š ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) works in a region that is impacted by a multitude of socio-political and environmental crises, a region witnessing a steady rise in right-wing authoritarianism, increased threats to human rights and backsliding of democracy. Civil society organizations, rights defenders and progressive lawmakers face surveillance, censorship and legal threats impacting their rights and freedoms. Operating within this context, there is an urgent need for APHR to put effort into envisioning and contributing to internet governance that safeguards our right to freedom of expression and opinion and translating this towards bolstering parliamentary expertise and oversight of the use of AI technologies in Southeast Asia.
In this light, we are happy to share with you this policy paper, entitled “AI and Human Rights: Model Legislation for Southeast Asian Lawmakers and Civil Society” that we have developed together with APHR member lawmakers and civil society technical experts.
A practical, human rights-centred policy model to help legislative bodies, oversight units and rights defenders prevent the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) that threatens human rights, democratic processes and civic space across the Southeast Asia region.
WHAT THE MODEL LEGISLATION OFFERS
This resource (full text and legislative commentary) lays out a complete draft Act and operational provisions lawmakers can adapt and adopt:
- Clear definitions and scope, including extraterritorial coverage for systems whose outputs affect people inside the country.
- A prohibited practices chapter banning social scoring, untargeted scraping, predictive policing and abusive biometric surveillance.
- A risk-based compliance regime for high-risk systems with mandatory Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments (FRIAs) and bias-mitigation rules.
- Rights for individuals; transparency, meaningful explanations of automated decisions and routes for complaints and redress.
- Worker protections against intrusive algorithmic management and safeguards for platform-based workers.
- Provisions to protect civic space, elections and survivors of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TfGBV).
- Institutional architecture; an independent National AI Oversight Body, whistleblower protection, liability regimes and dissuasive penalties.
- This Model Law was drafted to be interoperable with established frameworks and global best practice, including the principles reflected in theĀ EU AI Act, while adapting those standards to regional realities.
Thank you very much and
we hope this will be useful to your civic and policy advocacy endeavors to safeguard digital rights, strengthen human rights protections and uphold democratic principles in the governance of emerging technologies.
In solidarity always.
MARUAH Singapore 