Digitizing Access: Opportunities and Risks

Through this session, the organizers will demonstrate how increased connectivity and digital access can both empower affected people in armed conflict and other situations of violence to engage with others through messaging applications and social media platforms to find lifesaving information online and to express their needs through other mechanisms.

There are also inherent risks in the use of digital technologies for humanitarian efforts. This includes risks related to data protection and privacy which includes collecting data from affected people puts the responsibility on humanitarian organizations to ensure that affected people’s data is not misused. There are additional risks such as misinformation, disinformation and hate speech and other issues that are brought together with the widespread use of social media platforms and other online dissemination tools.

The session aims to identify and advance needed shifts in behaviours, practices and policies that will enable a system-wide and strengthened approach to securing access for protection for a diverse range of protection actors.