Centre for Internet and Society

Internet Governance Forum Report 2017

Shweta Mohandas — 2018-01-11T02:13:07Z

The twelfth annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was held in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17 to 21 December 2017, on the theme, Shape Your Digital Future!

The Centre for Internet and Society was invited as one of the participating civil society organisations. The meeting was attended by Sunil Abraham (Executive Director), Elonnai Hickok (Director) - Internet Governance and Vidushi Marda (representing both CIS as Programme Manager and ARTICLE 19 as Policy Advisor).

CIS members participated as speaker / panelists in the following sessions:

Human Rights based Cyber Security Strategy
Body as Data: Dataveillance, the Informatisation of the Body and Citizenship
What digital future for vulnerable people?
Benchmarking ICT companies on digital rights: How-to and lessons learned
CyberBRICS: Building the Next Generation Internet, STEP by Step
State-led interference in encrypted systems: a public debate on different policy approaches
Artificial Intelligence in Asia: What’s Similar? What’s Different? Findings from our AI workshops
Datafication and Social Justice: What Challenges for Internet Governance?
Fake news, Content Regulation and Platformization of the Web: A Global South Perspective

Full report here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-governance-forum-report-2017

Multi-stakeholder Models of Internet Governance within States: Why, Who & How?

geetha — 2014-06-16T14:27:38Z

Internet governance, for long a global exercise, has found new awareness within national frameworks in recent times. Especially relevant for developing countries, effective national IG mechanisms are important to raise awareness and ensure multi-stakeholder participation at technical, infrastructural and public policy levels.

This post is a surface-level overview of national IG bodies, and is intended to inform introductory thoughts on national IG mechanisms.

A Short Introduction

The previous decade has seen a proliferation of regional, sub-regional and national initiatives for Internet governance (IG). Built primarily on the multi-stakeholder model, these initiatives aim at creating dialogue on issues of regional, local or municipal importance. In Asia, Bangladesh has instituted a national IGF, the Bangladesh IGF, with the stated objective of creating a national multi-stakeholder forum that is specialized in Internet governance issues, and to facilitate informed dialogue on IG policy issues among stakeholders. India, too, is currently in the process of instituting such a forum. At this juncture, it is useful to consider the rationale and modalities of national IG bodies.

The Internet has long been considered a sphere of non-governmental, multi-stakeholder, decentralized, bottom-up governance space. The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, John Perry Barlow’s defiant articulation of the Internet’s freedom from governmental control, is a classic instance of this. The Internet is a “vast ocean”, we claimed; “no one owns it”.[1] Even today, members of the technical community insist that everyone ought to “let techies do their job”: a plea, if you will, of the complexity of cyber-walls and –borders (or of their lack).

But as Prof. Milton Mueller argues in Ruling the Root, the Internet has always been a contentious resource: battles over its governance (or specifically, the governance of the DNS root, both the root-zone file and the root servers) have leapt from the naïveté of the Declaration of Independence to a private-sector-led, contract-based exploitation of Internet resources. The creation of ICANN was a crucial step in this direction, following arbitrary policy choices by Verizon and entities managing the naming and numbering resources of the Internet.

The mushrooming of parallel tracks of Internet governance is further evidence of the malleability of the space. As of today, various institutions – inter-governmental and multi-stakeholder – extend their claims of governance. ICANN, the World Summit of Information Society, the World Conference on International Telecommunications, the Internet Governance Forum and the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation under the ECOSOC Committee for Science, Technology and Development are a few prominent tracks. As of today, the WSIS process has absorbed various UN special bodies (the ITU, UNESCO, UNCTAD, UNDP are but a few), with the UNESCO instituting a separate study on Internet-related issues. A proposal for a multilateral Committee on Internet-Related Policies remains stillborn.

Amongst these, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) remains a strong contender for a truly multi-stakeholder process facilitating dialogue on IG. The IGF was set up following the recommendation of the Working Group of Internet Governance (WGIG), constituted after the Geneva phase of the WSIS.

Rationale: Why Have National IG bodies?

The issue of national multi-stakeholder cooperation/collaboration in IG is not new; it has been alive since the early 2000s. The Tunis Agenda, in paragraph 80, encourages the “development of multi-stakeholder processes at the national, regional and international levels to discuss and collaborate on the expansion and diffusion of the Internet as a means to support development efforts to achieve internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals” (emphasis supplied).

In its June 2005 Report, the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) emphasizes that “global Internet governance can only be effective if there is coherence with regional, subregional and national-level policies”. Towards this end it recommends that “coordination be established among all stakeholders at the national level and a multi-stakeholder national Internet governance steering committee or similar body be set up” (emphasis supplied). The IGF, whose creation the WGIG recommended, has since been commended for its impact on the proliferation of national IGFs.

The rationale, then, was that multi-stakeholder steering committees at the national level would help to create a cohesive body to coordinate positions on Internet governance. In Reforming Internet Governance, WGIG member Waudo Siganga writes of the Internet Steering Committee of Brazil as a model, highlighting lessons that states (especially developing countries) may learn from CGI.br.

The Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) was set up in 1995 and is responsible, inter alia, for the management of the .br domain, distribution of Internet addresses and administration of metropolitan Internet exchange points. CERT.br ensures network security and extends support to network administrators. Siganga writes that CGI.br is a “well-structured multistakeholder entity, having representation from government and democratically chosen representatives of the business sector, scientific and technological community and an Internet expert”.

Why is CGI.br a model for other states? First, CGI.br exemplifies how countries can structure in an effective manner, a body that is involved in creating awareness about IG issues at the national level. Moreover, the multi-stakeholder nature of CGI.br shows how participation can be harnessed effectively to build capacity across domestic players. This also reflects the multi-stakeholder aspects of Internet governance at the global level, clarifying and implementing the WSIS standards (for instance). Especially in developing countries, where awareness and coordination for Internet governance is lacking at the national level, national IG committees can bridge the gap between awareness and participation. Such awareness can translate into local solutions for local issues, as well as contributing to an informed, cohesive stance at the global level.

Stakeholders: Populating a national IG body

A national IG body – be in steering committee, IGF or other forum – should ideally involve all relevant stakeholders. As noted before, since inception, the Internet has not been subject to exclusive governmental regulation. The World Summit on Information Society recognized this, but negotiations amongst stakeholders resulted in the delegation of roles and responsibilities: the controversial and much-debated paragraph 35 of the Tunis Agenda reads:

Policy authority for Internet-related public policy issues is the sovereign right of States. They have rights and responsibilities for international Internet-related public policy issues.
The private sector has had, and should continue to have, an important role in the development of the Internet, both in the technical and economic fields.
Civil society has also played an important role on Internet matters, especially at community level, and should continue to play such a role.
Intergovernmental organizations have had, and should continue to have, a facilitating role in the coordination of Internet-related public policy issues.
International organizations have also had and should continue to have an important role in the development of Internet-related technical standards and relevant policies.

This position remains endorsed by the WSIS process; the recent WSIS+10 High Level Event endorsed by acclamation the WSIS+10 Vision for WSIS Beyond 2015, which “respect mandates given by Tunis Agenda and respect for the multi-stakeholder principles”. In addition to government, the private sector and civil society, the technical community is identified as a distinct stakeholder group. Academia has also found a voice, as demonstrated by stakeholder-representation at NETmundial 2014.

A study of the Internet Society (ISOC) on Assessing National Internet Governance Arrangements, authored by David Souter, maps IG stakeholders at the global, regional and national levels. At the global level, primary stakeholders include ICANN (not-for-profit, private sector corporation involved in governance and technical coordination of the DNS), the IETF, IAB and W3C (technical standards), governments and civil society organizations, all of which participate with different levels of involvements at the IGF, ICANN, ITU, etc.

At the national/municipal level, the list of stakeholders is as comprehensive. Governmental stakeholders include: (1) relevant Ministries (in India, these are the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology – the Department of Electronics and Information Technology under the MCIT is particularly relevant), and (2) regulators, statutory and independent (the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, for example). At the national level, these typically seek inputs from other stakeholders while making recommendations to governments, which then enact laws or make policy. In India, for instance, the TRAI conducts consultations prior to making recommendations to the government.

Within the private sector, there may be companies (1) on the supply-side, such as infrastructure networks, telecommunications service companies, Internet Service Providers, search engines, social networks, cybercafés, etc., and (2) on the demand-side, online businesses, advertising/media, financial service providers, etc. who use the Internet. There may also be national registries managing ccTLDs, such as the Registro.br or the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). There may also the press and news corporations representing both corporate and public interest under specific circumstances (media ownership and freedom of expression, for distinct examples).

