IGF 2019 Reports

Many indicated that government support in the form of economic incentives plays a big role in making the Internet accessible. Some suggested that the multi-stakeholder approach is important in achieving success collectively, while others pointed out to the drawbacks of the old models which place too much attention on distinctive roles of different stakeholders. Several voices mentioned the role of educational institutions as both providers and end-users of internet infrastructures. Mostly discussion was focused around the technical aspect of the access, however, some emphasized the importance of the human element and capacity building which will ensure equal access.

Among key points raised:

• Access to the internet needs to be a universally exercisable right and not only a privilege of the urban population. Today, access is a necessity which enables people to exercise their rights of citizens. Access is the most important enabler of all the other aspects related to the Internet.
• Providing internet in rural areas costs a lot for private companies resulting in high prices for internet and raising affordability issue. Effective economic policies by governments and advanced pricing models can solve the issue. The return on these investments should be measured in terms of social benefits rather than economic gains.
• The issue of access can be resolved only through collaboration and cooperation of different members of society. However, the old models of distinct division into different stakeholder groups are already outdated. Synergies are very important to share the lessons learned on previous experiences and solutions that worked.

The discussion is divided into two sections. The first round of discussion mainly focused on explaining the significance and overall situation about dealing with cyberbullying on Children. In this part all of the speakers have a consensus that online children protection is very important and urgent. To start with, rapporteur from CFIS delivered the report of the survey on the situation of cyberbullying on children in China. This report shows that although the percentage of children who once experienced cyberbullying is only around 7 or 8, the actual number of these children is still very large. Representative from UNICEF, Steven Vosloo introduced the basic definition and framework of cyberbullying and digital literacy. He mentioned that Digital literacy refers to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that allow children to flourish and thrive in an increasingly global digital world, being both safe and empowered, in ways that are appropriate to their age and local cultures and contexts. Steven Vosloo suggested to take holistic strategy to deal with cyberbullying on children and other online risks. Chairwoman from Digital Opportunity Foundation, Jutta Croll stressed that people should realize the severity of cyberbullying, and the core of children online protection is to value the equal right for children to use Internet. Many of the audiences show their agreement to her point. The second round of discussion mainly focused on the responsibility for different stakeholders. In this part, representative from Tencent introduced their practice in children online protection and digital literacy education. Many support what Tencent have done, but a few worried about children’s privilege of online privacy and proposed questions about the usage of children's digital data. Tencent answered that children’s data will be used when and only when criminals happened on children.

The discussion dealt with untangling some of the conceptual issues related to cybersecurity and privacy, and how to carry out this exercise, when promoting domestic policy.

There was broad support for the utility of the discussion, and additional relevant examples were brought up.

Long post-session report phase            

The discussion aimed to highlight the role of domestic legislation and legal rules in order to support cyber defenders. The conclusion was that the EU General Data Protection Regulation serves as an important example in that it clarifies in Recital 49 that information processing and sharing for a cybersecurity purpose is legitimate. Thus it recognizes that cybersecurity protects privacy by preventing attackers illegally accessing  personal data. This specific rule has value because it reduces the level of legal risk to cyber defenders, and reduces some of the complexities that inevitably accompany modern data protection regimes. Thus this policy serves to promote defense.

By abstracting from the concrete issue to a more general view of law, technology and policy of this specific issue, the session also highlighted the value of pragmatic dialogues and concrete solutions between technologists and lawyers. Promoting these conversations has value both for domestic policy making, and can also assist promoting better global interoperability of legal frameworks.

The panel discussed the increasing issue of disinformation and manipulation online, with agreement that hostile actor tactics are regularly evolving and that, to counter this, diverse partnerships with representatives from a range of sectors is needed. There was significant discussion on efforts by platforms, particularly by Facebook, with recognition that while the platforms had taken significant steps more could be done. The increasing number of companies selling manipulation services online was raised, with some debate on the need to regulate such companies. Participants agreed that it was critical that the impact on human rights was closely considered before action is taken.

There was broad support among panelists for increased efforts to ensure that the internet remains one, interoperable global network. All speakers opposed so-called "network sovereignty" advocated by some governments which give them total control over information and data flows within their geographic jurisdiction. This policy position was deemed to be in diametric opposition to the type of multi-stakeholder internet governance endorsed by IGF processes. Some speakers noted the impact internet fragmentation would have an human rights, such as freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, while others noted the detrimental economic impact of limiting information flows. Audience members espoused concern not only about government control of the internet, but also the growing dominance of US-based tech platforms. Panelists agreed that this is a parallel concern, and should also be addressed by an increased emphasis on truly multi-stakeholder governance.

The panelists all agreed that IPv6 is an important tool to digital inclusion, putting in evidence questions like scarcity - and the near exhaustion - of addresses, the damage on latency by CGNAT and the broke of the end-to-end connectivity. Other important point raised by the table was the increase of the costs on maintaining side infrastructure to keep IPv4 infrastructure, like the higher prices of addresses in side markets or CGNAT servers. The last point was contested by one of the spectator, who told that if this is true, the market was already moving completely for IPv6.

Another important point of the discussion was the reasons to the low rates on IPv6 usage in AFRINIC region, that - as said by Mr. Tamon - is because of the socioeconomic context of the region. Prioritization of other activities and recycle of old networking devices or long term usage of end-user devices makes it harder.

The session was an interactive design thinking workshop in which the roughly 50 participants split into five groups and worked through a design process for identifying governance topics important to members of the DC community, then brainstorm potential steps the DC on blockchain technologies could take to help resolve or improve those governance areas, then evaluate those brainstormed ideas according to a set of specific criteria designed to maximize potential completion of outputs by IGF 2020 and to maximize the usefulness of the output for both the DC on blockchain technologies and for the broader IGF community. The groups discussed data protection, education and capacity building, creating a multistakeholder framework and principles to guide government adoption of blockchain technologies, a blockchain domain name system, and how to best explore the role of blockchain technologies for the broader goals of Internet governance. 

Anja Kovacs was the main speaker on the panel and presented research on complicating the relationship on datafication of bodies. The four other speakers acted as discussants and took the conversation forward by contributing perspectives from political science, legislation and IT. Many audience members engaged with comments and questions about how datafication of bodies can be reworked by putting personhood at the center. Anja argued against an understanding of data as oil or a disembodied resource, and encouraged a reading of bodies’ translation into data that looked at structural harms of data beyond privacy.

A final input by Smita prompted us to think about how the binary code of technology can accommodate non-binary persons. A radical idea that emerged from the discussion was that not being in the data is not necessarily a bad thing and flying under the radar could actually be a productive way of playing an unfair system.

Full report available HERE.

All the panelists agreed about the importance of IPv6 migration, mentioning some advantages of transitioning to that more modern protocol. For example, according to Mr. Tamon, "We know that IPv6 [sic] like a tree is guaranteed to be good for the internet and what is good for the internet is good for business." 

Still, there seems to be reluctance and lack of information about how to transition from IPv4 to IPv6, as shown by Mr. Moreiras. He shared the result of a survey made with Brazilian ISPs about their points of view regarding turning off IPv4 on the BGP protocol. Surprisingly, the results show that 40% of the providers do not believe that it is even possible to do that because of legacy systems.

Only one spectator from India openly disagreed with the theme of this session, which was called "Rest in Peace IPv4." He stated that "We are welcoming the [sic] IPv6, we are deploying the [sic] IPv6 but at the same time, rest in peace IPv4 I doubt." He believes that some end users in India will not purchase new devices capable of communicating over IPv6, that they will continue using their old devices, so the IPv4 shutdown can not be completely done now - or these users might go offline.