IGF 2019 Reports

IGF 2019 WS #288 Solutions for law enforcement to access data across borders

Workshop
Updated: Tue, 26/11/2019 - 19:15
Data Governance
1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations

More and more countries are unilaterally adopting new criminal procedural laws granting law enforcement powers to obtain users’ data to prevent, detect, investigate, and prosecute crimes, regardless of the location of data or the users’ place of residence.

  • What are the policy and legal implications of such unilateral assertions of state jurisdiction for users, companies and state actors?
  • How do we reconcile the obligations of criminal justice authorities and users’ rights?
  • How can we prevent or minimise the conflicts of law for companies?

Responses to these questions are currently being developed by different organisations and in different fora. The workshop is to feed into these processes and offers an opportunity for multiple stakeholders on the panel and in the audience to share their views.

2. Discussion Areas:

There was broad support for bilateral and, ideally, multilateral solutions for law enforcement to access data across borders. There was unequivocal support for the on-going negotiations on a draft 2nd protocol to the CoE Cybercrime Convention. Several speakers highlighted that substantive and procedural safeguards are equally important as the definition and scope of law enforcement investigatory powers in cross-border cases. All speakers were skeptic about a UN-led process; experience has shown that it is very difficult to achieve consensus on a meaningful UN treaty on this subject. Not all speakers agreed that existing bilateral frameworks (e.g. the U.S. Cloud) were fit for purpose. 

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:
  • In cross-border cases, consensus on procedural and substantive safeguards is as important as the scope and definition of law enforcement investigatory powers
  • Follow-up on any developments expected next yea, including the finalisation of the draft protocol to the Budapest Convention, adoption of EU's e-Evidence rules, EU-U.S. bilateral negotiations, enforcement of the U.S.-UK bilateral agreement, possible start of negotiations on a UN cybercrime treaty.
4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:
  • Council of Europe draft 2nd protocol to the cybercrime convention
  • EU's e-Evidence package
  • U.S. CLOUD Act
  • Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network's multistakholder engagement (Berlin Roadmap)
  • A possible UN-led cybercrime treaty
5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:

See response under section 1.

6. Estimated Participation:
  • Onsite and online participants: between 100 and 75 (2/3 and half the room)
  • Between 30 and 40% of the audience were women
  • Speakers: 3 women, 2 men
  • Moderators: 1 woman, 1 man
7. Reflection to Gender Issues:

Gender issues were not addressed during this session.

8. Session Outputs:
IGF 2019 WS #131 Quantifying Peace and Conflict in Cyberspace

Workshop
Updated: Wed, 11/12/2019 - 12:38
Security, Safety, Stability and Resilience
1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations

Key Policy Questions:

  1. How to ensure that e-government policies align with peace initiatives and which additional stakeholders should be involved in creating policies for e-governance, cyber security, cybercrime, etc.?
  2. What are the consequences of cyberterrorism/crime and how can we be better prepared or equipped to address such consequences?
  3. How can ‘traditional’ peacebuilding initiatives and models be of help in relation to conceptualizing cyber peace?

Expectations:

The initial idea for the panel grew out of discussion on the IEP’ s Global Peace Index and delving into thinking about how such an index could be applied to peace and conflict in cyberspace, measuring “digital peace”. Should we identify an additional cyber indicator, or should we track, identify and measure specific effects of security incidents in cyber space on the existing indicators of the GPI.

2. Discussion Areas:

There was broad agreement among the panellists that it remains difficult to quantify peace in cyberspace. The current trends that we are seeing unfold in cyberspace fail to respect what traditional indicators are capable of telling us. Panellists agreed that there was a clear need to map peace in cyberspace, given the overwhelming evidence that Nation-States have been increasingly weaponizing the online space in recent years, while ultimately presenting the impression that militarisation has decreased globally. The core reference document of the session, the Institute of Economics and Peace 2019 Peace Index Report, indicates that peacefulness has increased globally for only the third time since the IEP reports began. That said, the data included does not include stability in relation to cyberspace, and what all panellists agree as the growing militarisation of cyberspace and the proliferation of aggressive cyber tools.

