Participating along with digital businesses such as Verizon Wireless and BSR in RightsCon, an annual human rights conference organized by Access Now, ImpACT International for Human Rights Policies last Monday highlighted challenges and best practices for video conferencing and messaging platforms.

Titled "Transparency Talks," the ImpACT session brought together representatives from a variety of companies and civil society organizations to showcase how transparent business practices support human rights advocacy.

Transparency promotes accountability, and one key way of monitoring it is to measure the amount , scope, accessibility, quality, reliability, accuracy and timeliness of information disclosed and/or made publicly available.

-Khalil Agha, principal advisor at ImpACT International.

"Transparency promotes accountability, and one key way of monitoring it is to measure the amount , scope, accessibility, quality, reliability, accuracy and timeliness of information disclosed and/or made publicly available," pointed out Khalil Agha, principal advisor at ImpACT International.

He called on civil society organisations and watchdogs to proactively agree on a standards-based scale that can be used to assess and “grade” the transparency of digital companies’ customer-protection policies and practices.

"Civil organisations should contact commercial digital companies and creators of platforms to offer assistance in creating a clear and simple transparency report for its customers and other stakeholders," Agha concluded.

RightsCon is the world's leading event on human rights in the digital age. It was originally called the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference and the location rotated between San Francisco and another global city. Now, RightsCon is held in a new host city each year.

In 2020, the organizers rose to the challenge of a global pandemic by holding the ninth annual RightsCon online July 27-31.