Centre for Internet & Society

Comments on the Zero Draft of the UN General Assembly’s Overall Review of the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes (WSIS+10)

by Geetha Hariharan

On 9 October 2015, the Zero Draft of the UN General Assembly's Overall Review of implementation of WSIS Outcomes was released. Comments were sought on the Zero Draft from diverse stakeholders. The Centre for Internet & Society's response to the call for comments is below.

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Peering behind the veil of ICANN's DIDP (II)

by Padmini Baruah

In a previous blog post, I had introduced the concept of ICANN’s Documentary Information Disclosure Policy (“DIDP”) and their extremely vast grounds for non-disclosure. In this short post, I have made an analysis of every DIDP request that ICANN has ever responded to, to point out the flaws in their policy that need to be urgently remedied.

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Contestations of Data, ECJ Safe Harbor Ruling and Lessons for India

by Jyoti Panday

The European Court of Justice has invalidated a European Commission decision, which had previously concluded that the 'Safe Harbour Privacy Principles' provide adequate protections for European citizens’ privacy rights for the transfer of personal data between European Union and United States. The inadequacies of the framework is not news for the European Commission and action by ECJ has been a long time coming. The ruling raises important questions about how the claims of citizenship are being negotiated in the context of the internet, and how increasingly the contestations of personal data are being employed in the discourse.

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Hits and Misses With the Draft Encryption Policy

by Sunil Abraham

Most encryption standards are open standards. They are developed by open participation in a publicly scrutable process by industry, academia and governments in standard setting organisations (SSOs) using the principles of “rough consensus” – sometimes established by the number of participants humming in unison – and “running code” – a working implementation of the standard. The open model of standards development is based on the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) philosophy that “many eyes make all bugs shallow”.

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Open Governance and Privacy in a Post-Snowden World : Webinar

by Vanya Rakesh

On 10th September 2015, the OGP Support Unit, the Open Government Guide, and the World Bank held a webinar on “Open Governance and Privacy in a Post-Snowden World” presented by Carly Nyst, Independent consultant and former Legal Director of Privacy International and Javier Ruiz, Policy Director of Open Rights Group. This is a summary of the key issues that were discussed by the speakers and the participants.

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Peering behind the veil of ICANN’s DIDP (I)

by Padmini Baruah

One of the key elements of the process of enhancing democracy and furthering transparency in any institution which holds power is open access to information for all the stakeholders. This is critical to ensure that there is accountability for the actions of those in charge of a body which utilises public funds and carries out functions in the public interest.

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Sustainable Smart Cities India Conference 2015, Bangalore

by Vanya Rakesh

Nispana Innovative Platforms organized a Sustainable Smart Cities India Conference 2015, in Bangalore on 3rd and 4th September, 2015. The event saw participation from people across various sectors including Government Representatives from Ministries, Municipalities, Regulatory Authorities, as well as Project Management Companies, Engineers, Architects, Consultants, Handpicked Technology Solution Providers and Researchers. National and International experts and stakeholders were also present to discuss the opportunities and challenges in creating smart and responsible cities as well as citizens, and creating a roadmap for converting the smart cities vision into a reality that is best suited for India.

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DIDP Request #12: Revenues

by Aditya Garg

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) sought information from ICANN on their revenue streams by sending them a second request under their Documentary Information Disclosure Policy. This request and their response have been described in this blog post.

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DIDP Request #11: NETmundial Principles

by Aditya Garg

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) followed up on the implementation of the NETmundial Principles that ICANN has been endorsing by sending them a second request under their Documentary Information Disclosure Policy. This request and their response have been described in this blog post.

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CIS Submission on CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations

by Pranesh Prakash

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) submitted the below to ICANN's CCWG-Accountability.

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