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Förfarande : 2014/2232(INI)
Dokumentgång i plenum
Dokumentgång : A8-0178/2015

Ingivna texter :

A8-0178/2015

Debatter :

PV 07/09/2015 - 24
CRE 07/09/2015 - 24

Omröstningar :

PV 08/09/2015 - 5.8
Röstförklaringar

Antagna texter :

P8_TA(2015)0288

Fullständigt förhandlingsreferat
Måndagen den 7 september 2015 - Strasbourg Reviderad upplaga

24. Mänskliga rättigheter och teknik i tredjeländer (kortfattad redogörelse)
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  Der Präsident. – Als nächster Punkt der Tagesordnung folgt die kurze Darstellung des Berichts von Marietje Schaake über das Thema „Menschenrechte und Technologie: die Auswirkungen von Systemen zur Ausspähung und Überwachung auf die Menschenrechte in Drittstaaten“ (2014/2232(INI)) (A8-0178/2015).

 
  
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  Marietje Schaake, rapporteur. Mr President, I would like to say to the shadow rapporteurs in particular that I enjoyed our discussions and cooperation on this report on human rights and technology, so thank you very much. In addition, I would like to thank the people from all over the world who have shared their input and suggestions. Many did so online and they have made the draft text that we voted on in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and will vote on tomorrow in this House, a lot stronger. I think crowdsourcing works.

Technological developments have a major impact on human rights, both to advance them and to restrict them. They can advance access to information, freedom of expression and association, but the documentation and sharing of human rights abuses or uncovering of corruption have benefited too from mobile phones and access to the open Internet for more people. Disaster relief, aid efforts, election monitoring, they increasingly rely on technologies to help emancipate and empower people.

However, technological systems can be and are also misused as tools for human rights violations through censorship, mass surveillance, tracking and tracing of individuals, unauthorised access to devices, jamming, interception and a lot more. So besides technological specifications, the context in which ICTs are used determines to a great extent whether these tools advance or violate human rights: what country, which user or buyer, and what legal safeguards or democratic oversight are in place.

These contextual aspects should be assessed carefully in EU policies. More transparency and accountability in the market of the most intrusive and damaging technologies is key, both for security and for human rights. This is too often presented as a false dichotomy between security and freedom or actually justifying restrictions to peoples’ rights and freedoms in the name of advancing security when in fact they should reinforce each other and, at the very least, EU-made systems should not be sold in an unrestricted market.

Without smart policies, proliferation of these systems is inevitable and in fact I am sure that we here in the EU institutions, the European External Action Service, struggle to protect our own people, our own diplomats and our own information from the very same systems that we are discussing here. Intelligence services, criminal networks, hackers with bad intentions, all can buy and use intrusive technologies that are made in Europe.

The credibility of Europe’s foreign policy is undermined directly when an Italian company unjustly gets a licence to sell to Sudan or Russia, or when a French company sells digital keys to open any door, even the ones we may think are protected or locked by passwords, or much stronger measures. But, much worse, human rights defenders in Mexico, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Egypt, Turkey, Iran or Russia should be protected by EU policies and not harmed with the help of EU-made technologies.

In concluding, EU policy should mainstream human rights in the way that technologies are designed and used and mainstream the role of technologies throughout all human rights policies, and this report presents many concrete ideas. One of the strong recommendations is that there should not be a ban on encryption technologies or requirements to hand over the keys. Instead, we, through our EU policy, should train and equip journalists, human rights defenders and others facing repression and violations with the knowledge and the tools to protect themselves and their communications. Europe has the opportunity and should have the ambition to be a global leader in ensuring technologies benefit human rights and this is only possible if we lead by example.

 
  
  

IN THE CHAIR: MAIREAD McGUINNESS
Vice-President

Catch—the—eye procedure

 
  
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  Stanislav Polčák (PPE). Vážená předsedající, já bych chtěl poděkovat za předložení této zprávy, protože podle mého názoru je skutečně velmi důležitá a míří na podstatu věci. To znamená do jisté míry na otázku, za kolik se ještě je schopno prodat naše svědomí. Za kolik jsou firmy, které podnikají v evropském prostoru, ochotny prodat své svědomí v jiných státech, kde například provozují činnosti, které jsou v České republice nebo v Evropské unii naprosto nemyslitelné.

