A/HRC/41/35
United Nations
General Assembly
Distr.: General
28 May 2019
Original: English
Human Rights Council
Forty-first session
24 June−12 July 2019
Agenda item 3
Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to development
Surveillance and human rights
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of
the right to freedom of opinion and expression*
Summary
Surveillance of individuals – often journalists, activists, opposition figures, critics
and others exercising their right to freedom of expression – has been shown to lead to
arbitrary detention, sometimes to torture and possibly to extrajudicial killings. Such
surveillance has thrived amid weak controls on exports and transfers of technology to
Governments with well-known policies of repression. In the present report, the Special
Rapporteur begins by identifying the problem of targeted surveillance seen from the
obligations that human rights law imposes on States and the related responsibilities of
companies. He then proposes a legal and policy framework for regulation, accountability
and transparency within the private surveillance industry. He concludes with a call for
tighter regulation of surveillance exports and restrictions on their use, as well as a call for
an immediate moratorium on the global sale and transfer of the tools of the private
surveillance industry until rigorous human rights safeguards are put in place to regulate
such practices and guarantee that Governments and non-State actors use the tools in
legitimate ways.
* The present report was submitted after the deadline in order to reflect the most recent information.
GE.19-08652(E)