The Big Tech & Human Rights Investor Collaboration is set to extend its programme of knowledge-building sessions in 2025, in order to continue to develop deeper insights into the sector's human rights challenges, its annual report has confirmed.

The collaboration, launched by the Council on Ethics for the Swedish National Pension Funds in 2023, aims to engage with big tech companies in order to strengthen their management of human rights risks and impacts, as well as increase knowledge amongst investors and companies in relation to risks, opportunities, and best practices.

However, the group's annual report revealed that while some progress has been made, in most cases, the dialogues are still in an early phase of exploring the companies’ ambition, approach and competence, and "some dialogues have progressed further than others".

In particular, the group confirmed that, during 2024, digital meetings were held with five of the seven companies, and a physical meeting was held with one company in Stockholm in June 2024.

One company has so far declined to participate in a dialogue and instead referred to its public disclosures, although the group said that attempts to establish a constructive dialogue with the company were still ongoing by the end of 2024.

According to the report, the most common topics across the dialogues conducted during 2024 related to the companies’ overall governance, oversight and evaluation of human rights impacts, and how these are implemented in product/service-specific impact assessments.

Stakeholder engagement was also a more prominent topic in the dialogues during 2024, exploring how the companies have captured input from affected rights holders in their human rights assessments and actions taken as a result of those.

In terms of specific human rights risks, several of the dialogues during 2024 addressed impacts on children and young users, including controls needed to ensure online safety and measures to protect young users from the mental health concerns.

Even though AI is not a particular focus in the Big Tech & Human Rights investor collaboration, several company dialogues have also touched on the human rights risks related to AI-generated content, the report confirmed.

"We have also discussed the companies’ reporting, and the importance of transparency as a key for investors to assess companies’ management of risks," the report stated.

"Many dialogues have also touched on how the companies are preparing for regulatory requirements. Most of the targeted companies are covered by detailed reporting requirements under the EU Digital Services Act, and the reports published during 2024 will be used to inform the dialogues going forward."

Looking further ahead, the group confirmed that it will continue to pursue company dialogues in its third year in 2026, aiming to complement its own analysis with external assessments of the companies.

In particular, the group said it is looking to collaborate and coordinate more with other industry initiatives, acknowledging that several of the companies are also in scope for engagement by other initiatives related to human rights.

In addition to this, it confirmed that the programme of knowledge-building sessions will be extended, to continue to develop deeper insights into the sector’s human rights challenges.

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