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:

A multi-stakeholder approach is key going forward. Only by involving and respecting the views of all stakeholders in cyberspace will we be able to measure peace and stability in cyberspace, and as a result understand what is truly happening in our cyberspace in terms of increasing aggressive State behaviour.

We need to come to agree and develop new indicators, to ensure that the threshold for war and peace can be measured in cyberspace, and to give us a clearer, quantifiable understanding of what is happening in our cyberspace.

More analysis and discussion is needed going forward on how we can translate these concepts into a clearer measurement of peacefulness, that includes cyberspace and cyber activities.

4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:

The Peace Index 2019 report of the Institute of Economics and Peace was key to the discussions of the panel.

The Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace was mentioned as a broad multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at tackling the further militarisation of cyberspace.

The most recent Report of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace was mentioned as having developed recommendations, norms and principles to be applied in cyberspace.

The ITU Global Cybersecurity Index was mentioned.

The Global State of Democracy Report was highlighted during the discussion.

While all the reports and initiatives mentioned throughout the session are undoubtedly useful reference points, there was broad understanding that clearer and innovative data indicators would help us understand the depth of what is happening in our cyberspace.

5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:

The difficulty in measuring peace in cyberspace was key to the discussion. The panellists presented a number of ideas through which this issue could be addressed. A potential direction agreed on by all panellists was that of a multi-stakeholder approach, specifically underlined through the broad referencing of the 2018 Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace. In addition, the clear need for comprehensive indicators of peacefulness and stability in cyberspace was underlined as being a necessary step forward in how we might come to terms with quantifying peace in cyberspace.

6. Estimated Participation:

Onsite: Approximately 40 participants

Online: 9 participants

Women representeed aproximately 30-40% of onsite particpants.

7. Reflection to Gender Issues:

Gender issues were not core to the discussion at hand. That said, aside from the onsite moderator, the panel consisted entirely of women.

8. Session Outputs:

The Institute of Economics and Peace 2019 Peace Index ( https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/GPI-2019-web0… )

Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspacehttps://pariscall.international/en/ )

Report of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspacehttps://cyberstability.org/report/ )

ITU Global Cybersecurity Indexhttps://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/str/D-STR-GCI.01-2018-PDF-E.pdf )

Global State of Democracy Report https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/global-state-of-democracy-2… )

IGF 2019 OF #31 Bridging digital in a large humanitarian organization

Open Forum / Town Hall
Updated: Thu, 07/11/2019 - 10:41
Universal Access and Meaningful Connectivity
1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations

key questions:

1. how can we support and sustain digital contributors to collaborate with local communities for climate action?

2. How can the IGF help us improve digital inclusion to support humanitarian action?

2. Discussion Areas:
3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:
4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:
5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:
6. Estimated Participation:
7. Reflection to Gender Issues:
8. Session Outputs:
IGF 2019 WS #85 & WS #268: Misinformation, Responsibilities & Trust ‎

Workshop
Updated: Thu, 02/01/2020 - 16:43
Security, Safety, Stability and Resilience
1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations

Policy questions:

  1. Reasons behind  proliferation of misinformation and fake news. Similarity and dissimilarity  of its manifestation in different countries and regions.
  2. Adequacy of  initiatives  taken so far
  3. Balancing moderation by government and private actors, while ensuring FOE and privacy of users to curb misinformation. Building  trust and accountability on the internet platforms and government interventions.
  4. Best practices and approaches to counter misinformation while  ensuring Freedom of speech, neutrality and legal certainty.
  5. Role of  multistakeholder process, in mitigating disinformation and fake news

Expectations:

  1. Facilitate a debate for  shaping the evolution of norms, principles, best practices of online disinformation and fake news refutation and model of IG.
  2. Identify differing viewpoints and approaches on using AI to curb misinformation
  3. Policy recommendations and key messages report to the IGF community
  4. Collaboration amongst speakers, participants on fake news and disinformation refutation and researches.

