"Surveillance and human rights: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression," 25 Jun 2019

The General Assembly has condemned unlawful or arbitrary surveillance and interception of communications as “highly intrusive acts” that interfere with fundamental human rights... However, unlawful surveillance continues without evident constraint... Surveillance of specific individuals – often journalists, activists, opposition figures, critics and others exercising their right to freedom of expression – has been shown to lead to arbitrary detention, sometimes to torture and possibly to extrajudicial killings... The Special Rapporteur concludes the present report with a call...for an immediate moratorium on the global sale and transfer of the tools of the private surveillance industry until rigorous human rights safeguards are put in place to regulate such practices and guarantee that Governments and non-State actors use the tools in legitimate ways.... The human rights law framework is in place, but a framework to enforce limitations is not. It is imperative, urgently so, that States limit the uses of such technologies to lawful ones only... Companies should also put in place robust safeguards to ensure that any use of their products or services is compliant with human rights standards... [Both] should establish co-regulatory initiatives that develop rights-based standards of conduct for the private surveillance industry and implement these standards through independent audits, and learning and policy initiatives.