Civil society organisations, including consumer organisations, think-tanks and grassroots organisations, participate at various levels of policy-making in the formal institutional structure, and are crucial in representing users and public interest. The complexity of stakeholders may be seen from Souter’s report, and this enumeration is but a superficial view of the national stakeholder-population.

Processes: Creating effective national IG bodies

National IG bodies – be they steering committees, IGFs, consultative/working groups or other forums – may be limited by formal institutional governmental settings. While limited by the responsibility-gradient in paragraph 35 of the Tunis Agenda, an effective national IG body requires robust multi-stakeholder participation, as Souter notes, in technical governance, infrastructure and public policy issues. Its effectiveness also lies in governmental acquiescence of its expertise and recommendations; in short, in the translation of the IG body’s decisions into policy.

How do these stakeholders interact at the national level? In addition to the Brazilian example (CGI.br), an ISOC study by Souter and Monica Kerretts-Makau, Internet Governance in Kenya: An Assessment, provides a detailed answer. At the technical level, the registry KENIC manages the .ke domain, while the Kenya Computer Incident Response Team Coordination Centre coordinates national responses to incidents and collaborates internationally on cyber-security issues. A specific IPv6 Force to promote Kenya’s transition to IPv6 was also created.

At the infrastructural level, both the government and the private sector play important roles. Directly, ministries and government departments consult with infrastructure providers in creating policy. In India, for instance, the TRAI conducts multi-stakeholder consultations on issues such as telecom tariffs, colocation tariffs for submarine cable stations and mobile towers, etc. The government may also take a lead in creating infrastructure, such as the national optic fibre networks in India and Kenya, as also creating investment opportunities such as liberalizing FDI. At the public policy level, there may exist consultations initiated by government bodies (such as the TRAI or the Law Commission), in which other stakeholders participate.

As one can see, government-initiated consultations by ministries, regulators, law commissions or specially constituted committees. Several countries have also set up national IGFs, which typically involve all major stakeholders in voluntary participation, and form a discussion forum for existing and emerging IG issues. National IGFs have been considered particularly useful to create awareness within the country, and may best address IG issues at the domestic policy level. However, Prof. Mueller writes that what is necessary is a “reliable mechanism reliable mechanisms for consistently feeding the preferences expressed in these forums to actual global policy-making institutions like ICANN, RIRs, WIPO, and WTO which impact distributional outcomes”.

[1] M. Mueller, Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace 57 (2002).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/multi-stakeholder-models-of-internet-governance-within-states-why-who-how

Implications of post-Snowden Internet localization proposals

praskrishna — 2014-07-03T07:09:25Z

The Ninth Annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Meeting will be held in Istanbul, Turkey on 2-5 September 2014. The venue of the meeting is Lütfi Kirdar International Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC).

Sunil Abraham will be speaking in this workshop organized by Internet Society and Center for Democracy and Technology at the IGF.

Following the 2013-2014 disclosures of large-scale pervasive surveillance of Internet traffic, various proposals to "localize" Internet users' data and change the path that Internet traffic would take have started to emerge.

Examples include mandatory storage of citizens' data within country, mandatory location of servers within country (e.g. Google, Facebook), launching state-run services (e.g. email services), restricted transborder Internet traffic routes, investment in alternate backbone infrastructure (e.g. submarine cables, IXPs), etc.

Localization of data and traffic routing strategies can be powerful tools for improving Internet experience for end-users, especially when done in response to Internet development needs. On the other hand, done uniquely in response to external factors (e.g. foreign surveillance), less optimal choices may be made in reactive moves.

How can we judge between Internet-useful versus Internet-harmful localisation and traffic routing approaches? What are the promises of data localization from the personal, community and business perspectives? What are the potential drawbacks? What are implications for innovation, user choice and the availability of online services in the global economy? What impact might they have on a global and interoperable Internet? What impact (if any) might these proposals have on user trust and expectations of privacy?

The objective of the session is to gather diverse perspectives and experiences to better understand the technical, social and economic implications of these proposals.

Name(s) and stakeholder and organizational affiliation(s) of institutional co-organizer(s)

Organizer:
Nicolas Seidler, Policy advisor
Technical community
Internet Society
Co-organizer:
Matthew Shears
Civil society
Center for Democracy and Technology

Names and affiliations (stakeholder group, organization) of speakers the proposer is planning to invite

Mr. Chris Riley, Senior Policy Engineer, Mozilla Corporation, Private sector (CONFIRMED)
Mr. Jari Arkko, Chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force, Technical community (CONFIRMED)
Mr. Christian Kaufmann, Director Network Architecture at Akamai Technologies, Private sector (CONFIRMED)
Ms. Emma Llanso, Director of Free Expression Project, Center for Democracy and Technology, Civil Society (CONFIRMED)
Mr. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Center for Internet and Society, India, Civil Society (CONFIRMED)
Mr. Thomas Schneider, Deputy head of international affairs, Swiss Federal Office of Communication (OFCOM), Government (CONFIRMED)

Name of Moderator(s)

Nicolas Seidler, Policy advisor, Internet Society

Name of Remote Moderator(s)

Konstantinos Komaitis

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/igf-2014-session-post-snowden-localisation

Encryption and Anonymity: Rights and Risks

praskrishna — 2015-10-27T02:37:45Z

Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2015 will be held at Jao Pessoa in Brazil from November 10 to 13, 2015. The theme of IGF 2015 is Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development. ARTICLE 19 and Privacy International are organizing a workshop on Encryption and Anonymity on November 12, 2015. Pranesh Prakash is a speaker.

This was published on the IGF website.

Encryption and anonymity are two key aspects of the right to privacy and free expression online. From real-name registration in Iran to the UK Prime Minister's calls for Internet backdoors to encrypted communications, however, the protection of encrypted and anonymous speech is increasingly under threat. Recognising these challenges, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, presented a report to the Human Rights Council in June 2015 which highlighted the need for greater protection of encryption and anonymity.

Five months on from the Special Rapporteur’s report, the participants in this roundtable will discuss his recommendations and the latest challenges to the protection of anonymity and encryption. For example, how can law enforcement demands be met while ensuring that individuals still enjoy strong encryption and unfettered access to anonymity tools? What steps should governments, civil society, individuals and the private sector take to avoid the legal and technological fragmentation of a tool now vital to expression and communication? How can individuals protect themselves from mass surveillance in the digital age?

At the end of the session, the participants should have identified areas for future advocacy both at the international and domestic levels as well as areas for further research for the protection of anonymity and encryption on the Internet.

Agenda

Moderator welcomes speakers and audience.
Outline of key issues on encryption and anonymity, including summary of the UN Special Rapporteur's report.
Each speaker speaks for 5-7 mins, giving their perspective re the issues.
Questions from participants, including remote participation via Twitter.
Conclusion and steps for further action.

About IGF 2015

Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a multistakeholder, democratic and transparent forum which facilitates discussions on public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance. IGF provides enabling platform for discussions among all stakeholders in the Internet governance ecosystem, including all entities accredited by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), as well as other institutions and individuals with proven expertise and experience in all matters related to Internet governance.

After consulting the wider Internet community and discussing the overarching theme of the 2015 IGF meeting, the Multistakeholder Advisory Group decided to retain the title “Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development”. This theme will be supported by eight sub-themes that will frame the discussions at the João Pessoa meeting.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/encryption-and-anonymity-rights-and-risks

India's Statement Proposing UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy

pranesh — 2011-10-31T15:28:04Z

This is the statement made by India at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly, in which its proposal for the UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy was presented.

66th Session of the UN General Assembly

New York. October 26, 2011.

Agenda Item 16: Information and Communications

Technologies for Development (ICT): Global Internet Governance

Statement by India

Mr. Chairman,

We thank the Secretary-General for his report on enhanced cooperation on public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, contained in document A/66/77, which provides a useful introduction to the discussions under this agenda item.

As a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and democratic society with an open economy and an abiding culture of pluralism, India emphasizes the importance that we attach to the strengthening of the Internet as a vehicle for openness, democracy, freedom of expression, human rights, diversity, inclusiveness, creativity, free and unhindered access to information and knowledge, global connectivity, innovation and socio-economic growth.

We believe that the governance of such an unprecedented global medium that embodies the values of democracy, pluralism, inclusion, openness and transparency should also be similarly inclusive, democratic, participatory, multilateral and transparent in nature.

Indeed, this was already recognized and mandated by the Tunis Agenda in 2005, as reflected in paragraphs 34, 35, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61 and 69 of the Agenda. Regrettably, in the six long years that have gone by, no substantial initiative has been taken by the global community to give effect to this mandate.

