Digital Inclusion: Research on the Digital Protection of Human Rights
YU Hao* & SHI Hanqing**
Abstract: In the digital era, the protection of human rights inevitably integrates digital technology and presents distinctive relevant characteristics. Therefore, the concept of digital inclusion should be introduced. However, the protection of human rights in the digital age still faces four significant challenges, namely, limitations in hardware systems with unrealized access rights, lack of digital competency with widening digital divide, low degree of empowerment and inefficiency in digital utilization, as well as frequent digital infringements and compromised digital rights. To address these challenges, it is essential to ensure barrier-free access to information technology to strengthen the foundation of human rights protection, promote the extensive participation of social entities to expand the scope of human rights protection, provide inclusive services for diverse groups to deepen the content of human rights protection, eliminate the digital divide to promote equal realization of human rights protection, and enhance citizens’ digital literacy and capabilities to improve the efficacy of digital protection of human rights. Under the framework of digital inclusion, the specific measures to achieve the digital protection of human rights are led by the value orientation and practical needs of the rights to subsistence and development, aiming to advance the universal protection, differential protection, and enhanced protection of human rights through digital inclusion.
Keywords: digital inclusion · human rights protection · digital protection