of the people, and by the people, we hereby commence the establishment of legal frameworks delineating citizens' rights and governmental responsibilities.

 

1.Privacy as a Cornerstone of Freedom and Democracy

  1. Privacy rights are crucial for the survival of democracy in the digital age, encompassing the following three components:
    1. The Right to Secrecy: the people’s ability to have our messages understood only by those to whom we intend to send them. 
    2. The Right to Anonymity: The people’s ability to send and receive messages, which may be public in their content, without revealing who said and who listened or read what was said.
    3. The Right to Autonomy: the avoidance of coercion, interference, and intervention by parties who have violated either the people’s right to  secrecy or anonymity and who are using what they have gained by those violations to control us.
  2. Privacy, due to it’s high relationality and externality, must not be governed as transactional substance (something assumed to be given up by an individual in exchange for “free” services from a specific entity) but an essential environmental quality for preserving freedom and democracy in the power relationship among the people, the government, and corporations
  3. The government must not interfere with the people’s right to access, use, distribute, create, promote, or upgrade tools or mechanisms that preserve the people’s right to secrecy and the right to anonymity. The imposition of any restrictions must be based on law, due process, and principles of proportionality. The tools or mechanisms include but are not limited to:
    • encryption
    • anti-tracking methods, e.g. data or metadata obfuscation
    • VPN
  4. Regarding civil society-initiated promotional actions, the government shall provide support and assistance, with the premise of not intervening in the operation and direction of civil actions.

 

2.Right to Minimized Datafication

  1. In line with the people’s right to informational self-determination, the people have the Right to Minimized Datafication of their behavior online and offline. 
  2. The government is responsible to ensure that both the public and the private sector thoroughly minimizes datafication, namely minimizing the capturing of real life situations into data that can be recorded, transferred, stored, analyzed, and even used to inform machine learning models.
  3. Minimized datafication shall be a prerequisite to all consent-based data or privacy protection regulations.
  4. The government is responsible to promote, and by year _____ , ensure that all public or private sector digital offerings are privacy-by-default and privacy-by-design in which people’s right to minimized datafication is fully implemented. 
  5. In line with the people’s right to informational self-determination and the right to know, every person has the right to access, the right to rectify, and the right to delete the data or information that any public or private entity has about them, including but not limited to labels, implications, assumptions, classifications of one’s:
    • personality traits 
    • ideology or political inclinations
    • sex life or sexual orientation
    • religious or philosophical beliefs
    • health, genetic, or biometric data
    • racial or ethnic origin, immigration status
    • trade union membership
    • criminal history (not limited to convictions)

 

3.Right to Meaningful Alternative

In line with the people’s right to digital self-determination, the people have the right to decide and control the extent and aspects of their lives that are to be digitized or conducted online. Therefore, even as the public and private sectors are rushing towards digitization and transforming much of the services and relations online, they must respect the people’s right to meaningful alternatives:

  1. Right to Offline Alternative:
    1. Besides ensuring non-discriminatory and privacy-preserving online access to key public services, the government and the providers of critical infrastructures must allow the people the choice to conduct their civic duty and civic participation offline. No person shall be left with no choice but to go online or leave unnecessary digital footprints during any interaction with the public sector or the providers of critical infrastructures.
    2. The government and providers of critical infrastructures are obliged to:
      1. Establish equivalent offline alternatives: Actively lay out foundations and workable procedures to allow the people to conduct civic duty and civic participation offline. The alternatives must in effect not be discriminated against or lesser than the online counterparts.
      2. Inform the people of the option to offline alternatives.
      3. Actively provide guidance to those who choose the offline alternatives, and must not create hurdles or be treated unequally because of the choice to offline alternative.
    3. The government is responsible to ensure compliance. If a person decides to stay offline for the rest of her life, the government is obligated to ensure that her civic rights and livelihood (equal access to public utility) are not hindered.
    4. The absence or incompliance to the obligations above (by year ____) is deemed a violation to the people’s right to offline alternative.
  2. Right to non-personalized digital offerings
    • Every person has the right to non-personalized use of digital offerings. Any restrictions must be prescribed by law, due process, and principles of proportionality.
  3. Right to Usage of Non-digitized Fiat Money (Right to Cash):
    • Every person has the right to use fiat money offline and without automated tracking (i.e., cash). No government may abridge the people’s right to use cash.