Meanwhile, the internet has grown exponentially in its reach and scope, throwing up several new and rapidly emerging challenges in the area of global internet governance that continue to remain inadequately addressed. It is becoming increasingly evident that the Internet as a rapidly-evolving and inherently global medium, needs quick-footed and timely global solutions and policies, not divergent and fragmented national policies.

The range and criticality of these pressing global digital issues that continue to remain unaddressed, are growing rapidly with each passing day. It is, therefore, urgent and imperative that a multilateral, democratic participative and transparent global policy-making mechanism be urgently instituted, as mandated by the Tunis Agenda under the process of ‘Enhanced Co-operation’, to enable coherent and integrated global policy-making on all aspects of global Internet governance.

Operationalizing the Tunis mandate in this regard should not be viewed as an attempt by governments to “take over” or “regulate and circumscribe” the internet. Indeed, any such misguided attempt would be antithetical not only to the internet, but also to human welfare. As a democratic and open society that has historically welcomed outside influences and believes in openness to all views and ideas and is wedded to free dialogue, pluralism and diversity, India attaches great importance to the preservation of the Internet as an unrestricted, open and free global medium that flourishes through private innovation and individual creativity and serves as a vehicle for open communication, access to culture, knowledge, democratization and development.

India recognizes the role played by various actors and stakeholders in the development and continued enrichment of the internet, and is firmly committed to multi-stakeholderism in internet governance, both at the national and global level. India believes that global internet governance can only be functional, effective and credible if all relevant stake-holders contribute to, and are consulted in, the process.

Bearing in mind the need for a transparent, democratic, and multilateral mechanism that enables all stakeholders to participate in their respective roles, to address the many cross-cutting international public policy issues that require attention and are not adequately addressed by current mechanisms and the need for enhanced cooperation to enable governments, on an equal footing, to carry out their roles and responsibilities in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, India proposes the establishment of a new institutional mechanism in the United Nations for global internet-related policies, to be called the United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP). The intent behind proposing a multilateral and multi-stakeholder mechanism is not to “control the internet’’ or allow Governments to have the last word in regulating the internet, but to make sure that the Internet is governed not unilaterally, but in an open, democratic, inclusive and participatory manner, with the participation of all stakeholders, so as to evolve universally acceptable, and globally harmonized policies in important areas and pave the way for a credible, constantly evolving, stable and well-functioning Internet that plays its due role in improving the quality of peoples’ lives everywhere.

The CIRP shall be mandated to undertake the following tasks:

Develop and establish international public policies with a view to ensuring coordination and coherence in cross-cutting Internet-related global issues;
Coordinate and oversee the bodies responsible for technical and operational functioning of the Internet, including global standards setting;
Facilitate negotiation of treaties, conventions and agreements on Internet-related public policies;
Address developmental issues related to the internet;
Promote the promotion and protection of all human rights, namely, civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights, including the Right to Development;
Undertake arbitration and dispute resolution, where necessary; and,
Crisis management in relation to the Internet.

The main features of CIRP are provided in the annex to this statement. In brief, the CIRP will comprise 50 Member States chosen on the basis of equitable geographical representation, and will meet annually for two working weeks in Geneva. It will ensure the participation of all relevant stakeholders by establishing four Advisory Groups, one each for civil society, the private sector, inter-governmental and international organizations, and the technical and academic community. The Advisory Groups will provide their inputs and recommendations to the CIRP. The meetings of CIRP and the advisory groups will be serviced by the UNCTAD Secretariat that also services the meetings of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development. The Internet Governance Forum will provide inputs to CIRP in the spirit of complementarity between the two. CIRP will report directly to the General Assembly and present recommendations for consideration, adoption and dissemination among all relevant inter-governmental bodies and international organizations. CIRP will be supported by the regular budget of the United Nations; a separate Fund would be set up by drawing from the domain registration fees collected by various bodies, in order to mainly finance the Research Wing to be established by CIRP to support its activities.

Those familiar with the discourse on global internet governance since the beginning of the WSIS process at the turn of the millennium, will recognize that neither the mandated tasks of the CIRP, nor its proposed modalities, are new. The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) set up by the UN Secretary- General had explicitly recognized the institutional gaps in global internet governance and had proposed four institutional models in its report to the UN General Assembly in 2005. The contours of the CIRP, as proposed above, reflect the common elements in the four WGIG institutional models. While the excellent report of the WGIG was much discussed and deliberated in 2005, unfortunately, no concrete follow-up action was taken to give effect to its recommendations on the institutional front. We hope that this anomaly will be redressed at least six years later, with the timely establishment of the CIRP.

In order to operationalize this proposal, India calls for the establishment of an open-ended working group under the Commission on Science and Technology for Development for drawing up the detailed terms of reference for CIRP, with a view to actualizing it within the next 18 months. We are open to the views and suggestions of all Member States, and stand ready to work with other delegations to carry forward this proposal, and thus seek to fill the serious gap in the implementation of the Tunis Agenda, by providing substance and content to the concept of Enhanced Co-operation enshrined in the Tunis Agenda.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

***

Annex

The United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP)

The United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP) will have the following features:

Membership: The CIRP will consist of 50 Member States of the United Nations, chosen/elected on the basis of equitable geographical representation. It will provide for equitable representation of all UN Member States, in accordance with established UN principles and practices. It will have a Bureau consisting of one Chair, three Vice-Chairs and a Rapporteur.

Meetings: The CIRP will meet annually for two working weeks in Geneva, preferably in May/June, and convene additional meetings, as and when required. The UNCTAD Secretariat will provide substantive and logistical support to the CIRP by servicing these meetings.

Multi-stakeholder participation: Recognizing the need to involve all stakeholders in Global Internet Governance in their respective roles, the CIRP shall ensure the participation of all stakeholders recognized in the Tunis Agenda. Four Advisory Groups – one each for Civil Society, the Private Sector, Inter-Governmental and International Organisations, and the Technical and Academic Community - will be established, to assist and advise the CIRP. These Groups would be self-organized, as per agreed principles, to ensure transparency, representativity and inclusiveness. The Advisory Groups will meet annually in Geneva and in conjunction with any additional meetings of the CIRP. Their meetings will be held back-to- back with the meetings of the CIRP, so that they are able to provide their inputs and recommendations in a timely manner, to the CIRP.

Reporting: The CIRP will report directly to the UN General Assembly annually, on its meetings and present recommendations in the areas of policy and implementation for consideration, adoption and dissemination to all relevant inter-governmental bodies and international organizations. .

Research Wing: The Internet is a rapidly-evolving and dynamic medium that throws up urgent and rapidly-evolving challenges that need timely solutions. In order to deal effectively and prudently with these emerging issues in a timely manner, it would be vital to have a well-resourced Research Wing attached to the CIRP to provide ready and comprehensive background material, analysis and inputs to the CIRP, as required.

Links with the IGF: Recognizing the value of the Internet Governance Forum as an open, unique forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue on Internet issues, the deliberations in the IGF along with any inputs, background information and analysis it may provide, will be taken as inputs for consideration of the CIRP. An improved and strengthened IGF that can serve as a purposeful body for policy consultations and provide meaningful policy inputs to the CIRP, will ensure a stronger and more effective complementarity between the CIRP and the IGF.

Budget: Like other UN bodies, the CIRP should be supported by the regular budget of the United Nations. In addition, keeping in view its unique multi-stakeholder format for inclusive participation, and the need for a well-resourced Research Wing and regular meetings, a separate Fund should also be set up drawing from the domain registration fees collected by various bodies involved in the technical functioning of the Internet, especially in terms of names and addresses.

***

Excerpts from the Tunis Agenda

Paragraph 34 of the Tunis Agenda defines Internet Governance as “the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet”.

Paragraph 35 reaffirms the respective roles of stakeholders as follows: “(a) Policy authority for Internet-related public policy issues is the sovereign right of States. They have rights and responsibilities for international Internet-related public policy issues”. (b) The private sector has had, and should continue to have, an important role in the development of the Internet, both in the technical an economic fields. (c) Civil society has also played an important role on Internet matters, especially at community level, and should continue to play such a role. (d) Intergovernmental organizations have had, and should continue to have, a facilitating role in the coordination of Internet-related public policy issues. (e) International organizations have also had and should continue to have an important role in the development of Internet-related technical standards and relevant policies.”

While delineating the respective roles of stakeholders, Paragraph 56 recognizes the need for an inclusive, multi-stakeholder approach by affirming that “The Internet remains a highly dynamic medium and therefore any framework and mechanisms designed to deal with Internet governance should be inclusive and responsive to the exponential growth and fast evolution of the Internet as a common platform for the development of multiple applications”.

