Rights and Health in the Digital Age:Protection and Advocacy

Universidad de los Andes via Coursera

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Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Duration & workload

11 hours 30 minutes
Sessions

On-Demand
Subtitles

English

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Overview

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In the digital era, human rights face emerging challenges and opportunities that directly affect health, dignity, and well-being. This MOOC, entitled “Rights and Health in the Digital Era: Protection and Advocacy,” offers a structured learning pathway through the core concepts of digital human rights, their international legal and normative frameworks, their intersections with digital health, and advocacy strategies for their protection. Through interactive tools, case studies, and multimedia resources, the course aims to strengthen critical understanding and practical capacities among individuals and communities navigating digital opportunities and risks, contributing to the promotion of more just, safe, and equitable digital environments. Grounded in Global South perspectives and community-based experiences, the MOOC invites learners to engage in the collective, participatory, and transformative defense of human rights in the digital sphere.

Syllabus

Module 1: Introduction to Digital Human Rights: Challenges and Opportunities

This introductory module provides the foundation for understanding digital rights as an extension of human rights in technology-driven societies. Through three lessons, it explores key concepts and their implications for health, well-being, and dignity. The module examines emerging challenges in the digital era, as well as opportunities for civic engagement and the democratization of knowledge. It also analyzes how digital transformation is reshaping access to healthcare, highlighting both its potential benefits and ethical risks. Using interactive resources, infographics, and global case studies, the module encourages learners to critically examine the relationship between technology, health, and human rights, and to engage in informed advocacy for the protection of rights in digital environments.

Module 2: Guidelines, Principles, and International Legal Advances

This module provides conceptual and normative tools to understand and defend digital rights within the health sector. Across three lessons, it explores international guidelines, principles, and legal developments that safeguard human rights in digital environments, examining how these frameworks are applied to digital health from a critical and context-aware perspective. Key concepts are explored in greater depth through an interactive decalogue that functions as a specialised glossary, supporting the appropriate use of terminology and strengthening advocacy capacity. The module also addresses the classification of digital health technologies, analysing their legal, ethical, and social implications in light of international standards, including those proposed by the World Health Organization. By combining audiovisual resources, interactive materials, and case studies, this module fosters a deeper understanding of the legal and conceptual ecosystem that shapes digital health, encouraging active and informed participation in its regulation and defence from a human rights perspective.

Module 3: Advocacy Strategies – Addressing Practical Case Studies

In this module, we will apply the knowledge acquired on digital human rights to real and diverse scenarios across the Global South. Through a critical analysis of two case studies from Colombia and Vietnam, we will examine concrete situations faced by activists, communities and human rights defenders in digital contexts. These cases, selected and narrated by members of the DHRP Community Advisory Teams (CATs), reveal tensions between the use of technology and human rights, while offering key insights into local dynamics that shape health, dignity and freedom in digital environments.

Module 4: Privacy and Digital Security

In this final module, developed by Fundación Karisma—a Colombian organisation with over 20 years of experience in digital technology and human rights—we will explore why privacy and digital security are fundamental rights that must be protected across all environments, including digital spaces. Through critical reflections, everyday examples and audiovisual resources, the module challenges common myths such as “I have nothing to hide” and examines how surveillance, data exploitation and other threats affect dignity, health and human rights. This module invites learners to recognise that defending privacy is not solely an individual responsibility, but a collective challenge that requires community-based action and the demand for fairer systems. From a context-aware perspective, participants will learn to identify risks, apply protective tools and strengthen networks of collective care.

Module 5: Certification

This final module aims to consolidate, reflect on and certify the knowledge acquired throughout the course. Through a series of assessment activities linked to the content of each module, learners will be able to test their critical understanding of digital human rights, their guiding principles, their implications for health, and strategies for protection and advocacy. This space seeks not only to certify participation, but also to recognise the learning journey undertaken, strengthening participants’ capacity to act in response to the challenges of the digital world. The MOOC concludes by reaffirming that defending human rights in digital environments is a collective and transformative endeavour.