 

2. Discussion Areas:

The panel discussed four policy questions:

1) the reasons of the proliferation of misinformation and fake news in different countries and regions;

2) the initiatives (policy,  law, technical, capacity building) and best practices taken so far by different stakeholders to curb spread of misinformation and fake news globally, regionally and within nations;

3) the role of government in moderate misinformation and fake news while ensuring freedom of expression and privacy of users;

4) Policy recommendation and suggestions for better approaches and solutions.

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:

Understand the nuances misinformation phenomenon. Consider how different regional, national, local contexts, demographics, platforms interact with information.

Need three level analysis to understand and address the issues: macro (states, political,legal system), meso (national media, civil society), and micro (individuals).

Need multistakeholder and multidisciplinary approaches. While technology (blockchain) can help refuting misinformation, but cannot solve complex societal issues.

Need to promote media literacy and fact-checking. Governments and industry need to promote media literacy for regulating and refuting dissemination of misinformation/fake news.

Governance measures: collaboration, self-governance, developing quality journalism, using fact-checking are important than regulatory tools. Law should be the last resort.

 

 

4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:

Fact checking project: Panelist created a blockchain-based global registry of fact checks produced by fact checkers: https://faktaassistenten.sh.se/?p=240

Trust building project:  Panelist conducting a multi-method study to understand people's trust in the media: social media, and news.

Platform’s rumour refuting project: Sina Weibo, China, launched rumor refuting project to collect daily rumors, publicize them, introduced user credit with penalty of deduction of score on speading rumour in different levels.  

Media Literacy: Panelist shared on media literacy campaign in India among youth to build their capacity and awareness on critical thinking, highlighting need for more initiative across different age groups.

 

5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:

Understanding multidimensional nature of trust.

Need for robust, diverse, national media ecosystems; multistakeholder and multidisciplinary collaborative approach.

Promoting self-governance, developing quality journalism, fact-checking and media literacy.

Government needs to take regulatory measures while being transparent, accountable, scrutinizing  their actions and processes

Policy discussion should understand nuances of misinformation phenomenon, consider how different regional, national, local contexts; age groups; platforms interact with authentic information and disinformation.

All of these ideas and suggestions are within IGF’s ecosystem.

6. Estimated Participation:

70  onsite and 6 online. Unaware of YouTube participants.

35 women onsite participates

7. Reflection to Gender Issues:

The session discussed the age and gender factor in affecting people’s trust in information and their media literacy levels.

8. Session Outputs:

Facilitated a debate for  shaping the evolution of best practices and principles of online disinformation and fake news refutation and model of IG.

Identified a multi-level and multi-cultural approach to understand the sources and proliferation of the misinformation and fake news 

Identified a multi-level, multistakeholder, multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary approach to resolve the problem of misinformation and fake news.

Recongised the importance of capacity building and fact-checking functions in misinformation refutation, especially in the young and elder generations. 

Understanding the advantages as well as limitations of new technology such as AI for reducing misinformation.

Policy recommendations and key messages report to the IGF community

Policy recommendations and key messages are reported and circulated via  Digital Watch Observatory’s report “Misinformation, Responsibilities and Trust” to the IGF community (https://dig.watch/sessions/misinformation-responsibilities-and-trust?from=timeline).

Policy recommendations and key messages are reported and circulated via  the University of Xi’an Jiaotong-liverpool’s newsletter and website to academic community. 

IGF 2019 OF #29
Public Service Internet, how media could fix the cyberspace

Open Forum / Town Hall
Updated: Thu, 28/11/2019 - 20:37
Universal Access and Meaningful Connectivity
1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations

1) Which are the conditions that are indespensable for providing a "Public Service Internet (=PSI)" comparable to the standard of the existing "Public Service Media" and of Quality Journalism ? what needs to be fixed first in the current cyberspace ?

2) How could "PSI" contribute to fix the problems of polarisation and fragmentation in digital societies ?