Paragraph 58 recognizes “that Internet governance includes more than Internet naming and addressing. It also includes other significant public policy issues such as, inter alia, critical Internet resources, the security and safety of the Internet, and developmental aspects and issues pertaining to the use of the Internet”.

Paragraph 59 further recognizes that “Internet governance includes social, economic and technical issues including affordability, reliability and quality of service”. Paragraph 60 further recognizes that “there are many cross-cutting international public policy issues that require attention and are not adequately addressed by the current mechanisms”.

Paragraph 61 of the Tunis Agenda therefore concludes that “We are convinced that there is a need to initiate, and reinforce, as appropriate, a transparent, democratic, and multilateral process, with the participation of governments, private sector, civil society and international organisations, in their respective roles. This process could envisage creation of a suitable framework or mechanisms, where justified, thus spurring the ongoing and active evolution of the current arrangements in order to synergize the efforts in this regard”.

Paragraph 69 further recognizes “the need for enhanced cooperation in the future, to enable governments, on an equal footing, to carry out their roles and responsibilities, in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, but not in the day-to-day technical and operational matters, that do not impact on international public policy issues”.

***

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/india-statement-un-cirp

Tweets with "IGF13"

pranesh — 2013-10-28T06:29:42Z

Tweets with "IGF13".

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/20131021T090102_igf13

First Look: CIS Cybersecurity documentary film

purba — 2013-12-17T08:16:42Z

CIS presents the trailer of its documentary film DesiSec: Cybersecurity & Civil Society in India

The Centre for Internet and Society is pleased to release the trailer of its first documentary film, on cybersecurity and civil society in India.

The documentary is part of the CIS Cybersecurity Series, a work in progress which may be found here.

DesiSec: Cybersecurity and Civil Society in India

The trailer of DesiSec: Cybersecurity and Civil Society in India was shown at the Internet Governance Forum in Bali on October 24. It was a featured presentation at the Citizen Lab workshop, Internet Governance For The Next Billion Users.

The transcript of the workshop is available here: http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/component/content/article/121-preparatory-process/1476-ws-344-internet-governance-for-the-next-billion-users

This work was carried out as part of the Cyber Stewards Network with aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-cybersecurity-series-film-trailer

Internet Governance Forum: Participate Remotely

praskrishna — 2011-09-27T05:09:56Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) invites you to attend the sixth annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as a remote participant from Bangalore. The IGF is being held in Nairobi from 27-30 September 2011. CIS has been registered as a remote IGF hub. This will allow many of us who are unable to attend the IGF in person. You can follow the discussion, watch the web cast of the event, follow real-time closed captioning and participate live (via text or video) that will be answered by panelists in the IGF.

The IGF is a multi-stakeholder forum that addresses public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance. The overall theme of the meeting will be ‘Internet as a Catalyst for Change: Access, Development, Freedoms and Innovation'. The various themes are as follows:

Internet Governance for Development
Emerging Issues
Managing Critical Internet Resources
Security, Openness and Privacy
Access and Diversity
Taking Stock and the Way Forward

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of the Centre for Internet and Society, will be participating in the following workshops:

Shyam Ponappa, Fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, will be presenting remotely for the following workshop:

Open Spectrum for Development in the Context of the Digital Migration

Nishant Shah, Director Research at Centre for Internet and Society, has organized the following workshop:

Use of Digital Technologies for Civic Engagement and Political Change: Lessons Learned and Way Forward

We are not limited to following specific workshops. Please follow the link for more information on workshops of your interest, program details and the schedule:

http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/schedule-a-programme-2011

Participation is free. However, we would be grateful if you could confirm your attendance by emailing Natasha Vaz “natasha@cis-india.org or Tom Dane at “tjdane@gmail.com”. We hope you will join us to watch the web cast and contribute your own insights on the various workshops.

Looking forward to welcoming you at the workshops!

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/igf-remote-participation

IETF103

Admin — 2018-12-14T02:05:18Z

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) organized the IETF103 in Bangkok from November 3 to November 9, 2018. Gurshabad Grover attended the event.

In the IETF hackathon, Gurshabad collaborated with Alp Toker (from NetBlocks.org) to develop a client-side website for testing DNS over HTTPS (DoH) servers. The tool can be used for decentralised testing of DoH servers for censorship and measurement. The tool can be found here. The slide deck we used to present can be found here.

In the meeting of the Human Rights Protocol Considerations (hrpc) research group, Niels ten Oever and Gurshabad presented a report from the hackathon. The video of the session is available on YouTube.

In the same meeting, it was decided that Gurshabad will be becoming a co-editor (with Niels ten Oever) on 'Guidelines for Human Rights Protocol Considerations' (draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines), which is an active Internet Draft detailing a methodology for conducting human rights reviews of protocols and networking standards.

In the meeting of Registration Protocols Extensions (regext) working group, a human rights review I submitted of the 'Verification Code Extension for the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)'(draft-ietf-regext-verificationcode) was discussed at length. The video of the session is available on YouTube.

Gurshabad participated in the meetings of several other working groups, including Software Updates for IoT Devices (SUIT), Transport Layer Security (tls), and Privacy Enhancements and Assessments Research Group (pearg).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ietf-103

The Social Role of the Communications and the Strengthening of the Freedom of Expression Panel - "Cultural Diversity and Freedom of Expression"

praskrishna — 2015-10-27T01:48:04Z

Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2015 will be held at Jao Pessoa in Brazil from November 10 to 13, 2015. The theme of IGF 2015 is Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development. The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Communications of Brazil is organizing a panel on Cultural Diversity and Freedom of Expression on November 9, 2015, from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m., in the Sala de Concerto Maestro Jose Siqueria, located in the city of Jao Pessoa, Brazil. Sunil Abraham will be a panelist.

The experience of Internet as a global network has generated paradoxes in relation to the nationally established values and those practiced by companies providers of applications. In general, the challenge lies in fundamental civil rights balance such as freedom of expression and the personality's rights.

Although the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions enables the countries to adopt national policies directed to the protection of their cultural diversity, terms of use and codes of conduct are globally uniform and establish common rules to users around the world, which may affect cultural diversity.

In order to address these issues the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Communications, Brazil are organizing this event at IGF 2015.

About IGF 2015

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-social-role-of-the-communications-and-the-strengthening-of-the-freedom-of-expression-panel-cultural-diversity-and-freedom-of-expression

Address delivered during the IGF Closing Ceremony

radha — 2011-08-02T07:18:36Z

This address was delivered by Dr. Anja Kovacs, as a representative of civil society, to the IGF during its closing ceremony.

Good evening, Mr Chairperson and all the distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for this opportunity to address this assembly on behalf of civil society, it is a real honour. And thank you also to the organisers and to the government of Egypt, for the wonderful arrangements and for creating such a excellent environment for us to work in.

I would like to use this opportunity to celebrate, together with you, two very important achievements in particular that we have made collectively during the four days of our intensive deliberations together.

The first one is the progress we are making in terms of recognising the importance of attention for human rights in ensuring a people-centred, development-oriented, non-discriminatory information society. Thus, for example, in the main session on security, openness and privacy, speakers across stakeholder groups couched the debate not any more in terms of security vs. privacy, but in terms of security and privacy. Security or other concerns, it was consistently argued, while obviously deserving our attention, should not be used to justify curtailing longstanding gains made in terms of human rights; rather, it is an improved implementation of already agreed on human rights instruments that we need to reach our goal of an inclusive, people-centred information society. The growing recognition of this fact is an evolution that civil society welcomes with open arms.

Another very hopeful evolution during this IGF was the central attention devoted to the question of where we stand in terms of promoting a people-centred, development-oriented information society more generally. The message that came out of the main session on “Internet governance in the light of the WSIS principles” clearly confirmed the urgent need to pay greater attention to this important issue, and several suggestions were made to address this concern. These include devoting devoting a main session solely to the topic of Internet governance for development in next next year's IGF, and I sincerely hope that these suggestions will be taken up.

While we thus have important reason to celebrate, challenges of course remain. Throughout the existence of the IGF, and perhaps increasingly so, the value of the multistakeholder model has been recognised and stressed by all stakeholder groups. However, at the same time, it has also been acknowledged that we need to continue to work to further strengthen participation from currently underrepresented countries and groups. I would like to note, however, that it is important that we do not restrict our efforts in this regard to capacity building, significant as that may be. Perhaps even more crucial is that the agenda of the IGF consistently talks to the concerns of actors in the developing parts of the world as well.

