Session
Organizer 1: Laura Schwartz-Henderson, Internews
Speaker 1: Joana Varon, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 2: Eliana Quiroz, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 3: 'Gbenga Sesan, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 4: Laura Schwartz-Henderson, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Laura Schwartz-Henderson, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Joana Varon, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Eliana Quiroz, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Break-out Group Discussions - Flexible Seating - 60 Min
Digital policy and human rights frameworks: What is the relationship between digital policy and development and the established international frameworks for civil and political rights as set out in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and further interpretation of these in the online context provided by various resolutions of the Human Rights Council? How do policy makers and other stakeholders effectively connect these global instruments and interpretations to national contexts? What is the role of different local, national, regional and international stakeholders in achieving digital inclusion that meets the requirements of users in all communities?
Promoting equitable development and preventing harm: How can we make use of digital technologies to promote more equitable and peaceful societies that are inclusive, resilient and sustainable? How can we make sure that digital technologies are not developed and used for harmful purposes? What values and norms should guide the development and use of technologies to enable this?
In the absence of strong, proactive data protection policies, Internet users around the world remain vulnerable to intentional attacks on their privacy and inadvertent breaches that put them at risk- Yet most countries still lack adequate legal frameworks for protecting user data, and even when data protection laws do exist implementation and enforcement of these policies remain a major challenge. While the EU’s adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has galvanized governments around the world to consider new approaches to data protection, there is a need to enable collaboration and information sharing for new data protection models, advocacy approaches, debates, and best practices emerging from the Global South.
Over the past year, three organizations in Africa and three organizations in Latin America have been working together as a consortium to build best practices around data protection policy development and policy advocacy focused on rights-respecting data protection regimes and issues specific to the Global South. During this session, panelists from these organizations will describe the challenges they faced in the legislative process, implementation, and enforcement of data protection policies as well as the best practices developed specifically for other organizations working in similar contexts. We will direct attendees to the collection of data protection advocacy resources and encourage participation in the 'Privacy is Global' consortium to collect case studies, build best practices, and encourage others to participate in the regulatory network.
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
10. Reduced Inequalities
16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
17. Partnerships for the Goals
Targets: Better and more robust data protection policies lead to improvements in digital innovation, equalities in digital production and consumption as well as access, better and more responsive political institutions. This program has also develop clear methodologies ot build robust information sharing and partnerships on governance and policy issues across borders.
Description:
In the absence of strong, proactive data protection policies, Internet users around the world remain vulnerable to intentional attacks on their privacy and inadvertent breaches that put them at risk- Yet most countries still lack adequate legal frameworks for protecting user data, and when data protection laws do exist implementation and enforcement of these policies remain a major challenge. While the EU’s adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has galvanized governments around the world to consider new approaches to data protection, there is a need to enable collaboration and information sharing for new data protection models, advocacy approaches, debates, and best practices emerging from the Global South.
This session seeks to bring together advocates from six countries working on building awareness and support for more robust rights-respecting data protection regimes. Some of these countries, such as Nigeria and Bolivia are pushing to pass draft legislation, while others such as Brazil, Ecuador Kenya have passed data protection laws and are working to ensure these laws are properly implemented and enforced and promote human rights.
This panel will seek to bring in these various perspectives to discuss the potential for more unified and collaborative cross-border approaches to privacy advocacy and to promote the Privacy is Global data protection toolkit resources and network.
As these issues are global but are legislated within specific jurisdictions, there is a need to create a unified framework as well as strategic resources to provide support to privacy activists working in countries across the world with diverse political contexts, varying levels of public engagement, and with different capacities and experiences.
Beyond the 6 countries featured, we seek to build a broader network of privacy activists to better collaborate across borders to build more protective frameworks for internet users globally. We want to use the panel not only to present information about what is happening in each country but also to solicit information about what activists are working on in other countries, the challenges they face, successes they have achieved, and the ways in which a global support and exchange network could be useful.
There are ample opportunities for representatives from different countries working on data protection to share their experiences, learn from the challenges they face with regard to enforcement and regulatory capacity, and build more robust legislative efforts in countries passing or updating their data protection laws. We seek to engage in discussion as a wider group on these broader challenges, and then split the group into sub-groups focused on passing legislation and improving enforcement- these groups will share experiences and build a collective list of challenges and best pracitces. We have run similar sessions in online formats and have codified the process, but we will also have representatives on-site faciliating live discussion.
Usage of IGF Official Tool. Additional Tools proposed: We have run similar sessions through Big Blue Button, an open source software that runs well for low-bandwidth contexts. We would seek to use this platform to ensure participation from many places where bandwidth is constrained.