3) How we could measure the impact of this renewed mission of PSM - Public Service Media ?

2. Discussion Areas:

There was broad support by all participant about the fact that the future of Internet will have to be based on trustful relations of citizen with their on-line experience. Public Service Broadcasters have a vast experience in building these trustful relations. Three different experiences were presented in the session:  the BBC project called PSI (Public Service Internet) that will become operational on 2022, in coincidence with the 100th anniversary of the first radio broadcasting; the ZDF experience called ZDF Kultur that is offering a cultural on-line experience to German viewers; and Public Spaces, a project promoted by Dutch public broadcasters that see working hand in hand national broadcaster like VPRO and civil society organizations of any kind, with the common scope to offer to internauts a safer experience over the Internet, where all human rights are fully respected.

The three experiences of on-line public services have been complemented by the report about three experiences of standard setting about what could be considered a safe internet experience promoting public interest. Council of Europe mentioned some important recommendations that will be taken in the next months by this organization, about safety of journalists, quality journalism and pluralistic media ecosystems.

WIPO announced various initiatives aimed to make copyright and authors' rights over the Internet simpler and automatized, so that would become easier to ensure the remuneration of creators. While UNESCO presented its Universality indicators for a safer internet, that include public service offer on-line among its indicators.

EBU Technology’s Director presented some experiences of application of A.I. to the media sector, in order to overcome languages barriers and an innovative system of recommendations to viewers and listeners in order to offer them the desired programmes but without giving away in exchange personal data.

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:

The panel agreed that Council of Europe announced recommendations could play an important role to create an healthier environment for media in the digital societies of tomorrow. and that the general adoption of UNESCO's Universality indicators across the world, could create the basis for a quality based evaluation of which are the societal needs that media in the digital era could (and have to) satisfy.  WIPO announced specific Treaties under discussions, that are all aiming to make remuneration of "rights holders" easier and more transparent and equitable (including, for instance, the Treaty of brodcasters rights over the Internet).

4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:

BBC The PSI project of BBC is currently in the development and definition phase. The full project will be deployed by 2022, when BBC will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

ZDFKultur is focusing on Culture as one of the main societal glue and involve many cultural institutions of the country, such as museum, collections and cultural centers.

It includes also some specific actions to address hate speech and misinformation over the internet.

VPRO / Public Spaces  Public Spaces is the project of creating a Public Service Internet model over the Netherlands, open to media but also to civil society community to promote diversity and social cohesion over the Internet.

5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:

The current experiments conducted by pioneering broadcasters that are trying to define how Public Service experience could be recreated in the on-line world, need to be generalized and become the norm among all Public Service Broadcasters/Media. In this sense existing barriers to the digital evolution of broadcasters into full media actors need to be removed from legislations and from regulation all across Europe. The proposal of the Dutch Public Spaces experience to deliver "badges" to services, to media and to public actors that perform in society according to certain shared ethical principles, could be a path to move in the right direction even faster than expected.

6. Estimated Participation:

The room has a capacity of around 100 seats and was fully occupied. Remote participation was mainly ensured by two speakers connecting via Zoom from London and Geneva taht monopolized the line most of the time.

7. Reflection to Gender Issues:

In the Berlin panel there were two women out of a total of 7 (among panelists and moderators).

IGF 2019 WS #30 Let there be data – Exploring data as a public good

Workshop
Updated: Thu, 28/11/2019 - 23:55
Universal Access and Meaningful Connectivity
1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations

• How can we support the development of digital public goods such as common data infrastructures to train artificial intelligences, e.g. for voice recognition technology in underrepresented languages?

• How can we develop sustainable governance models for data commons based on a multi-stakeholder approach?

• Which role can data commons play as an instrument of innovation policy and means to stimulate supply and demand for innovative technological solutions?

2. Discussion Areas:

The group discussed the areas of (1) institutions and data governance structured needed to govern and maintain the commons successfully, (2) incentivising structures and community engagament mechanisms for the collection of open data (supply) and how to build an ecosystem around them to stimulate the use of these datasets (demand) and (3) private vs. personal data ownership and the rights of the data holder.