The reconfirmation of the importance of a development agenda that we have seen in this IGF is thus a very important step forward indeed. At the same time, within this larger development agenda, it is crucial that we also as soon as possible start to discuss some of the specific issues that require our attention on an urgent basis. For example, within the IGF as elsewhere, it is generally acknowledged that access to knowledge is central to development processes; yet the IGF so far has not paid systematic attention to the ways in which the amazing possibilities that the Internet offers in this regard are increasingly threatened by new policies that seem to make intellectual property regimes more stringent day by day. From a developing country perspective, finding a balanced solution that can address these concerns is an urgent priority. Starting the debate on how this can be achieved here, in the IGF, is certain to attract a larger number of developing country participants, including from governments.

Going by the experience of the past years as well as this particular meeting, I have no doubt that if given the opportunity, we will measure up to the challenges before us. Without wanting to preclude the Under-Secretary General's report, the proceedings during this IGF have made clear time and again its crucial significance in Internet governance processes. I hope with all my heart that we will continue to get the opportunity to work together on addressing these important issues and on resolving tensions and contradictions as they emerge, with the support of an independent secretariat that can ensure an environment genuinely inclusive of all stakeholders. Only when such open, inclusive conditions govern our own processes, may we in turn, together be able to create a genuinely inclusive information society which will indeed create opportunities for all.

Thank you.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/address-igf-closing-ceremony

Report on the Fourth Internet Governance Forum for Commonwealth IGF

pranesh — 2012-02-29T05:42:27Z

This report by Pranesh Prakash reflects on the question of how useful the IGF is in the light of meetings on the themes of intellectual property, freedom of speech and privacy.

The first Internet Governance Forum was held in Athens in 2006, as a follow on to the 2005 Tunis World Summit on the Information Society, and to fulfil the principles drawn up at there. Its explicit objective is to “promote and assess, on an ongoing basis the embodiment of WSIS principles in Internet governance processes”. Those principles still form the basis of the talks that happen at the IGF, and are frequently referred to by the various groups that attend the IGF as the basis for their positions and claims. Sometimes, some of the values promoted by the principles are claimed by opposing groups (child safety vs. freedom of expression). Thus, in a way the negotiation of those principles were what really set the tone for the IGF, which in and of itself is a process by which those principles could be furthered. The one question that formed part of people’s conversations through the fourth Internet Governance Forum (IGF) at Sharm el Sheik, as it had in third IGF at Hyderabad, and no doubt ever since the first edition, was “How
useful is the IGF?” This report shall reflect on that question, particularly based on the workshops and meetings that happened around the themes of intellectual property, freedom of speech, and privacy.

There are not many meetings of the nature of the IGF. It is not a governmental meeting, though it is sponsored by the United Nations. It is not a meeting of civil society groups, nor of academics nor industry. It is a bit like the Internet: large and unwieldy, allowing for participation of all while privileging those with certain advantages (rich, English-speaking), and a place where a variety of interests (government, civil society, academia and industry) clash, and where no one really has the final word. While the transformational potential of the Internet and the World Wide Web have been felt by a great many, the potential of the Internet Governance Forum is still to be felt. This report, in part, seeks to present an apology of the IGF process, though it is the belief of this reporter that it could do with a few modifications.

DAY 0 (Saturday, November 14, 2009)

This reporter arrived with his colleagues at Sharm el Sheik late in the afternoon on Saturday, November 14, 2009, with the IGF set to begin the next day. Though we had been advised to register that evening itself, the fatigue of travel (in the case of my colleagues) and the requirement of purchasing new clothes to replace those in the suitcase that had been lost (in my case) kept us from doing so.

DAY 0 (Sunday, November 15, 2009)

The IGF began on Sunday, November 15, 2009, with a large delay. The registration desks seemed to have a bit of difficulty handling the number of people who were pouring in for registration that morning. By the time this reporter was done with registration, the first set of workshops were already under way, and nearing completion, leaving not much time before the commencement of Workshop 361 (Open Standards: A Rights-Based Framework), which was being organized by this reporter.

That workshop had as speakers Sir Tim Berners-Lee (World Wide Web Consortium), Renu Budhiraja (Department of IT, Government of India), Steve Mutkoski (Microsoft), Rishab Ghosh (UNU-MERIT), and Sunil Abraham (Centre for Internet and Society), with Aslam Raffee (Sun Microsystems, formerly with the Government of South Africa) chairing the session thus representing government, industry, civil society, and academia. The theme of the workshop (rights-based framework for open standards) was explored in greatest depth by Tim Berners-Lee, Sunil Abraham, and Rishab Ghosh, while Renu Budhiraja and Steve Mutkoski decided to explore the fault-lines, and the practicalities of ensuring open standards (as well as the interoperability, e-governance, and other promises of open standards). Rishab Ghosh pointed out that while a government could not make it a requirement that your car be a Ford to be granted access to the parking lot of the municipality, it often made such arbitrary requirements when it came to software and electronic access to the government.

Open standards, most of the panellists agreed, had to be royalty-free, and built openly with free participation by anyone who wished to. This model, Sir Tim pointed out, was what made the World Wide Web the success that it is today. This would ensure that different software manufacturers could ensure interoperability which would encourage competition amongst them; that all governments -- even the less developed ones -- would have equal access to digital infrastructure; that citizen-government and intragovernment interaction would be made much more equitable and efficient; and that present-day electronic information would be future-proofed and safeguard against software obsolescence.

Renu Budhiraja in a very useful and practically-grounded presentation pointed out some of the difficulties that governments faced when deciding upon definitions of “open standards”, as well as the limited conditions under which governments may justify using proprietary standards. She spoke of the importance of governments not following the path laid out by market forces, but rather working to lead the market in the direction of openness. Governments, she reminded the audience, are amongst the foremost consumers of software and standards, and have to safeguard the interests of their citizens while making such decisions. Steve Mutkoski challenged the audience to not only think about the importance of open standards, but also think of the role it plays in ensuring efficient e-governance. Standards, he contended, are but one part of e-governance, and that often the reason that e-governance models fail are not because of standards but because of other organizational practices and policies. Pointing to academic studies, he showed that open standards by themselves were not sufficient to ensure

Sunil Abraham pointed out examples of citizens’ rights being affected by lack of open standards, and pointed out the concerns made public by ‘right to information’ activists in India on the need they perceived for open standards. He also pointed out an example from South Africa where citizens wishing to make full use of the Election Commission’s website were required to use a particular browser, since it was made with non-standard proprietary elements that only company’s browser could understand. Since that browser was not a cross-platform browser like Firefox, users also had to use a particular operating system to interact with the government. The session ended with a healthy interaction with the audience.

The importance of having this discussion at the IGF was underscored by Rishab Ghosh who noted that issues of defining and choosing technical standards are often left to technical experts, while they have ramifications much further than that field. That, he opined, is the reason that discussing open standards at a forum like the IGF is important. A more complete report of this workshop may be found at <http://cis-india.org/advocacy/openness/blog/dcos-workshop-09>.

Post the workshop was the opening ceremony which had Mr. Sha Zukang, U.N. Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, Tarek Kamel, the Egyptian Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Dr. Ahmed Nazif, the Prime Minister of Egypt, Tim Berners-Lee, and Jerry Yang. The theme of this year’s IGF was the rather unwieldy “access, diversity, openness, security, and critical Internet resources”. The spread of the Internet, as noted by Sha Zukang, is also quite revealing: In 2005, more than 50% of the people in developed regions were using the Internet, compared to 9% in developing regions, and only 1% in least developed countries. By the year 2009, the number of people connecting in developing countries had expanded by an impressive 475 million to 17.5%, and by 4 million in LDCs to 1.5%, while Internet penetration in developed regions increased to 64%. All in all (Jerry Yang pointed out), around 1.6 billion people, or about 25 per cent of the world, is online. Mr. Kamel noted that “the IGF has
proved only over four years that it is not just another isolated parallel process but it has rather managed to bring on board all the relevant stakeholders and key players”.

Of importance in many of the speeches were the accountability structures of the Internet due to the Affirmation of Commitment that the U.S. Department of Commerce signed with ICANN, and the growing internationalisation of the World Wide Web due to ICANN’s decision to allow for domain names in multiple languages. Tim Berners-Lee again pointed out the need to keep the Web universal, and in particular highlighted the role that royalty-free open standards play in building the foundations of the World Wide Web. Other than small remarks, privacy and freedom of expression did not really figure greatly in the opening ceremony. Jerry Yang, through his talk of the Global Net Initiative, was the one who most forcefully pointed out the need for both online. The Prime Minister of Egypt, in passing, pointed out the need to safeguard intellectual property rights online, but that note was (in a sense) countered by Sir Tim’s warning about the limiting effect of strong intellectual property would have on the very foundations of the World Wide Web and the Internet.

