In the absence of an agreed-upon definition of digital rights, we had two choices: 1) to find another term to describe the scope of the datasets we wanted to build or 2) to propose a working definition of digital rights that met our primary goal of being able to set clear criteria for the inclusion of legal instruments in our database. In the first case, we considered other terms, such as “internet rights”,28 which had been used early on by organisations like APC, or “internet freedom”, a phrase that originated with the administration of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “Internet freedom”,29 we decided, was too closely tied to US government policy. Meanwhile, because it describes a configuration of technology, “internet” itself also seemed unnecessarily restrictive, or at least more restrictive than a broader term such as “digital”, which could more easily encompass emerging technologies and locations other than the internet (such as data storage, biometrics and drones). We were also aware of other initiatives, like the Africa ICT Policy Database,30 which aimed to collect all laws affecting information and communications technologies (ICTs). But for our purposes of identifying laws that had a direct impact, positive or negative, on human rights in digitally networked spaces, broadening the scope to include all laws that impact ICTs was deemed too broad. Without a satisfactory alternative and given the already prevalent use of “digital rights” in the mission statements and names of so many of our peer organisations around the world, including in translation, we opted to propose a working definition based on existing literature and usage. We began by reviewing many of the key charters of digital rights and in a stroke of luck (searching the open Social Science Research Network) discovered that a 2015 article titled ��Towards Digital Constitutionalism? Mapping Attempts to Craft an Internet Bill of Rights”, by Lex Gill, Dennis Redeker and Urs Grasser, had already done much of our work for us. Developing a working definition of “digital rights” “Towards Digital Constitutionalism?” reviews 30 charters of internet or digital rights cumulatively endorsed by hundreds of groups from multiple sectors. The earliest charter is dated 1999; the most recent is from 2015. They include laws (adopted and 28 Released in November 2006, the Association for Progressive Communications’ Internet Rights Charter was one of the earlier charters of digital rights. https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/ about-apc/apc-internet-rights-charter 29 See, for example: https://www.state.gov/j/drl/internetfreedom/ index.htm 30 www.ictpolicy.org proposed), official positions, and advocacy statements. From these charters, the authors extracted 42 aspects of digital rights in seven categories: basic or fundamental rights and freedoms, general limits on state power, internet governance and civic participation, privacy rights and surveillance, access and education, openness and stability of networks, and economic rights and responsibilities. The authors observed that the charters all depend on the language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to varying extents that of the ICCPR and the International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The charters also all exhibit a “constitutional character”, speak to a political community, aspire toward formal recognition and legitimacy within that community, and share a degree of comprehensiveness.31 Meanwhile, the bills are far from universal. They differ in their content and focus, their prioritisation of rights, the stakeholders involved and political communities targeted, contexts of reference, and drafting and review methods. Despite their common spirit, their diversity presents a challenge when trying to 1) decide what is a digital right, and 2) assess whether that right has been encoded in law, further underscoring the observation that there is no universal understanding or agreement on which rights constitute digital rights or how they are interconnected. For example, advocates within the digital rights sector disagree on whether there is a right to access the internet or a right to be able to delist oneself from search results and be “forgotten”. Both these “rights” appear in the list. The charters also acknowledge that other rights – workers’ rights, children’s rights, sexual rights – are significantly affected by digital technologies and in digital spaces. UNESCO considers the right to cultural diversity in education a kind of digital right in its book on internet governance, but does not mention the rights to association and assembly, as APC does in its conception of digital rights.32 Meanwhile, internet rights are being defined as they are viewed through the lenses of rights and legal frameworks at the international, regional and national/local levels – both in legally binding treaties and legislation and in case law – as well as through the policies and practices of private-sector corporations, adding further complexity to understanding what is a digital rights law or a law that 31 Gill, L., Redeker, D., & Gasser, U. (2015). Op. cit. 32 “Internet rights are human rights” multimedia toolkit, Association for Progressive Communications. www.itrainonline.org/ itrainonline/mmtk/irhr.shtml#Intro Methodology / 11