 

4.Promoting a Digital Environment Conducive to Democracy and Freedom and Maintaining Public Mental Health

  1. People have the right to live in a free social environment, which should not be diminished as the social environment becomes increasingly digitized. Therefore, the government has the obligation to protect people from living in a digital environment dominated by commercial interests (surveillance capitalism) or interfered with by political forces, and has the obligation to proactively prevent and eliminate the risk of the digital environment harming public mental health in people’s online or offline lives.

  2. The direction of the governance of the digital environment should be based on the values ​​of democracy and freedom, including but not limited to the following guidelines: 

    1. To include the dimension of "environmental governance" into the understanding and legal protection of "privacy rights," especially:

      1. With the advancement of digitization in both public and private sectors, people’s every move in life, whether online or offline, including internal information search and acquisition, external information dissemination and expression, has become the target of “datafication”, and it is becoming difficult for any citizen to escape from the environment of being monitored, analyzed, labeled, and even understood or influenced by commercial interests or political forces. 

      2. Privacy is a breathing room for the dynamic self-hood to freely explore itself and its relationship with the society (safe space; boundary) . It is also the basic premise for the exercise of human rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association. Therefore, the abandonment of privacy by individuals has a high “external cost” for the entire democratic community. In order to manage and reduce the high external costs of democratic society, it is advisable to refer to the discussion and protection of environmental rights and appropriately limit social relationships that use personal data and personal behavior as consideration in exchange for "free" or low-priced benefits or services.

      3. The government has the obligation to prevent effects similar to the "Panopticon" from occurring in digital life, which encompasses: 

        • Conscious or subconscious self-censorship regarding one’s expressions, search for information, and access to information;

        • Even if one decides not to fall for self-censorship: the risks assumed, long-term anxiety, and cognitive burdens that a free person should not bear.

    2. Including the dimension of "e-mental health" into the understanding and legal protection of "public health," especially:

      1. Establish a comprehensive policy on addictive digital services, including appropriate restrictions on the use of minors or vulnerable populations.

      2. Addiction prevention and control policies should not be limited to minors or vulnerable populations. If addictive digital services pose a high risk to the mental health of adults, or if they have a high impact on their politics, ideological inclinations, or speech without the knowledge of adults, they should also be moderately restricted in accordance with the values of democracy and freedom and the framework of the rule of law.

      3. [有時間再多加一些e-mental health層面, 例如參考澳洲guideline]

    3. (還沒想好怎麼化為文字: 關於集體專注力下滑/商品化(capture&auction)       

      • anti-distraction; anti-shallow 難以深度思考 進而影響公民思辨能力與民主社會"體質"

      • attention: monetized, commodified   (let alone peace of mind that has become waste dumpsite)

    4. Everyone has the right to access non-personalized content and search results. Any restrictions must be prescribed by law, due process, and principle of proportionality.   (echo chamber) 

  3. The government has the obligation to keep pace with the times, regularly inviting civil representatives and external experts to evaluate and ensure that the direction of digital environment governance is in line with the promotion of democratic and free values in the contemporary social and technological context.

  4. For civil society-initiated actions beneficial to the promotion of democracy and freedom in the digital environment, the government should provide support and assistance, but with the premise of not intervening in the operation and direction of civil actions.

 

5.Ends Do Not Justify the Means

"Move fast and break things," a term that was used to portray and criticize tech enterprises' reckless strategy to prioritize development and influence regardless of the existing laws and social norms, is still evident in private enterprises today (such as in the commercial development and application of artificial intelligence). Even worse, such a phenomenon has expanded from the private sector to the public authority. In this regard, based on its obligation to protect the people, the government should ensure:

  1. When developing or applying new technologies (such as artificial intelligence), the government should regularly invite civil society organizations and external experts to conduct human rights impact assessments, and be cautious not to override the deeper values of freedom and democracy and the rule of law for the sake of expediency or convenience.
  2. Whereas private sector entities pursuing development at the expense of people's rights and freedoms, the government should establish effective communication and regulatory mechanisms early on to ensure that people's rights are not infringed while encouraging innovation.
  3. In line with the legal principle of “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine”, automated models (including artificial intelligence) trained with data obtained through unjustified means are also unjustified in and of itself. Whether in the public or private sector, it should be ensured that the automated models used, the training data used, and the training process all have legal basis for collection, and that each use is in compliance with the law. The government should establish a professional and independent verification mechanism.
  4. When encouraging civil innovation, the government should also promote the importance of the humanitarian aspects that should be considered in the development and use of emerging technologies. For example, in competitions or awards that incentivize innovation, indicators such as the implementation of privacy protection and human rights assessments should be included as scoring criteria with certain influence.
  5. [公務員在職訓練 Content related to training for government officials to be added]