Je to zpráva tedy o tom, do jaké míry jsou skutečně přenositelná veškerá lidská práva i do ostatních zemí. A já si myslím, že o tom bychom měli vést skutečně velmi silnou debatu. Vnímám to, že je celá řada práv základních lidských, která jsou univerzální, která skutečně představují hodnotu, pro kterou je možno jaksi odklánět i ty ostatní problémy, jako jsou například zaměstnanost, HDP atd. Ale jsou určitě i hlediska lidských práv, která prostě bohužel s námi doposud celý svět nesdílí. A tu hranici bychom měli tedy pevně hledat.

 
  
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  Nicola Caputo (S&D). Signora Presidente, onorevoli colleghi, la proposta di risoluzione evidenzia – devo dire finalmente – i rischi di compressione e violazione dei diritti umani che derivano dall'uso delle nuove tecnologie, in particolare di Internet. Emerge infatti chiaramente quanto nell'anno scorso hanno più volte ho affermato in due mie dichiarazioni scritte sull'etica dell'innovazione tecnologica e sulla sanità elettronica, così come in numerose interrogazioni, che si tratta di un rischio insito nell'utilizzo stesso di queste tecnologie.

Questo connotato, se non viene opportunamente regolato, rischia di rendere impossibile qualsiasi controllo ex post, ciò è tanto vero che in termini di diritti umani, anche il semplice utilizzo per un fine nobile di queste tecnologie può rendere – e in effetti rende – ciascuno di noi più esposto e più vulnerabile. Il vulnus quindi si è spostato dalla possibile pratica illecita, all'atto lecito e di conseguenza la regolamentazione deve coprire ogni aspetto, anche quelli dell'utilizzo comune, senza trascurare gli interrogativi etici connessi. Condivido quindi la proposta di risoluzione e la richiesta di una partecipazione inclusiva e responsabile di ogni parte coinvolta: governi, società civile, settore privato e utenti.

 
  
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  Ivan Jakovčić (ALDE). Gospođo predsjednice, čestitam gospođi Schaake na izvještaju i odmah na početku želim reći da je internet naravno otvorio velika nova prostranstva slobode. Međutim, to me pomalo podsjeća i na ono što je učinio jedan velikan, Alfred Nobel, koji je izumio dinamit vjerujući da će služiti u mirnodopske svrhe, a kasnije je, kao što znamo, služio za ratove. Tako i internet. Na neki je način otvorio velike prostore slobode, ali s druge strane i velike opasnosti zloupotrebe te slobode. Naročito zloupotrebe te slobode od diktatorskih režima s kojima, kao što znamo, i Europska unija trguje i radi velike, unosne poslove.

Zato je dobro da ovaj izvještaj upozorava na ovakve činjenice, na mogućnosti zloupotrebe naših sloboda i vjerujem da će i Komisija u svom budućem radu koristiti temelje ovoga izvještaja.

 
  
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  Heidi Hautala (Verts/ALE). Madam President, there is no doubt that ICT is a human rights issue. It is ‘both and’– it is both an advantage for people to communicate and spread knowledge of human rights violations, but it has also become something of a trap for people who defend human rights. Mrs Schaake has produced an excellent report which we have to defend in the vote.

I think we should be ready to recognise that the complicity of some enterprises, including some from the EU area, has greatly damaged our reputation by creating serious human rights violations in Iran, in Uzbekistan, in Belarus and in other countries, and I am talking about some telecommunications providers, that is Astellia, Sonora, Nokia, Siemens. I think we also have to defend the point in the report which says that the service providers and the network providers should publish reports about their connections between themselves and oppressive regimes. We have also to protect whistle—blowers.

 
  
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  Jonathan Arnott (EFDD). Madam President, there is actually quite a lot of good stuff in this report. I believe that we must take great care to avoid unnecessary censorship – particularly of the Internet – although I personally believe that is best achieved through national governments, rather than through EU diktat.

However, I would like to draw your attention to paragraph 17 of the report. This paragraph is all about the politicisation of trade. It is about imposing our Western values upon third countries as a condition of trade with developing nations. To me this is not only unacceptable but also supremely arrogant because it assumes that we know better than developing countries what their laws should be, and that we can tell them what they ought to be doing. This is riding roughshod over their sovereignty, and I cannot support a report which contains such phrasing.

 
  
 

(End of catch-the-eye procedure)

 
  
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  Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the Commission. Madam President, I want to thank Ms Schaake for this excellent report. Reading it, you sometimes get a bit of flavour of Dave Erus and his writings about the downsides of modern technology and the ICT world. The report contains a number of very timely, pertinent and often challenging ideas and recommendations for action. The Commission appreciates the strong call to the EU to step up its efforts and strengthen the link between human rights, digital freedom, development, Internet governance, trade and security. This same message can also be found in the Digital Single Market Strategy recently adopted by the Commission.

The EU is committed to promoting human rights in all areas of its external action. Nowadays, given the increasing importance of ICT in our daily lives and the expansion of Internet access and access to mobile telephony, the promotion of human rights online and offline and the linkage between new technologies and human rights are key to our endeavours towards promoting human rights and democracy worldwide. We therefore share the European Parliament’s view that ICTs are key in safeguarding and fostering human rights and fundamental freedoms. We also share the concern voiced in the report that certain fundamental rights, notably the right to freedom of expression and information, the right to privacy and the protection of personal data, may be violated as a result of unlawful or arbitrary surveillance, censorship, the unlawful interception of communications, or the collection of personal data, in particular when carried out on a mass scale and not for legitimate purposes.

This requires us all to unite in our efforts to protect fundamental rights. We need to promote the development of democratic oversight capabilities in order to monitor activities by intelligence and law enforcement services, lest these are used to suppress dissent and free speech. This is firmly anchored in the EU guidelines for freedom of expression online and offline, and we are highly committed to promoting these guidelines in our relations with third countries. That is also why the Commission is very supportive of, and welcomes, the appointment of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy.

It is very important to ensure that our response to terrorist attacks does not impact negatively on fundamental rights, notably freedom of expression and information and the right to privacy. The European Security Agenda adopted by the Commission this year has made clear, therefore, that the Commission will strictly test any security measures for compliance with fundamental rights, while ensuring their effectiveness.

The EU is committed to assisting human rights defenders, civil society activists, and independent journalists to use ICTs to fight for freedom. The EU is also active in defending media freedom and pluralism, and has launched two new independent projects within the framework of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, with the support of this Parliament. The projects will address media freedom violations in the EU and neighbouring countries and promote action to support threatened journalists, complemented by digital training. The European Union has also adopted sanctions to prevent authoritarian regimes using technologies to crack down on human rights defenders, for example in the case of Syria.

In addition to country-specific sanctions, the EU is reviewing its export controls to prevent exports of sensitive technologies that could be misused in violation of human rights. In December 2014 we introduced new controls on exports of intrusion software and of internet monitoring technologies, and we are further exploring options to extend export controls to rapidly evolving cyber-surveillance technologies that might be used for Internet monitoring and/or telecommunication surveillance in violation of human rights.

As Ms Schaake writes in the report, there is indeed a need to mainstream the impact of technologies on the improvement of human rights in all the EU’s external action. The Commission and the External Action Service are working together towards this goal. ICTs have helped to promote freedom on a global scale, and preserving the benefits of freedom is a shared responsibility for all of us – the private sector, civil society, governments, international organisations and individuals. The European Union stands, therefore, ready to reiterate its commitment to promote unhindered, uncensored and non-discriminatory access to ICTs.

 
  
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  President. – The debate is closed.

The vote will take place on Tuesday, 8 September 2015.

 
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