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Access Now - Wikipedia
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Access Now is relevant to AI safety discussions around surveillance, digital rights, and the societal impacts of AI-enabled monitoring technologies; it represents civil society perspectives on responsible technology deployment and governance.
Metadata
Importance: 25/100wiki pagereference
Summary
Access Now is an international nonprofit organization focused on defending and extending the digital rights of users at risk globally. The organization provides direct technical assistance, policy advocacy, and threat response services to civil society groups, journalists, and activists facing digital security threats. It is known for co-founding the Coalition Against Stalkerware and operating a digital security helpline.
Key Points
- •International nonprofit defending digital rights and security for at-risk users, journalists, and activists worldwide
- •Operates a Digital Security Helpline providing direct technical support to civil society organizations
- •Engages in policy advocacy on issues including surveillance, encryption, and platform accountability
- •Co-founded the Coalition Against Stalkerware to combat abusive monitoring software
- •Organizes RightsCon, a major summit on human rights in the digital age
2 FactBase facts citing this source
| Entity | Property | Value | As Of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access Now | annual-revenue | 15000000 | 2023 |
| Access Now | staff-count | More than 70 experts worldwide, with offices in New York, Berlin, Brussels, San Jose (Costa Rica), Tunis, Delhi, Nairobi, Manila, London, and Washington DC | Oct 2024 |
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Access Now - Wikipedia
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Non-profit organization
Access Now Formation 2009 Founders Brett Solomon, Cameran Ashraf, Sina Rabbani and Kim Pham Website accessnow.org
RightsCon 2019 conference venue in Tunis.
A room hosting a RightsCon session organized by Access Now in 2019.
Access Now is an international non-profit organization headquartered in New York City . [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It was founded in California in July 2009 and focuses on digital civil rights. [ 3 ] The organization issues reports on global Internet censorship, and hosts the annual RightsCon human rights conference. It is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. [ 4 ] Its headquarters moved to New York at the beginning of 2022. [ 1 ]
History
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Access Now was established by Brett Solomon, Cameran Ashraf, Sina Rabbani and Kim Pham in 2009, after the contested Iranian presidential election of that year . [ 5 ] [ 6 ] During the protests that followed this election, Access Now disseminated the video footage which came out of Iran. [ 6 ] Access Now has campaigned against internet shutdowns, [ 7 ] online censorship, [ 8 ] perceived risks to privacy rights in international trade agreements, [ 9 ] and government surveillance. [ 10 ] Access Now has supported the use of encryption [ 11 ] and limited cyber security laws and regulations. [ 12 ]
Operations
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As of 2025 [update] , Access Now is a 501(c)(3) organization based in New York City in the United States, [ 13 ] with staff, operations, and activities distributed in Brussels , San José (Costa Rica) , Tunis , with further presences in Berlin , Delhi , Nairobi , and Manila . [ 14 ]
RightsCon
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Access Now runs an annual conference, RightsCon , which focuses on issues concerning technology's impact on human rights. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] The conference was first held in Silicon Valley in 2011, followed by events in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2012), Silicon Valley (2014), Manila, Philippines (2015), and Silicon Valley (2016); [ 17 ] thus alternating between Silicon Valley and a city in the Global South . [ 17 ] After being held in Brussels and Toronto, [ 18 ] RightsCon 2019 took place in Tunis, Tunisia (11–14 June). [ 19 ] The 2019 RightsCon event gathered activists and stakeholders from all over the globe discussed the intersection between human rights and digitalization by government representatives, tech giants, policymakers, NGOs and independent activists. [ 20 ] The discussions were about hate speech and freedom of expression, artificial intelligence, privacy and data security, open government and democracy,
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