Summer 2021 Fellow: Kirsten Mettler, ‘23 (Political Science)
Office Description:
Access Now defends and extends the digital rights of users at risk around the world by combining technical support, policy engagement, global advocacy, grassroots grantmaking, and convenings.
Potential Projects:
The SIG fellow will assist in tracking and documenting intentional disruptions of internet and mobile connectivity; promote responsible disclosures by tech and telecom companies, and analyze new reports as they are issued for insights into the state of freedom of expression and privacy online; contribute to briefs on emerging issues in telecommunications and human rights, such as the human rights responsibility of surveillance tech companies; and analyze new threats to net neutrality.
Additional potential projects include assisting with the RightsCon conference, researching and monitoring the right to freedom of assembly and association in online contexts, and updating charts tracking UN activities on digital rights topics.
Desired Skills:
Knowledge of any or all of these is preferred:
- International human rights instruments and basics of the UN system, specifically the GA, Human Rights Council, and Special Procedures
- UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights, and corporate human rights due diligence, transparency, and accountability processes
- Ways the telecommunications sector in particular impacts human rights worldwide
- Legal analysis, writing, and filing in regional human rights forums
- Data science
