ICT Assessment Services
Moores Rowland is a member of the select group of accredited assessors of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), to provide an independent assessment of compliance by GNI member companies with GNI’s Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy. GNI is dedicated to Protecting and Advancing Freedom of Expression and Privacy in Information and Communication Technologies.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a relatively new sector, at least in the way it connects the peoples of the world, and as such faces fresh challenges in defining its standards of governance. From America to Asia, Europe to the Middle East and Africa, companies in the ICT sector are facing increasing government pressure to comply with domestic laws and policies in ways that may conflict with the internationally recognized human rights of freedom of expression and privacy.
To address this challenge, a multi-stakeholder group of companies and civil society organizations (including human rights and press freedom groups), investors and academics came together to create a collaborative approach to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy, and have formed GNI to take the work onwards.
Freedom of Expression:
Freedom of opinion and expression is a human right and guarantor of human dignity. The right to freedom of opinion and expression includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
- Participating companies will respect and work to protect the freedom of expression of their users by seeking to avoid or minimize the impact of government restrictions on freedom of expression, including restrictions on the information available to users and the opportunities for users to create and communicate ideas and information, regardless of frontiers or media of communication.
- Participating companies will respect and work to protect the freedom of expression rights of users when confronted with government demands, laws and regulations to suppress freedom of expression, remove content or otherwise limit access to communications, ideas and information in a manner inconsistent with internationally recognized laws and standards.
Privacy
Privacy is a human right and guarantor of human dignity. Privacy is important to maintaining personal security, protecting identity and promoting freedom of expression in the digital age.
Everyone should be free from illegal or arbitrary interference with the right to privacy and should have the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
- Participating companies will employ protections with respect to personal information in all countries where they operate in order to work to protect the privacy rights of users.
- Participating companies will respect and work to protect the privacy rights of users when confronted with government demands, laws or regulations that compromise privacy in a manner inconsistent with internationally recognized laws and standards.
The initial participating global internet-related companies were Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, who were joined by Linkedin in 2014. In May 2017, however, they were joined by seven new member companies in the telecommunications field, which means the combined customer base of GNI members now totals some 1.5 billion people in 120 countries around the world.
Like the existing company members, the new members commit to the GNI Principles and agree to have their commitment to these principles evaluated eve
