Best Practices for Human Rights Due Diligence in Tech Sales Channels

Authors

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  Lindsey Andersen

  Associate Director, Human Rights, BSR

  

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  Lindsey Andersen

  Associate Director, Human Rights, BSR

  

  San Francisco

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  Lindsey works at the intersection of technology and human rights, helping both tech and non-tech companies identify and address human rights impacts associated with the development and use of technology and effectively incorporate business and human rights practices. Her focus areas include content governance, end-use risks of tech products and services, and the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies.

  Prior to joining BSR, Lindsey worked with digital rights organization Access Now to drive the conversation on the human rights implications of AI. As part of this, she wrote the foundational report Human Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Lindsey previously worked at Internews, implementing a large portfolio of internet freedom projects across Latin America, which focused on equipping journalists and human rights defenders with digital security skills and defending the free and open internet. Lindsey has worked and lived across Latin America and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.

  Lindsey holds a Master’s in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University and a BA in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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• Susan Morgan

  Senior Advisor, BSR

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  Susan Morgan

  Senior Advisor, BSR

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  Susan has over 20 years of experience working in the public and private sectors and philanthropy. Her focus is the societal impact of technology.

  Now a freelance consultant, she was the first Executive Director of the Global Network Initiative, a D.C.-based multi-stakeholder initiative focused on the responsibilities of technology companies to protect the free expression and privacy rights of their users when receiving government requests from around the world. She was employed by British Telecom (BT) for 10 years until 2010, which included six years focused on corporate responsibility, leading BT’s strategy, policy, and public reporting across the company on those issues. In the last three years, she worked at the Open Society Foundations, one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations, developing international grant-making strategies on disinformation, the online public sphere, algorithmic discrimination, and big data.

  She has a B.A. and a M.A. in Politics from Durham University in the U.K.

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Many of the human rights risks for hardware and software companies are related to the misuse of their products and services in ways that are connected to adverse human rights impacts. This includes, for example, the use of technology by a government entity to surveil political opponents, shut down internet access, facilitate censorship, or enable other human rights violations.

Technology vendor companies often rely heavily on sales partners—third parties who buy, distribute, integrate, and resell products and services to customers around the world. This means vendors often lack full insight into or control over who their products and services are sold to and how they are ultimately used.

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) require all companies to respect human rights and implement human rights due diligence processes to identify and address actual and potential human rights impacts across the entire value chain—including those related to the sale and use of products and services. Therefore, to fulfill their commitments to implementing the UNGPs, vendors need their sales partners to also address end-use human rights risks.

Considering this challenge, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) funded BSR to develop a brief outlining guidance and best practices related to the human rights expectations of sales channels in the technology sector. The brief explores the current state of human rights due diligence across sales channels and challenges to effective due diligence, and it enumerates best practices for all entities, from vendors to distributors to resellers.

It comes in the context of expanding scrutiny from the business and human rights field, as well as regulators on the human rights impacts of the downstream sale and use of products and services. Whereas human rights risks in supply chains, or upstream impacts, have received significant scrutiny over the past three decades, stakeholders are increasingly demanding that companies address adverse human rights impacts across their entire value chains. BSR’s primer on human rights due diligence of products and services outlines this development and provides guidance for companies across all industries on getting started.

Although this brief is relevant for companies across all industries who utilize sales partners, it is primarily geared toward technology companies in the hardware and software industry who develop and sell products and services for enterprise and government customers. Increased media coverage and external stakeholder focus on the misuse of technology products and services have put pressure on hardware and software companies to better address the human rights risks associated with the sale and use of their products and services.

BSR notes that developing effective human rights due diligence processes in tech sector sales channels will take time and coordination across the industry. This brief is intended to provide guidance and best practices to assist companies in this journey.