 

6.Government Development or Use of Automated Systems (Including Artificial Intelligence)

  1. Regarding the development and use of automated systems (including artificial intelligence risks), attention should be paid to the social context in which they are used and their impact on human rights. More broadly, how artificial intelligence is gradually changing the power structure between the people, the state, and enterprises/capital, and whether the direction of this change is consistent with the values of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.
  2. Based on the obligation to protect the people, the government should establish and implement, in a timely manner, legal frameworks regarding automated systems (including artificial intelligence):
    1. Ethical principles may be formulated only by human beings, and decisions that impact fundamental rights should be made only by human beings.
    2. The responsibility for automated decision-making should be borne by natural persons or legal persons. Natural persons or legal persons who use automated decision-making or assistance of any kind, regardless of the extent, should be responsible for their decisions or actions
    3. Every person subject to an automated decision that has a significant impact on his or her life has the right to an independent review and ruling by a human being.
    4. Decisions about life and death, physical integrity, and the deprivation of liberty may be made only by human beings.
    5. The use of artificial intelligence and robotics in areas related to rights violations must be subject to social debate and regulated by legislation.
    6. It is advisable to take risk-based approaches similar to the EU AI Act, to prevent the public and private sectors from using AI in completely prohibited usage scenarios, while strictly monitoring high-risk usage scenarios, and ensuring that people's rights are protected in limited risk usage scenarios.
    7. Regulations regarding automatic systems should be applicable to both the private sector and the government.
    8. The government has an obligation to keep up with the times, regularly invite representatives from the public and external experts to evaluate, and ensure that the relevant legal system and supervision are sufficient to cope with the risks of automatic systems at that time under the contemporary social and technological context.
  3. Prerequisites for the public sector’s development or use of automated systems:
    1. Purpose limitation: Must be limited to public interest purposes.
    2. The people's right to know should be protected by implementing two major aspects: government information disclosure (the public knows what the government is doing) and the right to be informed (individuals know when they are subject to AI/automatic systems).
    3. The principle of legal reservation is a prerequisite for the government to develop or use automated systems (including AI) . For application scenarios involving significant rights, information should be disclosed before development, opinions from civil society and external experts should be widely solicited, and approval from relevant public opinion agencies should be obtained in advance, along with establishing relevant regulations and periodic review mechanisms.
    4. Government's obligation for information disclosure
      1. Timing of information disclosure: At least 3 months before the development or use of the system
      2. Information that should be disclosed at minimum:
        • (Proposed) training data;
        • Sources and legal basis of (proposed) training data;
        • Whether more data is needed, and if so, its sources, proposed acquisition methods, and legal basis:
          • [Within the government system] Data from other governmental units
          • [Outside the government system] Acquiring/collecting more data, including indirect collection from the private sector and direct collection from the people.
      3. Methods of (proposed) model training, such as supervised/reinforcement methods;
      4. Parameters; and
      5. Human rights impact assessment and risk control mechanisms.
  4. Necessary procedures and obligations for government use of automated systems
    1. The government should protect the people’s right to be informed. For people affected by automated (assisted) decision-making, they should be notified in advance, within a reasonable period before the procedure begins, about which stages of the procedure involve the use of automated systems or are assisted by them.
    2. People have the right to opt out of automated individual decision-making (refer to Article 22 of GDPR)
      1. For decisions with legal effects or similarly significant impacts, people have the right to refuse the government's use of automated systems. If the assistance of automated systems has a certain influence on decision-making, people also have the right to refuse and demand a decision-making process completely free of automation.
      2.  The government should inform people of this right within a reasonable period before the procedure begins. If prior notification is not possible, the government should clearly inform the person of this right and explain the remedy procedure at the same time when notifying the decision.
    3. The government has an obligation to regularly review the use of automated systems:
      1. The government should regularly (annually) invite civil representatives and external experts to conduct reviews and risk reassessments. For systems with concerns about human rights violations or discrimination, use should be immediately suspended until a new model is confirmed to meet standards.
      2. The government should regularly (every 3 years) invite civil representatives and external experts to determine whether automated systems should be retrained or updated. In addition to human rights protection and non-discrimination, considerations should also ensure:
        • That there is no "Clever Hans effect", ensuring the model does not use features without social relevance as parameters.
        • Social evolution and innovative breakthroughs are not suppressed or stagnated due to the feedback loop of automated systems. 

