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21 February 2025
Digital platforms empower civic engagement and activism, but also pose serious risks, such as government surveillance, targeted cyberattacks, and sophisticated disinformation tactics. Ransomware attacks on healthcare systems, government networks, and infrastructure illustrate how cyber threats can disrupt essential services and national security. Disinformation campaigns, amplified by AI-generated deepfakes and bot-driven misinformation, have been used to shape political narratives, weaken trust in democratic institutions, and incite social divisions.
Our latest research brief ‘Behind the Lens: Exploring the Problematic Intersection of Surveillance, Cyber Targeting, and Disinformation’ examines the complex relationship between digital technologies and their misuse in surveillance, cyberattacks, and disinformation campaigns. This joint study written by Erica Harper, Jonathan Andrew, Florence Foster, Joshua Niyo, Beatrice Meretti and Catherine Sturgess details how the increasing reliance on digital systems has made them primary targets and tools for controlling societies - with deep implications for human rights, human agency and global security.
Using global examples the authors highlight the role of technology companies in regulating these threats, and emphasize the need for a balanced approach that preserves digital freedoms while implementing safeguards. The research brief concludes by outlining policy recommendations for governments to enforce rights-based regulations, private companies to enhance transparency and ethical oversight, and civil society to advocate for digital rights.
This report is part of the Academy’s broader work related to new technologies, digitalization, and big data. Our research in this domain explores whether these new developments are compatible with exis ting rules and whether international human rights law and IHL continue to provide the level of protection they should.
Adobe
Our new research brief examines the complex relationship between digital technologies and their misuse in surveillance, cyberattacks, and disinformation campaigns.
Geneva Academy
The Geneva Human Rights Platform contributed to key discussions on AI, human rights, and sustainable digital governance at the World Economic Forum 2025.
ICRC
Co-hosted with the ICRC, this event aims to enhance the capacity of academics to teach and research international humanitarian law, while also equipping policymakers with an in-depth understanding of ongoing legal debates.
Adobe
This training course, specifically designed for staff of city and regional governments, will explore the means and mechanisms through which local and regional governments can interact with and integrate the recommendations of international human rights bodies in their concrete work at the local level.
UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré
This training course will explore the origin and evolution of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and its functioning in Geneva and will focus on the nature of implementation of the UPR recommendations at the national level.
Paolo Margari
This research aims at mainstreaming the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment and the protection it affords in the work of the UN Human Rights Council, its Special Procedures and Universal Periodic Review, as well as in the work of the UN General Assembly and UN treaty bodies.
The Geneva Human Rights Platform contributes to this review process by providing expert input via different avenues, by facilitating dialogue on the review among various stakeholders, as well as by accompanying the development of a follow-up resolution to 68/268 in New York and in Geneva.
Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy