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Derechos Digitales

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Derechos Digitales is an independent nonprofit organization founded in 2005 that works on human rights and digital technologies in Latin America. Its activities include research and efforts to influence public policy and private-sector practices. Its AI work emphasizes the rights of affected communities and the institutional conditions surrounding deployment.[1]

Founded: 2005.[1]
Organization: Independent nonprofit working across Latin America.[1]
Focus: Human rights, public policy and digital technologies.[1]
Official site: derechosdigitales.org
Last source review: September 12, 2026

Regional role

The organization brings a regional perspective to debates often shaped by governments and companies outside Latin America. It works across human-rights and technology issues rather than treating AI as an isolated technical field. Its institutional account identifies a team working in multiple countries and a combination of research, advocacy and collaboration.[1]

Feminist approaches to AI development

In May 2023, Derechos Digitales published reflections arising from a regional process on feminist AI development. The work followed a 2022 guide produced with the f<A+i>r network and discussions in early 2023 with women working on projects involving public services, Indigenous languages, data science and platform labor.[2]

The publication argues that affected communities should participate throughout a system's lifecycle, including in the decision whether AI is appropriate at all. It discusses autonomy over data, anonymization, conflicts of interest and agreements governing ownership and licensing. The recommendations connect participation to practical project choices rather than treating consultation as a final approval exercise. They are guidance drawn from this collaborative process, not requirements enacted by a government or a claim that one approach represents every feminist perspective.[2]

UN AI Advisory Body: regional consultation

Jamila Venturini's May 21, 2024 intervention for the UN AI Advisory Body called for concrete obligations on states supporting, developing or deploying AI. It proposed prior human-rights impact assessments, transparency, accountability and meaningful participation. It also argued that AI-specific governance should reinforce, rather than displace, access-to-information and data-protection frameworks.[3]

The intervention invoked legality, necessity and proportionality in the Inter-American human-rights tradition. It urged scrutiny of development banks and international assistance that finance surveillance or predictive public-service systems. In that account, responsibility extends to the institutions funding deployment as well as to developers and recipient governments. These were recommendations to the advisory process, not findings that every internationally supported project breaches human-rights law.[3]

Response to the interim governance report

Derechos Digitales' March 2024 written response to the advisory body's interim report challenged the assumption that beneficial purposes alone establish the desirability of an AI system. It called for publicly accessible, participatory human-rights assessments throughout the lifecycle, including attention to social, economic, cultural and environmental rights.[4]

The submission stressed Indigenous peoples' prior-consultation rights and participation by rural communities. It also connected governance with the full production chain, including mining, electronic waste, data-labeling labor and environmental costs. Taxation and competition policy appear as possible responses to unequal distribution of economic benefits. Its contribution was to broaden the scope of international governance beyond model performance and end-user access. The submission's allegations about documented harms and its proposed remedies remain the organization's analysis, not an adjudication by the UN.[4]

Transparency and institutional relationships

Derechos Digitales publishes annual reports and information on external financial audits. Its transparency page describes support from foundations, international cooperation agencies and civil-society partners. These categories identify the funding model but do not establish that any particular supporter financed or endorsed a specific AI recommendation. Its coauthored work should retain the names of collaborating organizations and authors.[5]

Selected contributions

  • Feminist reflections on AI development (May 2023).[2]
  • Written response to the UN AI Advisory Body's interim report (March 2024).[4]
  • Latin America and Caribbean consultation intervention (May 2024).[3]

References