IGF 2023 WS #31 Rules of Data Access, Data Divide and Right to Information

Subtheme

Data Governance & Trust
Big Data Architecture, Usage and Governance
Data Free Flow
Data Privacy and Protection

Organizer 1: Yik Chan Chin, 🔒
Organizer 2: Sun Yilin, 🔒Peking University
Organizer 3: Shannon Tews, 🔒
Organizer 4: Rolf H. Weber, 🔒

Speaker 1: Rolf H. Weber, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 2: Linda Bonyo, Intergovernmental Organization, African Group
Speaker 3: Mansi Kedia, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 4: ZIHAN LIN, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 5: Yik Chan Chin, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 6: Nigel Cory, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group

Moderator

Shannon Tews, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

Online Moderator

Sun Yilin, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group

Rapporteur

Yik Chan Chin, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group

Format

Round Table - 90 Min

Policy Question(s)

1) What are the nature of data, relationships between data divide, right to information and rules of data access?
2) What are the major regulatory paradigms proposed to address data divide, right to information and rules of data access?
3) What are the existing or expecting policy and regulations on access to data and their advantages and limitations? and how can they be further improved ?

What will participants gain from attending this session? Participants will gain new knowledge and insight in understanding the normative frameworks (norms, principles and etc) of protection right to information and reduce data divide. Participants will also gain new knowledge and insight of policies and regulations of data access in developed and developing countries and their limitations. Participants will be able to collaboratively develop and propose a set of policy recommendations for local policymakers and multistakeholder communities to address the data divide and data access issues.

Description:

Recent years, the mass production of data has raised governance problems of the storage, transmission, and use of data. This has undoubtedly strengthened the public demand of government’s acts on the protection of the right to information and on addressing the issue of data divide, and on creating a data rich society. To address this problem, economic policy and regulation must focus on the structural issue of data access and on substantially broadening access to data. The workshop will explore the important issues of data access, data divide and challenges faced by protection of right to information. First, it will explore the conceptualization of the nature of data and the relationships between data divide, right to information and rules of data access in major trading countries/regions. Secondly, given the various development stages and paths, what are the major regulatory paradigms proposed to address data divide, right to information and rules of data access from multistakeholder communities? Thirdly, the workshop will discuss the major characteristics of existing or expecting policy and regulations on access to data in different localities and proposing further policy recommendations. Drawing local experts from developed and developing countries from China, Africa, US, Europe and India, this workshop, underpinning by a normative framework, aims to build an international platform for multistakeholder, experts, scholars, and industry practitioners from relevant fields to jointly discuss the above important and timely issues, challenges and opportunities on an interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional approaches.
Intended Workshop Agenda: 1) Setting the scene: moderators, 3 minutes 2) Short introduction about data divide and protection of right to information in each regions/countries, each speak for 3 minutes with 3 minute Q&A 3) Policy questions discussions amongst speakers 30 minutes 4) Interactive question and answer session, 30 minutes 5) Wrap-up of speakers, 6 minutes.

Expected Outcomes

1)Developing a framework for collaborative response that includes multi-stakeholders such as academia, civil society, policymaker and other specialists to provide a meaningful platform that tackles the structural issues and challenges of data divide and rules of data access.
2) Developing understanding as well as shaping the evolution of norms, principles of rules of data access in the ongoing policy and regulatory debates via multi-stakeholder communities.
3) Proposing policy recommendations and key messages report to the IGF community
4) Publications of policy recommendation reports via various channels of workshop organizers and participants and beyond.

Hybrid Format: 1) The workshop has an onsite and online moderator, and both moderators will ensure all speakers and attendees both online and onsite will have the equal opportunity to speak, raise questions and engage in each session. 2) The session will be opened by the online and onsite moderators to provide participants an overview of the policy questions, the background of the speakers, and the format of interaction. In the 30 mints Q&A section, moderators will invite questions from both onsite and online participants, online participants will be given priority to speak. 3) The online moderator will participate in the online training course provided by the IGF Secretariat to ensure the online participation tool will be properly and smoothly used. We will use IGF Youtube channel and our organizers and speakers' social media networks to livestream the workshop to increase the participation and interaction.