In the discussion, the group tended towards a data governance model in the sense of "commons" as opposed to "public goods". There was a controversy around data ownership: One participant held the view that all data are intangible assets. But if data is the new oil, we have to study what oil actually did to people. Other participants held the view that data should not be a commodity at all, rather a common infrastructure. Also, sharing data means to give something away, benefits need to be returned to the communities who are the source of data (which is seldomly the case). The key to collect high quality data and use it effectively is by having more data commons and having capacity building for us to be able to use it.

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:

The group discussed two key policy questions regarding data governance: (1) whether to aspire for data as a commons in the sense that a community will decide about all governance questions and collectively maintain the data vs. data as public good that is maintained by the stateThere is a need to clarify non-profit vs for profit-uses of data. Background: One participant held the view that all data are intangible assets. Individuals can give data in exchange for a service. Companies transform data to money through analysis – and offer customers (you) the product. (2) It was discussed how value can be created from data commons and data as public goods. While open data in theory is available to all, creating value from it requires economic and technical means that are unequally distributed. To level the playing field, it is not enough to invest in data collection. (Policy) solutions are needed to democratize the tools needed to extract value from data, that is, e.g. skills building and investment in high-value public datasets. At the same time, building an ecosystem around a public good/commons should follow potential use cases from the beginning.

4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:

Data commons initiatives mentioned included the collection of open voice data through Mozilla Common Voice Project and the collection of accessibility information based on the Open Streetmap wheelmap.org. On the policy level, the example of a systematic judicial policy on open data in Brazil was mentioned as well as proposals to regulat data sharing for SMEs on the EU level.

5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:
  • Capacity building to build demand for data commons
  • Strengthen data user communities, i.e. journalism, science – not everyone can become a data scientist
  • Crisis as driver of change” approach: Create an ecosystem to solve concrete global problems, like climate - build commons around concrete use cases with a high level of interest from different stakeholders
  • tackle the disconnection between data and the subject in data collection: While raw data is often directly associated with a person, the whole dataset is conceptulized as already new intellectual work with different principles
6. Estimated Participation:

80 participants, of which around 40% have been women

7. Reflection to Gender Issues:

Gender was discussed in terms of biases in existing and newly collected data sets. Even if data is crowdsourced, biases will prevail. One concrete example: open voice data is heavily biased towards male speakers.

8. Session Outputs:
IGF 2019 WS #248 Towards equitable and sustainable community-led networks

Workshop
Updated: Wed, 27/11/2019 - 21:07
Universal Access and Meaningful Connectivity
1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations

1. Relationship between gender inclusion and community networks

  • What are the factors that affect gender inclusion which community networks reveal that are hidden by commercial telecommunications solutions?
  • What pathways will ensure that policy frameworks recognise the direct effects of spectrum regulation on women?
  • What are the mechanisms that allow for inclusion of women, queer, trans and gender-diverse people to take active roles in building, managing and sustaining community networks?
  • What are the differential aspects resulted from inclusion of women in community based connectivity initiatives that contribute to more positive change?

2. New approaches to policy formulation, implementation, monitoring and assessment

  • How should connectivity interventions be evaluated to ensure they assess their benefits and disadvantages for women?
  • How policy responses should integrate the inter-sectional approach to tackle the different layers of access needs and barriers including economic power, geographic divide, different abilities, and more?
2. Discussion Areas:

The measure of counts as inclusion/exclusion is set by network operators/big telcos. The very methods come from telecom companies. It is a problem because the definition of digital divide is not rooted on community experiences. The takeaway is that the first step in addressing inclusion issues at the community level or any level is assessing from the ground up what exclusion actually looks like.

Intersectional issues like age and gender, language and gender, should be consider simultaneously. Women from a particular language might be excluded more than others, same as women of certain age.