DAY 2 (Monday, November 16, 2009)

On the second day was begun by attending the Commonwealth IGF Open Forum. This open forum was most enlightening as in it one truly got to see Southern perspectives on display. Speakers (both on the dais as well as from the audience) were truly representative of the diversity of the Commonwealth, which presently includes 54 states and around 2.1 billion people (including 1.1 billion from India). Issues of concern included things such as the lack of voice of whole regions like East and West Africa in the international IG policy-making arena. Some of the participants noted that issues such as music piracy, which is a favourite topic of conversation in the West, is of no relevance to most in Africa where the pressing copyright- related issues those of education, translation rights, etc. One participant noted that “Intellectual property issues need developing countries to speak in one voice at international fora; the Commonwealth IGF might allow that.”

A number of people also brought up the issue of youth, and pointing towards children as both the present and the future of the Internet. This attitude also showed up in the session that was held later that day at Workshop 277 (IGF: Activating and Listening to the Voice of Tweens) in which not only were youth and IG issues discussed, but the discussion was also by youth. The formation of the new Dynamic Coalition on Youth and Internet Governance with Rafik Dammak as the coordinator also underlines the importance of this issue which came up at the CIGF open forum.

Other concerns were that of sharing ICT best practices and examples, and the need to urgently bridge the rural-urban divide that information and communication technologies often highlight, and sometimes end up precipitating. This divide is, in many ways, similar to the divide between developing and developed nations, and this point was also highlighted by many of the participants. One strength that the CIGF has as a platform, which the IGF possibly lacks, is the commonality of the legal systems of most of the Commonwealth countries, and hence the possibility that arises of joint policy-making. It was heartening to see that British Parliamentarians, apart from bureaucrats from many countries, were in attendance. This strong focus on developing countries and Southern perspective is, this reporter believes, one of the strengths of the CIGF, which needs to be pushed into the global IGF.

The next workshop attended was Workshop 92: A Legal Survey of Internet Censorship and Filtering, which was organized by UNESCO. A large number of very interesting people presented here, and panellists included IFLA/Bibliotheca Alexandrina (whose Sohair Washtawi was surprisingly critical of the Egyptian government), UNESCO (Mogens Schmidt), Freedom House (Robert Guerra), and Frank La Rue, U.N. Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression. What came of this workshop was the need to engage with to study the online state of freedom of expression as fully as “offline” state of press freedoms are studied, as an interesting fact that came out of this workshop was that there are currently more online journalists behind bars around the world than traditional journalists. A critique of the Freedom House’s online freedom report, which was not sufficiently voiced at the workshop itself, is that it represents a very Western, state-centric idea of freedom of speech and expression, and often looks at the more direct forms of censorship (state censorship) rather than private censorship (via advertising revenue, copyright law, and “manufactured consent”) and self-censorship. This reporter also intervened from the audience to point out that copyright is often a way of curbing freedom of speech (as was the case with the newspaper scholarly reprints of Nazi-era newspapers in Germany recently, or with the Church of Scientology wishing
to silence its critics). The panellists, including Mogens Schmidt and Frank La Rue agreed, and responded by noting that this dimension of copyright requires greater reflection by those groups involved in promoting and safeguarding freedom of speech and expression both online and offline.

The time before the meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards was spent listening to Bruce Schneier, Marc Rotenberg, Frank La Rue, Namita Malhotra, and others at the Openness, Security and Privacy Session. Bruce Schneier, one of the most astute and insightful thinkers on issues of security and privacy, focussed on a topic that anyone who reads his blog/newsletters would be familiar with: that openness, security and privacy are not really, contrary to popular perception, values that are inimical to each other. Mr. Schneier instead sees them as values that complement each other, and argued that one cannot ensure security by invading privacy of citizens and users. He noted that “privacy, security, liberty, these aren’t salient. And usually whenever you have these sort of non-salient features, the way you get them in society is through legislation.” On the same note, he held the view that privacy should not be a saleable commodity, but an inalienable fundamental right of all human beings (a position that Frank La Rue agreed with).

Apart from the traditional focus area of states, there was also a lot of focus on corporations and their accountability to their users. On the issue of corporations versus states, Frank La Rue made it clear that he believed the model that some corporations were advocating of first introducing technologies into particular markets, expanding, and then using that to push for human rights, was not a viable model. Human rights, he reiterated, were not alienable, and stated: “You [internet companies] strengthen democracy and democratic principles and then you bring up the technology. Otherwise, it will never work, and it is a self defeating point.”

The meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards was next. This meeting served as a ground to build a formal declaration from Sharm el Sheik for DCOS. The meeting was held in the room Luxor, the seating in which was rectangular, promoting a vibrant discussion rather than making some people “presenters” and the rest “audience”. Many of the members of the Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability were in attendance, seeing common purpose with the work carried out by DCOS. There was spirited discussion on how best to move from a formulation of open standards as “principles” to more citizen- centric “rights”. This shift, pointed out as an important one because they allow for claims to be made in a way that principles and concessions do not. One of the participants helped re-draft the entire statement, based on suggestions that came from him and the rest of the participants. This was, in a sense, the IGF’s multi-stakeholderism (to coin a phrase) at its best.

Because of the late ending to the DCOS meeting, this reporter arrived late for the Commonwealth IGF follow-up meeting. It seemed that the meeting took its time in finding its raison d’être. It was, for a long while, unclear what direction the meeting was headed in because the suggestions from the audience members were of different types: programmatic actionable items, general thematic focus area suggestions, as well as general wishlists. However, in the end, this came together and became productive thanks to the focus that the chairperson and the rapporteur brought to the discussion. Furthermore, it was a great opportunity to connect with the various young people who had been brought together from various backgrounds to attend the IGF by the CIGF travel bursary. It will be interesting to see the shape that CIGF’s future work takes.

Day 3 (Tuesday, November 17, 2009)

The first session attended on the third day was the meeting on “Balancing the Need of Security with the Concerns for Civil Liberties”. The speakers included Alejandro Pisanty (Workshop Chair), Wolfgang Benedek, Steve Purser, Simon Davies, and Bruce Schneier. Once again, the one point that everyone agreed on is that those pitting security against privacy are creating a false dichotomy, and that for security to exist, privacy must be safeguarded. Steve Purser pointed out that common sense takes a long while to develop and that we, as a human collective, have not yet developed “electronic common sense”. Simon Davies’ main point was that accountability must necessarily be appended to all breaches of privacy in the name of security. Indeed, he lamented that oftentimes the situation is such that people have to justify their invocation of privacy, though the state’s invocation of security to trample privacy does not require any such justification. Security, he pointed out, is not something that is justified by the government, judged by the people, and to which the government is held accountable for its breaches of civil liberties.

Bruce Schneier, as usual, was quite brunt about things. He noted that only identity-based security have anything to do with privacy, and that there are a great many ways of ensuring security (metal detectors in a building, locks in a hotel room) that do not affect privacy. At the meeting, this reporter made a comment noting that a lot of debate is happening at a theoretical level, and that while a lot of good ideas are coming out of that discussion, those ideas have to be translated into good systems of governance in countries like India. Some organizations internationally are trying to make human readable privacy signs such as the human readable copyright licences used by Creative Commons. Concerning citizens’ privacy, a lot of systems (such as key escrow) that have been discredited by knowledgeable people (such as Bruce Schneier) are still being considered or adopted by many countries such as India (where this blew up because of a perceived security threat due to RIM BlackBerry’s encryption). National ID schemes are also being considered in many countries, without their privacy implications being explored. In the name of combatting terrorism, unregistered open wireless networks are being made illegal in India. While there have been informed debates on these issues at places like the IGF, these debates need to find actual recognition in the governance systems. That translation is very important.

The next session this reporter attended was the meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Freedom of Expression of the Media on the Internet. Amongst the other items of discussion during the session, the site Global Voices Online was showcased, and many of the speakers gave their opinions on whether freedom of speech online required a new formulation of the rights, or just new applications of existing rights. The consensus seemed to be that tying up with the Internet Rights and Principles DC would be useful, but that the project need not be one of reformulation of existing rights, since the existing formulations (as found in a variety of international treaties, including the UDHR) were sufficient. One of the participants stressed though that it was important to extend freedom of press guarantees to online journalists (in matters such as defamation, or copyright violation, where news organizations might be granted protection over and above that which an ordinary citizen would receive). Citizen-led initiatives for circumventing censorship were also discussed.

