Protect. Preserve. Promote Sign Language. A UNCRPD Responsibility in the Age of AI

Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), States, public bodies, universities, and organisations have clear obligations to recognise, promote, and protect sign languages — and the people who use and sustain them.

As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies increasingly enter the field of sign language translation and accessibility, they are often framed as progress: faster access, wider reach, lower cost. Accessibility is important. But access alone is not enough under a human-rights framework.

A composite image showing sign language in use across digital, cultural, and rights-based contexts. Close-up hands signing appear alongside a screen displaying a digital sign language translation. Deaf adults and a child communicate using sign language in learning and community settings. Legal symbols and an open book represent rights, education, and cultural protection, with abstract digital connections suggesting AI-assisted translation.

Technology must not undermine the very communities whose languages it depends on.

What the UNCRPD Requires

The UNCRPD is explicit that sign languages are not assistive add-ons or technical tools. They are full languages, deeply connected to culture, identity, and community.

Several Articles are especially relevant in the context of AI and sign language:

Article 21 — Freedom of Expression and Access to Information

This Article recognises sign languages as languages and requires their promotion and use. It calls for access to information in sign language without reducing it to a purely technical output detached from Deaf people.

Article 24 — Education

This Article requires States to promote the linguistic identity of the Deaf community, including the use of sign languages and the involvement of Deaf professionals. Education about sign language must not erase Deaf expertise or replace Deaf-led knowledge.

Article 30 — Participation in Cultural Life

This Article protects the right of Deaf people to maintain, control, and benefit from their linguistic and cultural expression. Sign languages are part of living cultural heritage, not resources to be extracted without return.

Together, these Articles establish a clear principle:

Sign language access must go hand in hand with Deaf participation, economic fairness, and cultural protection.

Where Concerns Are Emerging

Against this backdrop, it is concerning when sign language expertise is treated as:

• One-off participation rather than professional work

• Prize-draw incentives instead of fair payment

• Contributions captured once while value scales indefinitely

  
  

These practices may be convenient, but they sit uneasily with a rights-based approach.

Sign languages are not data.

They are minority languages with small professional labour markets, where fair commissioning, repeat work, and reuse payments sustain livelihoods. When these structures are weakened, the impact is immediate and lasting.

A Question of Labour and Value

In other creative and linguistic sectors — music, film, publishing — reuse without royalties, licensing, or residual income would be unacceptable. Artists, performers, and writers are paid again when their work is reused or monetised.

Sign language should not be treated differently simply because it is a minority language or because accessibility is involved.

When AI systems rely on sign language expertise but remove ongoing economic participation, the issue is not innovation.

It is value extraction without redistribution.

This turns accessibility into a form of economic exclusion.

What a UNCRPD-Aligned Approach Looks Like

A human-rights–aligned approach to AI and sign language must include:

• Fair commissioning and payment for sign language professionals

• Ongoing economic participation where sign language content or expertise is reused

• Clear licensing, royalties, or repeat-fee models, where appropriate

• Deaf-led governance and oversight in design, deployment, and policy

• Protection of sign language as a living language and cultural heritage, not a disposable resource

  
  

These principles do not block innovation.

They strengthen it by ensuring trust, sustainability, and legitimacy.

Not Anti-Technology — Pro-Rights

This is not about resisting progress or rejecting AI.

It is about ensuring that new technologies uphold international human rights obligations rather than quietly undermining them.

History shows what happens when Deaf people are excluded from decisions about their own language. The digital age must not repeat old patterns in new forms.

The responsibility is clear.

Protect. Preserve. Promote sign language — and the people who live it.