Oral statement delivered on Friday 25 September 2026 at the Human Rights Council 63rd session under Agenda item 6, Universal Periodic Review: UPR Outcome of Paraguay.
Thank you, President.
I speak on behalf of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), TEDIC and Derechos Digitales.
We welcome Paraguay’s engagement in the UPR process. In our joint submission, we documented concrete human rights risks in the digital environment in Paraguay: state surveillance, the absence of regulations implementing comprehensive personal data protection, and the exposure of human rights defenders and journalists to technology-mediated forms of harassment and control.
We urge Paraguay to accept, implement and translate into verifiable measures the recommendations that link personal data protection to the necessary reform of the Law on Control of Non-Profit Organisations and that call for comprehensively addressing all forms of digital violence against women and for measures to enhance protection for defenders.
We encourage Paraguay to implement and sustain these in the long term for the protection of human rights in the digital sphere. These recommendations offer a formal anchor within the UPR to demand concrete progress.
However, we note with concern that central issues for digital rights in Paraguay were not reflected in the UPR: state surveillance and interception of communications, pending since the 2016 cycle, the rollout of technologies without human rights impact assessments, and the absence of a data governance and artificial intelligence framework.
We urge member states to incorporate these issues into the follow-up of Paraguay's UPR, and we urge Paraguay to show concrete progress before the next cycle. Finally, we call for Paraguay to establish dialogue with civil society for the implementation of these recommendations.
Thank you.