ON THE ROLE OF THE OMBUDSMAN FUNCTION

10 April 2026

Working session ‘Ombudsman Principles for Digital Dignity and Fairness’

Link

https://www.ombudsmanmetropool.nl/nl/actueel/congres-ombudsman-principles-digital-dignity-and-fairness

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7448489466542997504/

Ombudsman Metropool Amsterdam hosted a hybrid working session with more than 50 ombudsmen from all over the world. From Spain to Ireland, and from Serbia to Brazil - The topic: consultation on the Ombudsman Principles for Digital Dignity and Fairness, “Amsterdam Principles”

18 February 2026

Ombudsman launches a draft version of the ‘Ombudsman Principles for Digital Dignity and Fairness’

Link

https://www.ombudsmanmetropool.nl/nl/actueel/ombudsman-launches-draft-version-ombudsman-principles-digital-dignity-and-fairness

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/munishramlal_the-ombudsman-principles-for-digital-dignity-activity-7429942045101957120-sJJb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAAK6vMBR99FYL8Fgks5OWWhp1CLRDkcP9g

The Amsterdam Ombudsman launches a draft version of the ‘Ombudsman Principles for Digital Dignity and Fairness’. With this initiative, the Ombudsman wants to help ensure that governments and public bodies treat residents fairly and with dignity when using digital systems and data.

Digital Rights House joined the consultation group to not only come up with the first draft of the principles but also to organise several upcoming consultation sessions.

Links

Letter of Concern: The Ombudsman’s Role in the Digital Era

THE OMBUDSMAN PRINCIPLES FOR DIGITAL DIGNITY AND FAIRNESS (“Amsterdam Principles”) Draft Version 0.1 - 18/2/2026

The intention is to present the improved principles on Human Rights Day, 10 December, as a concrete contribution from the Ombudsman community to the protection of digital dignity and fairness.

Please feel free to check out our official Call to Action:

https://www.ombudsmanmetropool.nl/nl/actueel/call-action-ombudsman-principles-digital-dignity-and-fairness

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In the coming period, the focus will be on collecting input, examples and critiques in order to sharpen and improve the draft principles. Several meetings will take place with representatives of the Ombudsman community. We will also organise 'open consultation sessions' enabling anyone to contribute to the initiative.

More on the open consultation sessions

We are working on a number of open consultation session to take place before 10 December 2026. Watch this space or updates.

18 May - Open consultation - Contributing to Republica 26 with a session (Berlin)

Session: EMPOWERING THE OMBUDSMAN TO (CO)PROTECT CITIZEN'S DIGITAL RIGHTS

Link: https://re-publica.com/de/session/empowering-ombudsman-coprotect-citizens-digital-rights

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7460297123125682176/

Other

7 May - Open consultation - Contributing to RightsCon 26 with a session (The RightsCon event was postponed.)

Session: Strengthening oversight in the digital age: The role of ombudsman institutions in protecting citizens rights

Link: https://rightscon.summit.tc/t/rightscon-2026/events/strengthening-oversight-in-the-digital-age-the-role-of-ombudsman-institutions-in-protecting-citizens-rights-jxcohMq8DoucUsJZmwqzHs

On 18 February 2026 The Amsterdam Ombudsman launched a draft version of the ‘Ombudsman Principles for Digital Dignity and Fairness’. With this initiative, the Ombudsman wants to help ensure that governments and public bodies treat residents fairly and with dignity when using digital systems and data. We are grateful with the opportunity to work closely with the Amsterdam Ombudsman throughout the entire process.

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A bit of background

We believe the role of the (municipal) Ombudsman function is very important if not even crucial in times of increased digitalisation.

A question 'Who represents me when everything is digital?' triggered us, Digital Rights House, to start up an exploration program with projects ranging from researching the desired role of the citizen in being able to represent yourself (think of topics like 'Do you own and/or control the data about you' and 'Is it transparent enough in practice what others are doing with your data') to how far can a municipality/government in practice even go in guaranteeing safeguards for citizens in the context of a city/region.

In this exploration numerous opportunities exist to collaborate with us.

We believe strongly a city has an important role to play in these challenging times and therefore we view an increased attention of the Ombudsman function on digitalisation as just another relevant step in raising the digital rights bar.

In this exploration we also explicitly look at the benefits digitalisation brings in making the role of the Ombudsman function effective and how far to go in adopting technologies and the use of data whilst still remaining human first and acknowledging that not everything has to be digital(ised). The Ombudsman function can help raise the digital rights bar. For all people.

SOME EXTRA LINKS FOR INSPIRATION

• Vertel Me Alles (In Dutch)
• Digital Rights House Lecture
• Speech Munish Ramlal 13 September 2024, on the occasion of the 2nd Italian edition of the International Ombudsman Conference on "The role of the Ombudsman as a guardian of right", held in Cassino, Italy
• In Dutch (English available on the site) - De Ombudsman Metropool Amsterdam houdt zich bezig met digitalisering binnen de gemeenten in de metropoolregio https://www.ombudsmanmetropool.nl/nl/digitalisering

Munish Ramlal, Ombudsman Metropool Amsterdam gave the Digital Rights House Lecture

(The spoken lecture was in Dutch / A written version is available in English)