Space and geography, How important that is in relation to inclusion? a lot of conversation happened around creating safe spaces, making sure that there are spaces where women feel confortable accessing connectivity. Also related to space is the issue of distance, How far the wifi access point is from your day to day activities or a place you feel safe. Also some women will be constrained by the actual technologies that is used to get connected.

 

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:

A takeaway is we need better qualitative measure of what inclusivity actually is. What was evident on the panel is that everbody had great insights because they have talked with the people from the ground. We need the metrics that are used to close the digital divide to take more qualitative insights. Ask communities themselves could be one approach. What is missing are community voices.

More women in decision making positions, in regulatory bodies and in technologic design spaces.

4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:

The Association for Progressive Communications has been working this year in supporting community networks with a feminist approach, creating safe spaces for women in community networks to interact with each other and support each other in their process.

Sarbani Belur from Grammarg mentioned that local content platforms that preserve and share their culture in their own language are needed, and that they are exploring options using single board computers like raspberry pi.

Jane Coffin mentioned the importance of women supporting other women, the role of the role model and the network of support.

 

 

 

5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:

Women's circles: Community Networks are working harder to create experiences for women to share experience with one another, and to publish the summeries of those experiences publicly on genderit.org.

Generally this is happening outside of forums like igfs, because in general this spaces tend to be more male dominated.

 

6. Estimated Participation:

onsite participatants: 50

online participation: ?

women present onsite: 20

wmen present online: ?

7. Reflection to Gender Issues:

The whole session spoke about the challenges and opportunities of exploring meaningful communications with a feminist perspective.

8. Session Outputs:
IGF 2019 OF #28 Internet Governance with and for the Citizens

Open Forum / Town Hall
Updated: Tue, 03/12/2019 - 13:48
Universal Access and Meaningful Connectivity
1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations
  1. How can the multi-stakeholder discussion taking place at IGF can be reinforced by the inputs of a structured view of citizens of the world on the Future of the Internet?

  2. How can we address all the issues pointed out by ordinary citizens in a renewed decision model?

Participants to the Open Forum will critically comment the first results of the 5 Workshops implemented in 2019 by Missions Publiques and the project partners’ coalition in Rwanda, Japan, Brazil, Germany and in the Rohingya Refugee Camp of Cox Bazar (presentation video). Participants, within their spheres of influence, will discuss links between the policy they are conducting and the Global Citizens’ Dialogue’s results.

 

2. Discussion Areas:

The discussion revolved around the three topics discussed during the Citizens’ dialogues; Disinformation, Digital Identity and Internet Governance. Within the broad spectrum of participants, ranging from UNESCO to Google, national partners, ISOC, the German Ministry of Economy and the World Wide Web Foundation, there was a broad agreement that having the voice of citizens within the IGF discussions is essential knowing that, as users, they will bear consequences of IGF’s discussions.

As citizens expressed their fears regarding the spread of disinformation worldwide, they pointed out education as the best tool to tackle disinformation. However, as crucial as education was seen by the participants, they believe that other problematics need to be considered to solve the disinformation issue. Disinformation can be spread by well-educated people; education isn’t a 100% efficient shield if it doesn’t come with critical thinking in back-up.

On digital identities’ governance, as citizens were keen on supporting a co-decision model, the need for a security/privacy coexistence, a renewed debate on encryption, as well as a strong authentication or an internet users’ license were discussed by the panellists. Moreover, in tune with the contract for the web’s recent launch by the World Wide Web Foundation, users’ responsibilities were mentioned as well as their rights to transparency and a greater understanding of the issues.

On the strength of these discussions, Antoine Vergne, on the behalf of Missions Publiques, announced the launch of the full-scale process. In June 2020, citizens’ dialogues will be implemented in 100+ countries.

More information: https://www.wetheinternet.org/

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:

On the strength of these discussions, Antoine Vergne, on the behalf of Missions Publiques, announced the launch of the full-scale process. In June 2020, citizens’ dialogues will be implemented in 100+ countries.

4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:
5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:
6. Estimated Participation:

There were roughly 40 participants present onsite, the gender balance was good.

