Research from Steve Wood and the Digital Futures for Children centre: major platforms responded to early regulation - then stalled. The framework exists. What's missing is enforcement and safety by design built in from the start. 🔗researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/… #DigitalFutures4Children

Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I’ll murmur agreement, not actually say anything, I’m not as stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to nearly stand up and be almost heard… But no one said anything. The cowards, each man thought. - Guards! Guards!

Ahead of RightsCon 2026, I join UN experts in warning against the spread of intrusive surveillance technologies, including those powered by artificial intelligence – and call for stronger human rights safeguards

I wrote this a little over a year ago and I think it even more relevant today.

PRESS RELEASE: Yesterday, the #Netherlands and #Iceland filed declarations of intervention under Article 63 of the #ICJ Statute in the case #SouthAfrica v. #Israel. Link to the press release: go.icj-cij.org/4rwaZRJ

South African white here, and no. You’re completely wrong. Also, there is no persecution or oppression of white folks here. And there never has been. Now rather keep quiet when you don’t know what you’re talking about - between us, it just makes you look foolish 😉

While discipline matters, this framing ignores the massive structural "invisible" barriers that make discipline possible in the first place. I’ll use myself as an example. Earlier this year, I went through Stanford’s LLM Engineering course. loved it. How did I consume it? 1/n

100%! Few African countries desperate for health aid are going to refuse - yet if Prez @WilliamsRuto and others stuck together, they could negotiate better terms. The US may well feed Africa's health data into AI to enable 'machine learning'. 😔 healthpolicy-watch.news/afri…

URGENT: Kenya's Healthcare Sovereignty Under Siege President Ruto is about to sign away Kenya's health data sovereignty through a fundamentally unconstitutional agreement with the US Government. THE SMOKING GUN: I have obtained three explosive documents: 1. Model Specimen Sharing Agreement 2. PEPFAR Bilateral MOU Template 3. Legal Advisory by Dr. Mugambi Laibuta proving this violates Kenyan law HERE'S WHAT RUTO IS SIGNING: REAL-TIME SURVEILLANCE OF ALL KENYANS US gets 24/7 access to Kenya's ENTIRE national health database Every HIV test, TB diagnosis, malaria case - accessible to US officials Your medical records, your children's health data - all exposed NO anonymization required NO consent from you NO restrictions on what they can see YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS? GONE. Legal analysis confirms this violates: Article 31: Your Right to Privacy - VIOLATED Kenya Data Protection Act - COMPLETELY IGNORED Health Act confidentiality provisions - BYPASSED Digital Health Act - RENDERED USELESS THE MOST DANGEROUS CLAUSE: "This Agreement shall be construed in accordance with U.S. federal law." Read that again. US law - not Kenyan law - will govern YOUR health data. This means: Office of Data Protection Commissioner: POWERLESS Kenyan courts: NO JURISDICTION Your data protection rights: DON'T EXIST US has weaker privacy laws than Kenya: YOUR DATA LESS PROTECTED IT GETS WORSE: 25-YEAR PATHOGEN EXTRACTION Kenya must hand over disease specimens within 5 DAYS of US request US shares with 10 private American pharmaceutical companies. They develop vaccines and drugs from OUR diseases. Kenya gets NOTHING guaranteed in return. US serves its own needs first. 25 YEARS of this arrangement COUNTY GOVERNMENTS LOCKED OUT Health is devolved - counties run these systems Counties haven't been consulted This violates Intergovernmental Relations Act FINANCIAL BLACKMAIL BUILT IN: "Failure to fulfill commitments could result in changes in planned assistance or discontinuation of this MOU." Translation: Give us your data or lose funding. WHAT THEY GET ACCESS TO: Not just statistics. Not just aggregated data. They get: Direct system access to query ANY patient record. Rights to audit 5% of health facilities randomly selected Access to lab results, treatment records, epidemiological data Metadata and system architecture Real-time disease surveillance All diagnostic and testing data 50 MILLION KENYANS' MEDICAL PRIVACY - GONE. DR. MUGAMBI LAIBUTA'S LEGAL VERDICT: "This Agreement, as drafted, is NOT legally compliant, poses CRITICAL constitutional and sovereignty risks, and must be SIGNIFICANTLY renegotiated before Kenya can lawfully sign or operationalize it." THE BOTTOM LINE: This is not cooperation. This is: Data extraction disguised as aid. Biopiracy of our pathogens for pharmaceutical profit. Surveillance infrastructure embedded in our health systems. Constitutional rights traded for donor dollars. 25 years of compromised sovereignty. OTHER AFRICAN COUNTRIES ARE SAYING NO The template shows this is being pushed across Africa. Reasonable countries are rejecting these terms. But Ruto, desperate for any "investment" narrative, is ready to sign away our most sensitive data. WHAT MUST HAPPEN NOW: This cannot be signed as drafted. The Constitution doesn't allow it. The law doesn't permit it. Our dignity as a sovereign nation demands better. We need: IMMEDIATE PUBLIC DISCLOSURE - Full text published COUNTY CONSULTATION - Governors must weigh in PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE - MPs must approve or reject ODPC REVIEW - Data Protection Commissioner must audit for compliance COMPLETE RENEGOTIATION - Fair terms or no deal You cannot sign agreements that violate the Constitution. This is not about being anti-partnership. This is about protecting Kenyan citizens' rights and maintaining our sovereignty.

