Image credit: Data Security by Blogtrepreneur/ Flickr, license: CC BY 2.0.

In combating digital authoritarianism characterised by increased surveillance and censorship, it is imperative to protect people’s rights to ensure civil societies can flourish. People living in the digital age cannot be fully protected by laws written decades or even centuries ago, as our institutions have yet to catch up to the digitisation of both our private and public sectors in which “attention economy” and “behaviour collection and prediction” becomes an underlying and inescapable backdrop of our daily lives. The business model of addiction and surveillance capitalism creates vulnerability in our democracies that is systematic and fatal.

We, the people, have to rethink ways to preserve freedom in this new landscape of political economy where Big Techs are the new “Too Big to Fail” or even “too big to be held accountable.” From individuals to businesses big and small, all the way to government agencies and international organisations, all by varying degrees depending on our daily operation on merely a handful of for-profit enterprises. This is the classic mistake of “putting all eggs in one basket,” and when it comes to holding the basket accountable for the systematic damage to our democracy, we, the eggs, can only hope for the best.

We, therefore, need to restructure our overall ecological dependency towards decentralisation. Meanwhile, we must insist that our democratic values and our commitment to empowering the people should be at the centre of our policy and law-making.  

However, it requires extensive effort to articulate and build consensus on the digital rights that will uphold the people’s freedom – but we should not wait any longer to begin. The Judicial Reform Foundation (民間司法改革基金會), Taiwan’s most established public interest lawyers NGO since 1995, has begun to take up the mission in drafting a Digital Bill of Rights — a compilation of the people’s rights that the States and corporations must not infringe, and also the corresponding responsibility of the government to not only passively respect, but just as importantly, actively execute policies and agenda that constructively empower the people and rehabilitates the “Too big to Fail” structure.  

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 environment that is for the people, by the people, and of the people. 

To collect ideas and distil common values, JRF has been organising workshops at domestic and international forums over the past months and continues to invite people of diverse backgrounds to join this movement. So far, the Digital Bill of Rights is at its early development stage (Version 1.1), and your valuable feedback would be much appreciated.  

Version 1.1 consists of a preamble and ten articles. The first article addresses the Right to Secrecy, Anonymity, and Tool Access. Privacy rights are crucial for the survival of democracy in the digital age, encompassing the Right to Secrecy (to have our messages understood only by the intended recipient) and the Right to Anonymity (to send and receive information which may be public in their content, without revealing who said and who listened or read what was said.) Thereby the government must not interfere with the people’s Right to access tools or mechanisms that protect the people’s right to secrecy and the right to anonymity.  

The second article focuses on the Right to Minimized Datafication. The government is responsible for ensuring that both the public and the private sector thoroughly minimise datafication, namely minimising the capturing of real-life situations into data that can be stored, analysed, and commodified. 

In Article 3, we discuss the Right to Meaningful Alternatives. People have the right to digital self-determination, deciding and controlling the extent and aspects of their lives that are to be digitised or conducted online. Therefore, every person has the Right to Offline Alternatives, the Right to Non-personalised use of Digital Offerings, and The Right to Usage of Non-digitised Fiat Money (Right to Cash). The alternatives must, in effect, not be discriminated against or lesser than their online counterparts. 

Article 4 emphasises an Environmental Approach and Public Mental Health. Values of democracy and freedom must be at the centre of governance, including incorporating approaches of “environmental governance” into the understanding and legal protection of privacy rights while also including “e-mental health” into the understanding and legal protection of “public health.”  

Articles 5 and 6 address Artificial Intelligence. In line with the legal principle of the “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine,” which prevents the use of illegally obtained evidence in court, these articles extend this principle to AI governance. AI models trained with data obtained through unjustified means are also unjustified in and of itself. Based on its obligation to protect the people, the government should establish and implement, in a timely manner, legal frameworks regarding AI. Such legal framework shall include but not be limited to the people’s Right to be Informed, which encompasses macro and micro aspects: the government’s information disclosure obligation to the general public regarding its usage of AI and the individual’s right to prior notification when they are about become subject to AI-assisted decision making. This will further allow for people’s Right to Opt-out of AI-assisted decision-making for results with legal effects or similarly significant impacts. 

Articles 7 and 8 focus on Due Process for Restrictive Measures. Acknowledging that no rights are absolute, any restrictions to our established rights online or the digital rights set out above must be prescribed by law, due process, and principles of proportionality. Article 7 requires the government to take proportionate measures in tackling illegal content online and act on a legal basis and only do so as a last resort. A framework of independent supervisory mechanism is proposed encompassing private sector entities or the government agency as the main body handling illegal content. Article 8 deals with special circumstances in times of crisis (major natural disasters, large-scale infectious diseases, or armed conflicts) in which the government has the obligation, prior to the occurrence of special emergencies, to proactively establish and regularly conduct drills and advancements in developing legal norms (reasonable periods and continuation conditions), facility preparedness, etc. 

Finally, Articles 9 and 10 highlight Governmental Policy and the People’s Right to Empowerment and Participation. Every person has the right to education enabling digital self-determination. Governments must protect this right and provide accessible channels for acquiring essential digital democracy skills, regardless of age or economic background. These skills should be considered as fundamental as literacy, crucial for personal development and autonomy in the digital age. 

You will be able to find even more ideas and nuances in the draft itself, and we sincerely invite you to co-right the next chapter of humanity in which people are free and empowered in the digital age. Indeed, the effort to collectively articulate the essence and form of the people’s rights is in and of itself a revolution – a peaceful struggle to build systematic safeguards for our future. JRF unites lawyers, tech experts, and activists. We stand at a critical juncture in history—the last generation with the power to shape our digital future. Together, we must ensure that freedom and democracy form its bedrock before it is too late.  

This article was published as part of a special issue on ‘Digital Governance in Taiwan’.