7. Reflection to Gender Issues:
8. Session Outputs:
IGF 2019 WS #41 Tech Nationalism: 5G, Cybersecurity and Trade

Workshop
Updated: Sun, 29/12/2019 - 17:49
Security, Safety, Stability and Resilience
1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations

1. What is tech nationalism and how widespread is it in the developed and developing world?

2. How much of the concern about foreign equipment, software and data use is motivated by economic protectionism and/or great power military rivalry rather than end user cybersecurity?

3. How is it possible to reconcile national cybersecurity with globalized markets for software, services and equipment in the digital economy? Is tech nationalism compatible with multistakeholder governance of the Internet?

We expect discussion and debate on these questions to clarify the nature of the growing conflict over global 5G buildout and allow policy makers to reach consensus on a better path forward.

 

2. Discussion Areas:

There was agreement on a general definition of tech nationalism. It is the belief that technology is an instrument for national power competition and that globalized tech markets need to be restricted in order to weaken rival states and/or strengthen domestic states. Tech nationalism springs from the same well as anti-immigration and trade protectionism. There was also recognition that in India private interests promote and benefit from tech nationalism. While no panelist defended tech nationalism per se, there was a lot of disagreement about whether Huawei is just another vendor or an exceptional case because of its origin in a large, powerful authoritarian state. China’s restrictions on foreign entry into its own market exacerbates that problem.  

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:

There was no agreement on policy prescriptions. The Australian ambassador defended his country’s decision to exclude Huawei from their infrastructure and Europe’s JP Kleinhans insisted that the national origin of a vendor affects its trustworthiness. Morrissey of Huawei countered that robust cybersecurity certifications and protections, not national origin per se, are what matter, while Mueller noted that refusal by American authorities to trust Chinese market actors would eventually lead to similar forms of treatment of American companies by China and other countries. There was agreement that a breakdown of reciprocity and trust was undesirable, but no agreement on what specific policies would best counter it. 

4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:

IGP has published critical analyses of tech nationalist policies in the US.

https://www.internetgovernance.org/2019/10/16/lets-have-an-honest-conversation-about-huawei/

https://www.internetgovernance.org/2019/10/25/part-2-lets-have-an-honest-conversation-about-huawei/

Jyoti Panday’s has written several papers on The Political Economy of Data Localization and frameworks for data governance in India, including an analysis of RBI’s Quest to Have All Payment Data Stored Within India's National Boundaries.

https://www.epw.in/journal/2017/51/privacy-after-puttaswamy-judgment/data-protection-social-value.html?0=ip_login_no_cache%3D7873034eafb0d365474e5d7aacb13629

https://thewire.in/business/rbi-payment-data-localisation-india

Panday also mentioned India’s Report of the High Level Committee for 5G (5GHLF) prepared by Departments of Electronics and IT, Science and Technology, and Telecommunications.

A week after the panel, Jan Peter Kleinhans's Institute released a new 5G security policy paper that elaborates on a some of the points he mentioned during the panel. The paper is available here: https://www.stiftung-nv.de/sites/default/files/whom_to_trust_in_a_5g_world.pdf 

 

5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:

Due to the lack of consensus on some of the basic facts and normative evaluations, and the time spent debating those, there were no specific ideas agreed on how progress might be made. 

6. Estimated Participation:

There was at least 125 people in attendance. The room was full and about 20 people had to stand and many others were not allowed into the room. A rough estimate is that about 40% of the attendees were women. 

7. Reflection to Gender Issues:

The session did not discuss gender issues. 

8. Session Outputs:

A complete report on the Workshop, unrestricted by arbitrary IGF Secretariat word limits, can be found on the IGP blog: https://www.internetgovernance.org/2019/12/29/the-tech-nationalism-workshop-at-igf-berlin/

The panelists have remained in communication after the IGF and are exchanging papers and comments. As noted in #7, IGP at Georgia Tech, JP Kleinhans at Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, and Jyoti Panday at India Instite of Management are all writing on this topic. Also, Huawei has released a report they commissioned from Oxford Economics on the economic costs of excluding a major competitor from 5G markets. https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/recent-releases/Economic-Impact-of-Restricting-Competition-in-5G-Network-Equipment

IGF 2019 WS #246
Do Internet services deserve a sin tax?

