Consultant for Legal Research Support

Background and Purpose

Amnesty Tech is a programme in Amnesty International’s (AI) Research Advocacy and Policy Directorate with a mission to protect and extend human rights in a world of rapid, technological change. We are an inter-disciplinary team of technologists and human rights experts currently based in 13 global locations.

The consultant will work with Amnesty Tech’s newly established Children and Young Peoples’ Digital Rights, Health and Well-being (CYD) team. The overarching vision of this team is of a world where online platforms and other digital technologies are safe, healthy and supportive spaces for children and young people, helping them realize their human rights.

Building on AI’s 2019 report Surveillance Giants, the CYD team’s first research project investigates the effects of prominent social media platforms’ surveillance-based business model on children and young people, asking the following core research question: What are the effects of surveillance-based business models on children and young people, especially in terms of abuses of their health & well-being rights to privacy, and freedom of opinion and thought?

Purpose of the assignment

The consultancy is intended to deliver desk research and an easily understandable analysis of the key data privacy provisions of major platforms used by children and young people globally as well as the differences in protections afforded to children depending on their location.

We would like to develop and refine the analysis laid out in Surveillance Giants, which first denounced the inherently rights-abusing business model of Google and Facebook, and put the focus on the false promise of “informed consent” in the context of children’s use of dominant social media platforms and the long-term implications of those companies’ data profiling and predictive ad models for the lives of today’s young people.

We would like to understand and more importantly, allow children, young people, their guardians and policymakers to understand:

• What kinds of data do children and young people (AI defines young people as anyone between the ages of 15-24) give platforms (and their ad customers) access to when they agree to the Terms of Service and privacy policies of the leading social media platforms (we will limit ourselves to Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube)?
• How many pages would children and young people have to go through if they read all relevant legal documents and materials? Is the info presented in a child-appropriate language anywhere?
• What are the implications of differing data protection regimes in terms of platforms’ treatment of children and young people’s data in different locations? (specifically in the US, selected members of the EU, UK, Argentina, Kenya and Philippines)
• How are children and young people profiled and targeted with ads? From which age are they legally allowed to be targeted? What safeguards have the platforms put in place to make sure younger children are excluded from the data collection and targeting?

Deliverables

The consultant will deliver, in some or all the possible locations:

• A textual analysis of social media platforms’ Terms of Service and privacy policies in terms of their implications for children and young people delivering a simplified explanation of which types of data processing children and young people “agree” to when using these platforms
• A comparison between the terms of service and full policy documents and any “explainers” or simplified versions produced by the platforms for their users to assess whether these explainers truly convey the full implications of their policies and data collection practices
• An analysis of the number of pages and the (lack of) readability of these documents – for use in informational graphics and videos
• Desk research and subsequent analysis of the implications of the platforms’ ad practices, including the use of black box algorithms in the creation of lookalike audiences, for the future of today’s young social media users
• Participation in a moderated youth workshop that will discuss the results of the analysis as well as teenagers’ and young people’s reactions and ideas for more rights-respecting social media platforms
• Review of a separately developed youth-friendly guide to what data they give away when they sign up to the social media platforms.

*Amnesty reserves the right to use and re-purpose the information provided by the consultant for various purposes that serve our larger research objectives.

Timeline

TBD February 2023: First draft of deliverables 1-3

TBD February 2023: Feedback from AI stakeholders

TBD March 2023: Submission of final draft of deliverables 1-3

What we hope you will do next

If you are talented, passionate about human rights and want to use your skills, knowledge and experience to change the world then we would encourage you to click ‘Apply for this Role’ below.

Freedom, Justice, Equality. Let’s get to work.

N.B. We reserve the right to close a vacancy before the closing date in the event of an overwhelming response or a change in business priorities.

Amnesty International is committed to creating and sustaining a working environment in which everyone has an equal opportunity to fulfill their potential and we welcome applications from suitably qualified people from all sections of the community.