Two very important points were raised during the Openness main session on Day 2 when someone noted that the freedom of expression was not only an individual right but it also a collective right: the right of peoples to express not only ideas but to express their cultures, their traditions, their language and to reproduce those cultures and languages and traditions without any limitation or censorship. This aspect of the freedom of expression finds much resonance in many Southern countries where collective and cultural rights are regarded as being as important as individual and civil-political rights. Secondly, Frank La Rue pointed out that freedom of speech and expression went beyond just giving out information and opinion: it extended to the right to receive information and opinion. Excessively harsh copyright regimes harm this delicate balance, and impinge on the free speech.

One of the issues that was not explored sufficiently was that of the changes wrought by the Internet on the issues raised by the participants. For instance, while there was much talk about defamation laws in many countries and their grave faults (criminal penalties, defamation of ideas and not just persons), there was no talk of issues such as forum-shopping that arises due to online defamation being viewable around the world with equal ease. Thankfully, the coordinators of the Dynamic Coalition urged people to register on the DC’s Ning site (http://dcexpression.ning.com) and keep the conversation alive there and on the DC’s mailing list.

The session held on Research on Access to Knowledge and Development, organized by the A2K Global Academy was most informative. It brought together many recent surveys of copyright law systems from around the world and their provisions for access to knowledge, including the Africa Copyright and Access to Knowledge project with which this reporter is very familiar. The three main focus areas of discussion were Access to Education (A2E), Open Source Software (OSS) and Access to Medicines (A2M). The best presentation of the day was that made by Carlos Affonso of FGV (Brazil) who made an impassioned case for access to knowledge in the developing world, showcasing many practical examples from Brazil. He noted that many of the examples he was showing were plainly illegal under Brazilian laws, which had very limiting limitations and exceptions. He showcased the usage of Creative Commons licensing, Technobrega music, usage of common ICT infrastructure (such as cybercafes), which are often only semi-legal, and the general acceptance of commons-based peer production. The conclusion of the Egyptian study was that more work is needed to expand access to educational materials, including expansion of the limitations and
exceptions to copyright law for educational purposes. The overall consensus of all the various studies was that open source software was playing a very useful and crucial role in promotion of access to knowledge, but pointed out that the main barrier that open source software was facing was that of anti-competitive practices and not something related to copyright law.

Day 4 (Wednesday, November 18, 2009)

On the last day, this reporter was a presenter in a workshop on the “Global State of Copyright and Access to Knowledge”. This session had the following panellists: Tobias Schonwetter, Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town; Bassem Awad, Chief Judge at the Egyptian Ministry of Justice and IP Expert; Perihan Abou Zeid, Faculty of Legal Studies and International Relations, Pharos University; Pranesh Prakash, Programme Manager, Centre for Internet and Society; Jeremy Malcolm, Project Coordinator, Consumers International; and Lea Shaver, Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School.

This workshop was the result of the merger of workshops proposed by the African Copyright and Access to Knowledge project, and by Consumers International (to showcase their IP Watch List). Lea Shaver noted that the purpose of copyright law is to encourage creativity and the diffusion of creative works, and not as an industrial subsidy. If copyright law gets in the way of creativity and access to knowledge, then it is in fact going against its purpose. She asserted that copyright law should be assessed by touchstones of access, affordability and participation. “Copyright shapes affordability and access because as the scope of rights expands, the more control is centralised and the less competition. It also shapes participation, because under current law the amateur who wants to build upon existing works is at a disadvantage, and risks running afoul of others’ rights.” Rent-seeking behaviour is what is driving the expansion that we see globally in the coverage of copyright law, and not the costs of production and distribution (which are ever becoming cheaper).

Dr. Abou Zeid noted that technology grants copyright holders (and even non-holders) great control over knowledge, and that strong safeguards are required against this control in the form of limitations to technological protection methods (TPMs). Further, copyright law must take advantage of the benefits offered by technology, such as distance education, granting access to the disabled, and must extend present day E&L to cover these as well. Tobias Schonwetter presented the findings of the ACA2K project, and noted that most countries granted greater protection to rights holders than international law required. Amongst the survey countries, none dealt with distance and e-learning, and only one (Uganda) dealt with the needs of the disabled. He hoped that the extended dissemination phase would assist other projects to build on ACA2K’s work. Thus, “legal systems worldwide are not meeting consumers’ needs for access to knowledge. A better legal system, the research suggests, would support non-commercial sharing and reuse of material, which in turn would drive down costs and increase sales of licensed material, and could also increase consumers’ respect for the law overall.”

The present reporter started by asking why this abstract phrase “access to knowledge” is so important. A2K actually effects almost all areas of concern to citizens and consumers: education, industry, food security, health, amongst many more areas. Mark Getty notes that “IP is the oil of the 21st century”. By creating barriers through IP, there is less scope for expansion and utilization of knowledge, and this most affect “IP poor” nations of the South. In India, there is a new copyright amendment that will introduce DRMs, even though India is not bound by international law to do so. There is also a very worrisome movement to pass state-level criminal statutes that class video pirates in the same category as “slum lords, drug peddlers and goonda”, which includes measures for preventative detention without warrant.

One tool to help change the mindsets of the public is the Consumers International IP Watch List, which can help policy makers and academics and advocates compare the best and worst practices of various countries. At an earlier session, Carlos Affonso of FGV had used the Watch List to demonstrate the weakness of Brazil’s copyright law on the educational front. Copyright is often characterised as a striking of balance between the interests of creators and consumers, but this rhetoric might be misplaced. In fact creators often benefit from freer sharing by users. Knowledge is an input into creation of works, not just an output from it. Given this, it is important to counter IP expansionism by using laws promoting freedom of speech, competition law, consumer law, privacy law, while framing them within the context of development (as appropriate in various countries), to eventually produce a change in mindsets of people.

Stock-Taking

As Jeremy Malcolm of Consumers International notes in his response to the formal stock-taking process, “the IGF is yet to develop from a simple discussion forum into a body that helps to develop public policy in tangible ways.” This reporter, writing for the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards, also voted for the continuation of the IGF, “in order to ensure that the WSIS Declaration of Principles, specifically in the important area of open standards, be realised through a multi-stakeholder process.” The IGF is, in a sense, the least bureaucratic of the UN’s endeavours. But certain rules, evolved in inter-governmental settings, might require careful reconsiderations to suit the multi-stakeholder approach that the IGF embodies. The IGF also needs to reach out from being a conference for a few to becoming a place/process for the many.

General Reflections

While this year there were more remote participation hubs (13) than last (11), and the Remote Participation Working Group seems to have done much work and some serious reflection on that work, individual experiences sometimes did not match up with what was perceived as the collective experience (via RPWG’s feedback survey). As a workshop organizer, this reporter was not provided any information about the remote participation tools, nor was there any screening of remote participants’ comments. With the shift from a single (open-source) product DimDim, to two products, WebEx (sponsored by Cisco) and Elluminate, much confusion was created even amongst those in the know since there were two separate tools being used. It is this reporter’s perception that live captioning from the main sessions has been a great success, and will have to be used much more extensively, especially if places where the bandwidth to download streaming video does not exist. Further, they help create very useful quasi-official records of the various workshops and open fora that are held at the IGF. That apart, the suggestions offered by the
RPWG (live video feedback from the remote hubs, dedicated remote participation chair in each workshop,
etc.) should be worked upon this year to enable those who cannot travel to Vilnius to participate more effectively.

All the sessions that happened around intellectual property rights were highly critical of the present state of IP laws around the world, and were calling for a reversal of the IP expansionism we see from various perspectives (access to knowledge, competition law, etc.) However, it was often felt by this reporter that these workshops were cases of the choir being preached to. Of course, many new people were being introduced to these ideas, but generally there was appreciation but not as much opposition as one is used to hearing outside the IGF. An exception (in the IP arena) was the workshop on open standards, in which there was much heat as well as illumination. Perhaps, a greater effort could be made to engage with people who are critical of the Access to Knowledge movement, those who are critical of privacy being regarded as a fundamental right, and those who believe that cultural relativism (for instance) must find a central place while talking about the right to free speech. After all, when one leaves the IGF, these voices
are heard. Those voices must be engaged with at the IGF itself, and a way forward (in terms of concrete policy recommendations, whether at the local level or the international level) must be found. Of course, the problem with the above suggestion is that many of these values are embedded in the WSIS principles, and are taken as a granted. But, still, if such debate is not had at the IGF, it might become something much worse than a ‘talking shop’: a forum where not much meaningful talk happens.

