Human Rights in the Digital Age

This edited collection is the first sociolegal examination of the interaction between digital technology and the legal protection of rights in the United Kingdom. It comprises:-

• Access: examining technical design as social design, 'digital divides', and hacktivism vs cyberterrorism.
• Content: covering hate speech; pornography, identity gender; and free expression and defamation.
• Control: comparing the technology and rights implications of state powers, ISP liability and individual user powers.
• Privacy: offering an up-to-date summary of US, UK and European law before going on to employee surveillance, 'ubiquitous computing', and whether states have a right to privacy.

Today digital technology had a greater influence on our lives than at any time since its development. This book examines the role played by digital technology in both the exercise and suppression of human rights. Discourse on human rights need no longer be limited by national or cultural boundaries and individuals have the ability to create new forms in which to exercise their rights or even to bypass national limitations to rights.

The defence of such rights is under constant assault by the newfound ability of states to both suppress and control individual rights through the application of these same digital technologies.