A/HRC/46/36
information on health, finance, education and the home as the foci for the early detection,
monitoring and overall prevention of “violent extremism”, thereby rendering pivotal aspects
of a person’s most intimate and private life to the regulatory domain of the security State.
The upsurge in preventing and countering violent extremism programming and practices by
States has accelerated the intrusive thrust of security into private life and placed institutions
and professions which have traditionally functioned as the guardians of health, maternity,
education and welfare onto the enforcement edge of national security policies with
multigenerational effects. Notably, those intrusions, harms and human rights violations do
not fall equally on all women, girls and families. The overregulation and visibility of some
families, some women and some girls to the security State operates largely along entrenched
racial, ethnic and religious lines.35 The focus on certain women and their families mirrors
broader and pre-existing fault lines whereby some communities do not benefit from the
privileges of presumed privacy for their intimate lives.
11.
The Special Rapporteur recalls the mandate’s examination of how surveillance,
particularly mass surveillance, for counter-terrorism purposes and access to bulk technology
affects the right to privacy.36 She underscores that the right to privacy is a gateway right,
enabling and supporting a range of other rights, including the exercise of the right to family
life. She affirms that new technologies and data collection methods in particular have
disparate impacts on minorities and are profoundly gendered.37 New technologies that ease
the operational burdens of surveillance and the investment in surveillance infrastructure that
has developed since 11 September 2001 continue to grow at an exponential pace.
International human rights law requires States to provide an articulable and evidence-based
justification for any interference with the right to privacy.38 When surveillance is unlawfully
undertaken, the individual harms are clear and often the focus of rights discussions, yet, in
counter-terrorism operations, the family and home space are often part and parcel of those
surveillance measures. In addition, unlawful use of counter-terrorism measures has also
demonstrated patterns of targeting whole families, in some cases, to cause an overall
disruption in the stability of the family unit. 39 The association with a suspected individual
therefore has a direct impact on the rights of family and community members to privacy, but
also operates in a climate where a suspected individual faces a larger presumption of guilt,
both from law enforcement and communities, than in the context of other criminal justice
investigations. Women, for example, are immediately presumed to be suspect by virtue of
familial or communal association with particular men. Moreover, over the past two decades,
a discriminatory use of counter-terrorism measures against Muslim individuals and
communities has directly and indirectly affected the rights of associated family members.
Significant research has uncovered wide misuse and abuse of surveillance laws on a
discriminatory basis, targeting particular communities and groups based on ethnic
background, race and religion.40 This has rendered some forms of masculine expression as
hyper-visible to law enforcement (exacerbated by ethnic and religious identity) and others,
particularly the masculine protector expression, as above suspicion. Bodies of research have
not only uncovered direct rights violations, but also how surveillance “produces fear and
furthers control and securitization”, 41 compounds harm and alters the social fabric of
tolerance towards increased suspicion and more permissive environments for hate speech and
35
See A/73/362.
See A/69/397.
37 A/HRC/44/57, paras. 4–9 and 17. See also Anna Kovacs, “Informed consent - said who? A feminist
perspective on principles of consent in the age of embodied data”, report for the Internet Democracy
Project (2020).
38 Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. See also A/69/397, paras. 28–
31.
39 See A/75/385;
https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=25374;
and Human Rights Council decision 40/113.
40 See, e.g., Supreme Court of the United States of America, opinion in Tanzin v. Tanvir (592 U. S. ____
(2020)) or United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, Hassan v. City of New York, decision of 13
October 2015.
41 Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Security Theology, Surveillance and the Politics of Fear (Cambridge
University Press, 2015).
36
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