 

7.Regarding Exceptions: General Restrictive Measures

  1. The government has the obligation to protect and promote a neutral and open Internet where content, services, and applications are not unjustifiably blocked or degraded.
    When the government tackles all forms of illegal content online, it must take proportionate measures in full respect for fundamental rights, including the right to freedom of expression and information, and without establishing any general monitoring obligations or censorship.

    

  1. Public Sector - Government as the main body handling illegal content: 
    1. Any government agency implementing {network blocking/restricting internet freedom/free internet/shutdown}{content restriction/takedown} or limiting people's access to {encryption technology/aforementioned rights} must follow clear legal reservations and only do so as a last resort.
    2. Principle of Legal Reservation: When the state formulates the aforementioned authorizing regulations, it should adhere to the principle of clarity, clearly stipulating legal requirements, and the scope of implementation should be specific and conform to minimal infringement, due process, and rights remedy {, ...}. Merely citing procedural laws {, ...} and other non-substantive laws is insufficient as a legal basis and does not comply with the principle of legal reservation.
    3. Emergency measures are subject to the same requirements, should comply with legal reservation and be used as a last resort, and should have a mechanism for immediate post-event review. If the immediate post-event review determines the measure to be unreasonable, or if no post-event review determination is made within a reasonable period, the original state should be immediately restored. 
    4. The same applies to government units implementing {blocking/content removal…} through private sector entities or industrial self-regulatory mechanisms. If private sector entities or industrial self-regulatory mechanisms refuse to implement due to the illegality of the government unit's {restrictive measures}, the government agency must not impose disadvantageous treatments or extralegal pressure on the private sector entities or industrial self-regulatory mechanisms. If implementation is still deemed necessary, the government agency may request a judgment from an independent supervisory mechanism, and the judgment of the independent supervisory mechanism shall prevail.
  2. Private Sector - private sector entities or industrial self-regulatory mechanisms as the main body handling illegal content:
    1. Upon receiving a request from a government unit to implement {restrictive measures}, private sector entities or industrial self-regulatory mechanisms should verify such request’s compliance with regulatory requirements before proceeding. If there is pressure from government units, private sector entities or industrial self-regulatory mechanisms may file complaints or reports.
    2. Restrictive mechanisms proactively established by operators/civil society must fulfill the below requirements:
      1. Regular periodical review and adjustment of the restrictive mechanism to ensure it is the last resort and least harmful measure under the contemporary social and technological context.
      2. Ensure transparency, respecting people's right to know, preventing political interference with internet freedom, and enabling civil society and academic institutions to monitor through information disclosure.
      3. Ensuring people's right to remedy is realized, allowing people to raise objections to restrictive measures with timely review and notice.
    3. The government should provide reasonable subsidies to small/non-profit operators whose  costs of complying with the aforementioned periodical adjustments, transparency standards, and access to remedial measures are excessive.

 

  1. Independent Supervisory Mechanism: (Administrative remedy/supervision, not judicial remedy)
    1. The government should establish an independent supervisory mechanism to:
      1. Proactively identify measures that do not comply with legal reservations and legal requirements, investigate cases of government pressure on operators/people, and accept complaints or reports from operators or people, to hold the government unit accountable;
      2. Ensure people's right to remedy is realized, allowing people to raise objections to {restrictive measures} and receive timely response, regardless of whether the objection is based on questioning the legal reservation, legal requirements, or the measure itself;
      3. Prevent excessive restriction of freedom of speech and information by public power, prevent political interference with internet freedom, and ensure the transparency of government {restrictive measures}, respect people's right to know, and enable civil society and academic institutions to {verify} through information disclosure; and
      4. Periodically review and adjust the restrictive mechanism to ensure it is the last resort and least harmful measure under the contemporary social and technological context.
    2. This supervisory mechanism does not affect the possibility of the people or private entities seeking judicial reviews.

