VA and the Egyptian Human Rights Forum will be presenting a panel at CSW67 on March 8th entitled: Current/Emerging Tech: Enhancing Gender Equality or Exacerbating Authoritarian Abuse? The digital revolution has brought about many advancements and opportunities for women and for human rights defenders, but it has also raised concerns about its impact on gender…
SecondEye is a product that was developed in Iran by a web and development company in Iran named UltimateSoft Co, and marketed as a parenting or employee surveillance tool. However, it has been reportedly repurposed and used as spyware known as EyeSpy. The malware is allegedly deployed by disguising it as a free VPN package…
The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was established in 1946 as a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Its mandate is to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. The commission meets annually for a two-week session in New York, during which member states, UN…
It’s difficult to say for certain what the latest tech trends for 2023 will be as the future is always subject to change, however some general tech trends that are likely to continue gaining momentum in the coming years include: if an autonomous weapon system is not able to distinguish between combatants and civilians, it…
In our assessment at Virtual Activism, in general, technology trends that are likely to continue gaining momentum in the coming years include the increased use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the growing prevalence of the Internet of Things, and the ongoing shift towards cloud computing. Additionally, virtual and augmented reality, 5G networks, and blockchain…
The impact of Pegasus on fundamental rights and democratic processes Pegasus is a sophisticated surveillance software developed by the Israeli cyber intelligence company NSO Group. The software is capable of gaining access to and monitoring a wide range of information on a target’s smartphone, including text messages, emails, location data, and even live microphone and…
The conference entitled Bearing-Witness: Videography in the Hands of the People, was from 5-7 October, 22 at the MIT’s Media Lab. It was organized by the Comparative Media Studies/Writing in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The conference builds on scholarship and public policy that emerged as a result of the…
UN Women just released its report on Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2022 [pdf] on September 7th. The report presents the latest evidence on gender equality across all 17 goals, calling out the long road ahead to achieve gender equality. It emphasizes the interlinkages among the goals, the pivotal force gender…
