Essex expert helps draft UN human rights standards for policing of protests

A new set of international human rights standards for the policing of peaceful protests has been drawn up thanks to the help of an expert from the University of Essex.

Professor Pete Fussey, from our Department of Sociology and Criminology, was part of a small team developing the new Model Protocol for the United Nations, which will now serve as core international standards for States.

Professor Fussey led the work on human rights standards for law enforcement uses of technology at protests and helped draft the Model Protocol, which has now been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Russian, French and Spanish.

The UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Assembly and Association, Clement Nyaltesossi Voule, presented the new protocol to the UN Human Rights Council in March, and was then joined by Professor Fussey at a Human Rights Council side event with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to launch the initiative.

Several states have begun adoption of the principles and the team are now working on the wider implementation of the standards.

In the UK, the House of Lords debated these technology-focused aspects of the Model Protocol on 25 April 2024.

The protocol is also accompanied by a more detailed document on human rights standards, limitations and accountability mechanisms regarding police uses of technology at protests, which was also authored by Fussey and Dr Daragh Murray from Queen Mary’s University, London.

Professor Fussey said: “Police technologies such as drones, advanced biometric surveillance and digital data analytics are expanding at an unprecedented rate.

“They also often operate in a regulatory vacuum with minimal accountability. In addition to the human rights challenges brought by these tools, the right to peacefully protest is being eroded in many parts of the world, including in the UK.

“I was extremely fortunate to work with such a strong team from different parts of the UN to help develop standards aimed at embedding international human rights standards into police uses of technology, establishing accountability mechanisms and, ultimately, limit the use of protests as surveillance opportunities.”

Among the contributions made by Professor Fussey and the team were:

• The approach is rooted in international human rights law and standards. It sets out restrictions on using protests as surveillance opportunities and clear delineation of tech uses to facilitate protest and tech uses for investigation e.g. with aim of limiting surveillance creep
• The standards also set out incompatibility of some tech (e.g. spyware) with facilitation of peaceful protest and limits on biometric ID: "facial recognition technologies and other biometric systems must not be utilised to identify individuals peacefully participating in a protest”
• Accountability and oversight standards included and requirement for legal frameworks for police tech to conform to international human rights law standards. Crucially, these "cannot be reduced to matters of data protection law". Data Protection is not sufficient for comprehensive surveillance oversight.

The Model Protocol is available to read online.

The 10 page digital component guidance is available here.

Professor Fussey appears on the UN website talking about the initiative.