Appendix I: Tweets and Dents During the IGF

This is list of some posts made by the reporter on the microblogging sites Twitter
(http://twitter.com/pranesh_prakash) and Identi.ca (http://identi.ca/pranesh) during the IGF.
# @leashaver: Recording of yesterday’s session by the Access to Knowledge ♺ Global Academy:
http://trunc.it/3dldl #a2kga #IGF09 #yaleisp 8:55 PM Nov 18th, 2009
# “Great possibilities of #foss, but a disabling, anti-competitive environment has stunted growth of
open source software in #Egypt.” #igf09 6:47 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# Excellent set of resources on Access to Knowledge, from @YaleISP: http://tr.im/F8At #igf09 6:37 PM
Nov 17th, 2009
# “Tecno brega in Brazil can only be bought from street vendors: good relationship between artists
and street vendors.” #igf09 6:30 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# “There is not even a private copying exception in Brazil”, but is still part of “axis of IP evil” for
rightsholders #igf09 6:26 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# Tobias: “Even though s/w patents are not allowed by SA law, some large MNC s/w comps found
ways of bypassing that & getting patents” #igf09 6:19 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# Case studies from SA: CommonSense project, Freedom to Innovate SA, OOXML v. ODF struggle #igf09
6:18 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# 2 new studies on #a2k from Brazil (http://tr.im/F8tI)and SA (http://tr.im/F8uJ). Also see ACA2K’s
outputs: http://tr.im/F8uQ #igf09 6:13 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# ♺ @sunil_abraham: RT @mathieuweill: #igf09 Dardailler : Internet standards are open standards
and that makes a difference! 3:57 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# Oops. Wrong URL. It should be: http://threatened.globalvoicesonline.org/ #igf09 3:46 PM Nov 17th,
2009
# Mogens Schmidt of UNESCO praises Global Voices Online. Says defamation & libel laws should not
be *criminal* offences. #igf09 3:40 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# http://threatened.globalvoices.org/ helps report on FoE issues with bloggers through crowdsourcing.
#igf09 3:24 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# “Along with the right to give out information and opinion is the right to receive information and
opinion”: Frank La Reu #a2k #igf09 3:13 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# Schneier: “Before we die, we will have a US President who’ll send a lolcat to the Russian PM” #igf09
2:06 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# Privacy vs. security is a false dichotomy. But any privacy that is taken away in name of security
must be turned into accountability. #igf09 1:50 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# All wireless networks now have to be registered in India, and we talk of privacy? @schneier #igf09
1:47 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# RT @rmack Free Expression Online dynamic coalition meeting at 11:30am Egypt time in Siwa Room.
http://dcexpression.ning.com #igf09 1:36 PM Nov 17th, 2009
# @OWD: E Daniel, (http://bit.ly/3oFYqu), takes on the myth of the Digital Native, ♺ reveals the shallowness
of their native knowledge. #igf09 12:05 AM Nov 17th, 2009
# Commonwealth IGF’s follow-up meeting took time to find out its raison d’etre, but ended on a productive
note. #igf09 11:34 PM Nov 16th, 2009
# #schneierfact : Bruce Schneier actually exists! I can see him! 6:53 PM Nov 16th, 2009
# @timdavies: You might then be interested at a report by @cis_india on a different take at DNs:
http://tr.im/F3tk 3:29 PM Nov 16th, 2009 from Gwibber in reply to timdavies
# Estonia & Georgia DDoS are famous, but individual NGOs are also being targetted by DoSes. #igf09
3:08 PM Nov 16th, 2009
# Now more online journalists are behind bars than offline ones. #freespeech #igf09 3:07 PM Nov 16th,
2009
# ♺ @aslam: if you get an email from nigeria people will block it because they think that it is spam -
reputation #fail #igf09 2:14 PM Nov 16th, 2009
# Many are saying: listen to children; document and share best ICT practices and examples; bridge
rural-urban divide as also devel’d-devel’g. 1:57 PM Nov 16th, 2009
# Several British Parliamentarians in the room at the Commonwealth IGF event #igf09 1:56 PM Nov
16th, 2009
# CIGF should look at gaps at IGF and speak to them. Our common legal systems allow for focus on legislations
(ie, on data protection) #igf09 1:36 PM Nov 16th, 2009
# “We need to get to a point where access to the Internet is seen as a human right” #igf09 1:27 PM
Nov 16th, 2009
# “Intellectual property issues need developing countries to speak in one voice at intl fora. Commonwealth
IGF might allow that.” #igf09 1:24 PM Nov 16th, 2009
# “Music aspects of the Internet debates, which gets so much focus, doesn’t have as much relevance
in W. Africa as education & health.” #igf09 1:21 PM Nov 16th, 2009
# Commonwealth covers more than 2 billion people. Some whole regions, like E. & W. Africa “have no
voice in Geneva & global IGF” #igf09 1:18 PM Nov 16th, 2009

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/report-on-fourth-IGF

Best Bits 2012

praskrishna — 2012-12-06T06:46:17Z

Best Bits organized a workshop at the IGF. It was held on November 3 and 4, 2012. Pranesh Prakash and Elonnai Hickok participated in the event.

Agenda

Day 1, Saturday, November 3, 2012

9.00 - 10.45	Internet governance history and review Mapping Internet governance – institutions and actors Last 20 years of Internet governance: ITU, ISOC, WSIS and IGF Last 2 years – ACTA, SOPA/PIPA and online activism eg. StopTheMeter.ca, government assertions of sovereignty over IG Southern perspectives on global Internet governance
11.00 - 12.45	The ITU and the International Telecommunications Regulations What are the real dangers of the proposed ITR revisions? Remaining opportunities for input into the WCIT process How to engage with your national delegation to the ITU Beyond WCIT – WTPF, WTSA, IMPACT, and the Dedicated Group
12.45 - 14.00	Lunch and networking break
12.00 - 17.30	Drafting a civil society statement to WCIT Draws together points of consensus Defines the legitimate role of the ITU Judges it against the WSIS criteria Refers to statement on IG principles

Day 2, Sunday, November 4, 2012

9.00 - 10.30	Declarations of Internet rights and Internet governance principles Background to Internet principles declarations 1999 to 2012 Declaration of Internet Freedom – first and second iterations Other current initiatives – “rival” Declaration, Marco Civil, etc. Respective advantages of consolidation and maintaining diversity
10.45 - 12.15	Process towards enhanced cooperation on Internet public policy issues If not the ITU, then what? The global vacuum on Internet-related public policy issues Likely scenarios (favourable or not) if the vacuum is not filled Discussion of reform proposals – Committee on Internet Related Policies, Enhanced Cooperation Task Force
12.15 - 13.00	Lunch and networking break
13.00 - 16.00	Drafting civil society IG principles for the IGF Development of existing statements Reinforces multi-stakeholder approach Suggests roadmap for improved implementation of enhanced cooperation
16.15 - 17.45	Next steps Making an inclusive civil society network on IG issues sustainable Other existing civil society+ networks – Internet Defence League, Internet Governance Caucus, Global Network Initiative, CSISAC, OpenMedia network, Internet Progress Administration Recap of upcoming events and campaigns for possible joint action

Participants

Alejandro Pisanty
Andrew Puddephatt
Anja Kovacs
Anna Orlova
Anriette Esterhuysen
Antonio Medina Gomez
Arthit Suriyawongkul
Ashnah Kalemera
Avri Doria
bdelachapelle
Brett Solomon
Carlos Alberto Afonso
Claudio Ruiz
Deborah Brown
Dixie Hawtin
Donny B U
Elonnai Hickok
Emma Llanso
Fouad Bajwa
Gene Kimmelman
Iarla Flynn
Imran Ahmed Shah
Jeremy Malcolm
Joana Varon Ferraz
Jochai Ben-Avie
Joonas Mikael Mäkinen
Joy Liddicoat
Katitza Rodriguez
Kevin Bankston
LAURA ABBA
matthew shears
Mawaki Chango
Michael Gurstein
Nnenna Nwakanla
Norbert Bollow
Parminder Jeet Singh
Pranesh Prakash
Premila Kumar
Raquel Gatto
Rashmi Rangnath
Sanja_Kelly
Shahzad Ahmad
Shita Laksmi
STEFANO TRUMPY
Stephanie Borg Psaila
Sylwia Rudnik
Tapani Tarvainen
Theresa Züger
Valeria Betancourt
William Drake
Wolfgang Kleinwächter

Attending Remotely

AHM Bazlur Rahman
Alex Comninos
Baudouin SCHOMBE
chaitanyabd
cveraq
De
encels
Fatima Cambronero
ganda
Hanane
Hindenburgo Francisco Pires
Jorge Gonzalez
Julian Casasbuenas G.
Lorna Tingu Makuma
Narine Khachatryan
natienciso
Pitshou Bulembi Ndongala
richaraix
rohanjay
Siranush Vardanyan
Sonigitu Asibong Ekpe
Susan Coughtrie
thierrys
vinsolo
Virginia Paque

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/best-bits