A/76/380 interpersonal processes, perception of control, and individual and group identity. Consequently, a victim’s ability to control their thoughts and emotions is impaired. 94 50. Experts assert that this form of torture may also engender a state of “learned helplessness” or dependence, coercively altering one’s thoughts towards oneself and others. 95 The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment notes that depending on the degree, severity and type, “undue psychological pressure and manipulative practices may […] amount to inhuman or degrading treatment”, including where certain techniques are used over a lengthy period or against vulnerable individuals (e.g., children or persons with psychosocial disabilities). 96 51. Experts also report that physical torture can modify brain structures that are critical to thinking, including the hippocampus, amygdala and prefrontal cortex, whether through blunt trauma or prolonged stress. The latter floods the brain with cortisol, the primary stress hormone, which may also compromise the brain’s normal physiological functioning. 97 According to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the conditions created by deprivation of human contact or proper light cause “depression [… and] damage on the psychological system and the glands [of the] brain, [as well as affecting...] the body’s hormonal structures”. 98 B. Surveillance that infers thought 52. Scholars and rights activists contend that surveillance technologies deployed in “counter-terrorism” and national security apparatuses threaten freedom of thought, where they purport to reveal one’s thoughts through inference, or where those thoughts result in sanctions, including incarceration. Rooted in the idea that one can identify “extremist thinking” and intervene before it manifests, many States digitally surveil citizens by intercepting telecommunications, monitoring Internet traffic, and collating and cross-referencing public and private data, including from social media or government records. 53. Material leaked by Edward Snowden indicates that the “Five Eyes” intellig ence alliance (United States of America, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and Australia) exhaustively intercepts multiple aspects of individuals’ digital footprints, 99 including private records that arguably may all ow them to make inferences about thought. The Government of China reportedly uses biometrics, digital surveillance and personal data for behavioural analysis for identifying “extremist” or “unhealthy thought” in their populace before it can manifest. 100 54. Research suggests that individuals modify their behaviour when they know that they are subject to surveillance, 101 including through self-censorship. Some suggest that when surveillance thoroughly infiltrates rights holders’ digital lives, they not only censor what they write, but also censor with whom they associate, what they read and, __________________ 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 21-14191 See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cpsp.12064, p. 173. See https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/2214/, p. 350. A/71/298, para. 44. See https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674743908 , p. 160. See https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_160_ing.pdf , para. 329. See https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2015/03/10-spy-programmes-with-sillycodenames-used-by-gchq-and-nsa/. See https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2021/04/china0421_web_2.pdf , pp. 13 and 23–25; see also communication AL CHN 14/2020. See https://catalogofbias.org/biases/hawthorne-effect/. 15/28