HCI as social policy: perspectives on digital rights in ethical design

Abstract

By mediating activity, technology can empower or limit people's lives. This raises a number of ethical challenges for technology designers since their work directly touches on what people consider their 'rights' and their needs for a good life. In this article, we summarise a number of philosophical perspectives that stand to inform our understanding of design for digital rights. These foreground discussion of the Digital Rights in Australia Report, a study of Australians' views (N=1603) on a number of critical rights including privacy, free speech, workplace technologies and government surveillance. The data is analysed from a rights perspective, considering and moving beyond classic negative and positive rights accounts. We conclude with a discussion of how such studies could inform HCI research and practice.