Workshop
Updated: Tue, 10/12/2019 - 16:51
Universal Access and Meaningful Connectivity
1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations

How do policies that impose levies on Internet service providers and other Internet services (“Internet taxes”) impact digital inclusion, human rights, and socio-economic development in diverse regions? What kinds of precedents could Internet taxes policies establish, and what is the impact of different Internet taxes in different regions on the global Internet and its development? Who bears the primary onus of paying for Internet taxes, and how does this impact digital inclusion, human rights, and socio-economic developments?

2. Discussion Areas:

Overall, the session focused on policies that impose end-user levies for the use of social networking and mobile money platforms and the impact of such developments on digital inclusion, human rights and socio-economic development in Africa in particular. While the reasons and motivations for proposing and/or implementing such policies differ (ranging from political issues to supporting the revenue base or stifling dissent/ “gossip”), the taxation of popular platforms is becoming a prevalent in many countries/regions and this pauses global implications. 

Participants voiced concerns that such measures interfere with freedom of expression and act as a measure to control their Internet use by governments. Governments, on the other hand, feel that the taxation of Internet services can be a legitimate source of tax revenue and that foreign companies that are providing services should be taxable in the countries where their services are being used. There was largely agreement that such taxes should not be imposed on people who are struggling to afford Internet access and that due consideration is needed regarding their impact on local content. 

Panellists provided background on the introduction of such levies, noting that in Developing Countries and the Least Developed Countries, mobile network operations are sometimes the only kind of significant tax being collected. They highlighted that what is significant about these taxes is that they intersected with state or ruling party efforts at social and political control. As a result they often had contradictory outcomes, limiting the use of social networks which drive data demand and therefore not realising the rents they were intended to extract in order to meet debt repayments, while undermining national connectivity and financial inclusion efforts.

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:

While governments need taxes to generate income, panellists all argued that current initiatives in Africa have not achieved their purpose and have, in many cases, led to unforeseen harms. Issues of taxation must be viewed in terms of the political economy of the countries, the challenges they face, the context of global platforms and the inability of governments to tax large platforms that are generating revenues in countries. 

Panelists explained issues of taxation in terms of the political economy of the countries, the challenges they face, the context of global platforms and the inability of governments to tax large platforms that are generating revenues in countries. The impact of social networking on taxes is highly retrogressive, and what may appear a very small tax daily on networks and platforms is an enormous part of the income that people have. Some of the taxes saw a decline of 15% in data use and 30% in revenues, which raises the question of the purpose of the tax. Users are inevitably double-taxed; pushing more people offline hence reducing revenues for mobile operators, who collect taxes on behalf of users. 

 

4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:

The difficulty of taxing companies was highlighted due to such companies not having a physical presence, hence the need for international cooperation. Example swere given, including the OECD and the G20-led initiative, BEPS) which is building an inclusive framework to collaborate on dealing with issues of tax avoidance for digital services without physical office presence in countries. From a policy point of view, developing countries should support such global initiatives which would ensure the revenues of the global platforms being derived from different jurisdictions could then be appropriately taxed, rather than taxing end users.

5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:

In an era where countries are talking about digital visions and transformation, conclusions and recommendations made centred engagement with governments, alternative taxation options, alternative solutions to providing Internet access like using spectrum allocations and a global fund to provision of access to WiFi. 

6. Estimated Participation:

Onsite participants: 35

Online participants: 8

Women online: 6

Women onsite: 20

7. Reflection to Gender Issues:

Participants spent a significant amount of time reflecting on the effect that social media taxes and similar levies have for women and other potentially marginalised communities, including the elderly, poor, illiterate and those in rural areas. It was noted that such communities are likely to be even more susceptible to harms as a result of such tax proposals.