FAQ

It is a web-based tool that is meant to help staff working on development projects to assess the potential human rights impacts of their digital projects or project components. The Check can assist the users in taking a human rights-based approach to their projects and can help to ask relevant questions and provide guidance. The Digital Rights Check is not a compliance exercise that will end up in a “Go” or “No go” conclusion based on a traffic light system, but rather can help identifying potential risks and how they can be addressed, as well as opportunities and chances for positive steps to support human rights of the target groups and project-affected people, including data protection.

No, you do not need to log in to use it, it is freely available. You only have to select your institution or type of (partner) institution from the landing page and move on to the assessment.

Yes, it is for public use, but please keep in mind that this Check, as stated above, does not give binding recommendations for a specific project and does not replace any other human rights due diligence. Simply share the link with your partner and/or consultant.

Depending on the context, it might even be better if project partners and /or consultants go through the assessment or if you go through it together with your project partners.

Note, however, that the initial questions in the assessment are framed to those working at a development finance institution or within technical or financial development cooperation. That being said, the general recommendations may be equally applicable to someone closer to the development or use of the solution in question.

According to the UN Sustainable Development Group, “[t]he human rights-based approach (HRBA) is a conceptual framework for the process of human development that is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights. It seeks to analyse inequalities which lie at the heart of development problems and redress discriminatory practices and unjust distributions of power that impede development progress and often result in groups of people being left behind.”

The HRBA has two objectives:

• To empower rights-holders to claim and exercise their rights
• To strengthen capacity of duty-bearers who have the obligation to respect, protect, promote, and fulfil human rights

Rights-holders are individuals that have particular entitlements in relation to duty-bearers.

Duty-bearers are primarily state actors that have the obligation to respect, protect, promote, and fulfil human rights of rights-holders. This includes the duty to protect individuals against human rights abuses by third parties, including businesses. Under certain circumstances, non-state actors can also be duty bearers (e.g., when they are implementing international development or humanitarian projects). Companies have a corporate responsibility to respect human rights and to provide for effective access to remedies by victims of human rights abuse.

The HRBA is underpinned by five key human rights principles, also known as PANEL: Participation, Accountability, Non-discrimination and Equality, Empowerment and Legality:

• Participation – everyone is entitled to active participation in decision-making processes which affect the enjoyment of their rights.
• Accountability – duty-bearers are held accountable for failing to fulfil their obligations towards rights-holders. There should be effective remedies in place when human rights breaches occur.
• Non-discrimination and equality – all individuals are entitled to their rights without discrimination of any kind. All types of discrimination should be prohibited, prevented and eliminated.
• Empowerment – everyone is entitled to claim and exercise their rights. Individuals and communities need to understand their rights and participate in the development of policies which affect their lives.
• Legality – approaches should be in line with the legal rights set out in domestic and international laws.

See more on the UNSDG Human Rights-Based Approach here.

See more on the Human-Rights-Based Approach of the German Development Cooperation here.

 

All and any feedback on the Check is welcome via emailing us. You can send an email to our team here.

See more on the UNSDG Human Rights-Based Approach here.

 

No.

Your responses are saved locally in order to allow you to continue the assessment where you left off. Apart from that only basic and anonymized data is saved, such as data on how many have used the Check and the time it takes to complete the assessments.

For more on data privacy, see this privacy note.