 

8.Regarding Exceptions: Special Restrictive Measures in Times of Crisis

  1. In special emergency situations such as major natural disasters, large-scale infectious diseases, or armed conflicts, where there is a need to temporarily and appropriately expand the boundaries of governmental power in order to preserve significant public interest:
    1. The government has the obligation, prior to the occurrence of special emergency situations, to proactively prepare and establish mechanisms with democratic rule of law as the core value. This may include legal norms (reasonable periods and continuation conditions), personnel allocation and authority boundaries, software and hardware technology development, and facility deployment.
    2. The government has the obligation to regularly conduct drills and make adjustments to ensure that the scope and method of public power expansion under this mechanism, within the current social and technological context, adhere to the principles of last resort and minimal interference.
    3. The government has the obligation to disclose information and invite civil representatives and external experts to participate, during the process of mechanism establishment, regular drills and adjustments.
    4. The government has the obligation to promote mechanisms for continuing the essence of democracy under special emergency situations, as proposed by various sectors, ranging from expression of public opinion to election referendums and other mechanisms for updating public opinion, and to complete the process of legalization.
    5. he government has the obligation to conduct post-event reviews and complete improvements within a reasonable period, whenever a special emergency situation occurs. 
  2. To protect people's right to connect, the government has the obligation to promote internet resilience:
    1. Considering the possibility of natural disasters, internet infrastructure failures, damage or control by foreign hostile forces (such as severing of submarine cables), or military conflicts, the government has the obligation to proactively prepare and establish diverse, decentralized internet infrastructure to eliminate preventable or reducible damages or rights restrictions. Relevant agencies must regularly report progress to the parliament (military secrets can be reported separately).
    2. Regarding civil-initiated actions on digital civil defense, internet resilience, and education and promotion of distributed servers, the government should provide support and assistance on the premise of not interfering with the operation and direction of civil actions.

9.Digital Freedom National Policy (title to be rephrased)

Power relations between individuals, states, and corporations are having enormous shifts as the public and private sector undergo the process of mass digitization and automation. To protect the people's rights and democratic principles in the digital world, the government has the responsibility to ensure that the power relationships embedded in the contemporary political economy situations are aligned with the ultimate goal to preserve freedom, justice, and solidarity. Policy and law making efforts must share the common objective that is to enable the digitized society to develop in the direction towards one that is "for the people, of the people, and by the people."

At this moment, the government has to tackle a crisis of ecological dependency. Similar but more severe than the 2008 Wall Street Financial Crisis, the Big Tech nowadays have again formed a social dependency that prevents them from being meaningfully held accountable. Once again, the structure of "Too big to fail", or even oftentimes, "too big to be regulated" has formed -- this time, even more intertwined with the people's everyday life.

From everyday people, to SMEs, to the public sector are all operating their daily lives and operations on the storage, computing power, "convenience," controlled by a handful of enterprises, we lose our control and ownership to our means of production. The information environment and cultural environment comes to centralize around big techs, where most social interactions and information acquisition are now enclosed in an environment where for-profit corporations sit at the middle of every interaction monitoring, analyzing, nudging (a nice word for manipulating), and many times commodifying or monetizing the behaviors of the people.

No freedom or true democracy may sustainably survive this dependency on a handful of for-profit entities and the centralization of resources and means of production.

The government must take responsibility in promoting and enabling the civil society to rebalance the ecological dependency crisis and to move toward a people-centered political economy. Therefore, the government is responsible for:

  1. Reduce the dependency of the public sector, or the private sector as a whole, on a few profit-making businesses. The government should regularly invite civil representatives and scholars to assess the dependency of basic livelihood and government units on a few for-profit enterprises, jointly develop strategies and action guidelines to reduce dependency relationships that threaten economic democracy, and establish that neither the public nor private sectors have a degree of dependency on any for-profit enterprise that could hinder regulatory efficacy. The measurement of dependency degree and relationship should not only consider whether it is low-cost or free, but should focus on whether it creates substantial dependency with the public sector or private economy, leading to a situation where entities become too big to fail or too big to effectively regulate. (Note: This part of the legal discourse is still developing, and the assessment method is pending inquiry from economics and social sciences)
  2. [Internalization of external costs / Free riders should bear corresponding costs.] Developing adequate frameworks so that all market actors benefiting from the digital transformation assume their social responsibilities and make a fair and proportionate contribution to the costs of public goods, services and infrastructures, for the benefit of all people.
  3. What comes from the public should be used for the public, the government should fulfill the principle of “public funding public code.”The government has the obligation to release software, AI models, and information systems established with taxpayers' money under free software license terms, allowing people to read, use, and modify the source code paid for by taxpayers, reducing technological monopoly and promoting free and open-source software.
  4. When formulating legal frameworks and policies, the government should make corresponding different regulations based on the essential differences between for-profit enterprises and non-profit communities, and should provide policy support and legal compliance guidance to non-profit communities (but on the premise of not interfering with their operation and direction).
  5. When formulating legal norms and policies, the government should consider reducing dependency on a few for-profit enterprises and evaluate:
    1. Whether it increases the overall social dependency on existing large for-profit enterprises
    2. Whether it makes it impossible for current smaller businesses to compete with existing large for-profit enterprises
    3. Whether it excessively raises market entry barriers and preemptively hinders the development of future new solutions or non-profit solutions
  6. To develop social resilience of free democracy in the digital age, the government should actively formulate regulations and policies that promote the development of the following aspects:
    1. open tech and open standards;