@Livingstone_S spoke at the International Meeting on children’s rights & #AI: “We must move beyond safety-by-design & privacy-by-design to embrace #ChildRights by Design.” 📜Declaration of Intent presented to #PopeLeo XIV: fondazionechild.it/13-novemb… #ChildRights #DigitalSafety

📱 Children face new risks online—and new opportunities. Our #WorldChildrensDay panel explored what’s working, what’s not, and what’s urgently needed to protect their rights in digital spaces. 🎥 Watch: youtu.be/UuVKWzdBcL8 🎧 Listen: lse.ac.uk/lse-player?id=b21d… @Livingstone_S

If you had an ounce of loyalty to the people of South Africa, you would repudiate these lies, not repeat them. Your schadenfreude shows AfriSol's real attitude. Why did you not retweet all the other G20 leaders' praise for SA and the G20 summit? #kruipgatbytrump

“The mandate…focuses almost exclusively on disarming Palestinian armed groups while doing nothing to end the root cause of the violence: Israel’s ongoing unlawful siege, occupation, racial segregation and apartheid, and ethnic cleansing.” #Gaza #UNSC ohchr.org/en/press-releases/…

I know there’s A LOT going on in the news cycle (read CYCLONE🌪️) … but please take the time to read this! It paints a devastating and frightening picture of one county’s bullying tactics.

This is not a “bold statement”. It’s a lie. He’s not criticizing “SA’s policies”, because SA doesn’t have these policies. Don’t be shit. Seriously.

I wrote something! “It is past time to move beyond campaigns to raise awareness of these forms of (school) violence, as important as they are to draw attention to the problem.” #safeschools #endviolence ⁦@CIatUCT⁩ news24.com/opinions/analysis…

At my first event in South Africa for a few years (6!),the launch of the UCT Children’s Institute Child Gauge 2025, on the Intersections between violence against women and children (I wrote the chapter on schools!). Lovely to see some old friends.

I’ve just heard that the boat, part of the Gaza air flotilla, carrying Mandla Mandela has been intercepted and that Mandela has been captured. A Mandela being captured, yet again, while fighting for human rights and justice is a shocking repeat of history. The fact that the Spanish & Italian protection vessels turned back and abandoned the flotilla is outrageous. You’re either in this for the right reasons, then you see it to the end, or its performance. There’s a legal & moral duty on the world to defend the universal human rights of the people of Palestine & the smallest act was to protect and defend the aid flotilla.

Investing in children has a high ROI. It not only makes great financial sense but investing in young people is investing in all our futures. Read my article with @ReutersBiz on a bold new initiative by @AgendaCAF! #foreverychild @uniceflac unicef.link/3VAufji

To help inform ongoing discussions on the future of global health in a new era, a new Nature Medicine comment presents key questions for rethinking the functions of global health in an era of declining solidarity and reduced aid. Read the article > doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-0…