    2. free software; free hardware

    3. Interoperability

    4. open culture, digital commons and public goods; (例如維基百科)

    5. bottom-up open projects, civic participation and mutual aid

    6. decentralization of the control of, and meaningful resource redistribution to mitigate the dependency to a few for-profit entity regarding:

      1. storage capacity

      2. computing power 

      3. capacity to develop AI

      4. capacity to connect to the global internet

    7. Cultural diversity and dynamics fully demonstrated in the digital environment.

    8. Innovative approach to implementing human rights such as privacy and information autonomy in the digital environment.

For civil-initiated actions, the government should provide support and assistance, but on the premise of not interfering with the operation and direction of civil actions.

 

10.Right to empowerment and participation

  1. People's rights to empowerment and participation
    1. Every person has the right to education, training and lifelong learning that enables a self-determined existence in the digital world.
    2. Everyone has the right to acquire digital democracy knowledge and skills (including literacy and the right to know about the business, profit, and governance models behind the digital tools they use) and technical training, and to actively participate in mainstream channels for developing technology and governance models, jointly promoting a more free, empowering, diverse, and democratic (people-centered; for, of, and by the people) digital environment, information environment, and cultural environment.
  2. The government’s obligations to ensure the people’s right to empowerment and participation
    1. The government has the obligation to actively protect the aforementioned people's rights to education and participation, and provide channels for effectively acquiring fundamental digital democracy skills according to age and economic background. Basic digital democracy skills should be viewed as equivalent to "literacy", as fundamental knowledge and abilities that everyone should possess in the digital age, and as a basic prerequisite for contemporary self-development (dynamic development of selfhood) and self-determination/autonomy.
    2. Fundamental digital democracy skills include but are not limited to the following knowledge and abilities:
      1. Rights awareness
      2. Everyone has the right to learn all basic and advanced digital skills
      3. Information environment literacy
      4. Internet governance, platform governance
      5. The patterns of personal data and behavior collection by the public sector along with relevant regulations
      6. The patterns of personal data and behavior collection by the private sector along with relevant regulations
      7. Risks or potential harms to individual and collective democracy from business models detrimental to democracy, such as: deliberately addictive designs (eroding attention and autonomy), excessive collection or analysis of people's behavior (anonymity in accessing info), selling people's personal data and behavior, or using people's personal data and behavior as a means of profit
      8. Potential use of mainstream digital tools by political power/authority/foreign hostile forces (forces threatening freedom and democracy) in addition to commercial forces
      9. Ways to participate in the development of civic technology, and promotion of free and open-source software and free hardware
      10. […歡迎交流想法...]
    3. Basic national education should make the development of basic digital democracy skills one of its core objectives. The government should ensure that (starting from the year ____) the content of basic national education, in addition to the aforementioned knowledge and abilities, also includes the following digital skills:
      1. Basic programming languages, reading and even writing (consult technicians on what are the minimum languages to know) (python? c?)
      2. Basic computer science knowledge
      3. Basic network concepts (including but not limited to TCP/IP, basic server setup, basic website setup and management, decentralized networks)
      4. Basic AI concepts (including but not limited to fundamental principles, characteristics, and limitations of artificial intelligence)
      5. Basic encryption communication tools, etc.
      6. Internet governance (current practices and alternative approaches)
      7. Current issues raised by civic communities regarding digital democracy
      8. Encourage participation in the development of civic technology, encourage open-source and free software and hardware
      9. […歡迎交流想法...](請教技術人 什麼是最起碼要會的Consult technical experts on what are the minimum skills to know)
    4. The government has the obligation to regularly review the strategies and operations for promoting various knowledge and skill items, keep pace with the times, and regularly invite civil representatives and external experts to evaluate and expand new knowledge and skill items and basic national education content according to the contemporary social and technological context.
    5. Regarding the establishment and regular adjustment of mechanisms for knowledge and skill items and basic national education content, the government should share information and invite civil representatives and scholars to participate.
  3. For civil-initiated actions on digital skills education and promotion, the government should provide support and assistance on the premise of not interfering with the operation and direction of civil actions.