IGF 2014

The objective of the "Collaborative Leadership Exchange on Multistakeholder Participation" is to bring together the staff and participants in the different sponsored programmes to the IGF, as well as all other interested attendees to network, build relationships, exchange ideas, discuss local / regional Internet governance issues, and explore applicable solutions. The goal is to focus on key topics (e.g. Future of the Internet ecosystem, Internet & human rights, Access, Critical Internet Resources, Security & Privacy, etc.) while integrating the inputs, requirements and experiences of different stakeholder groups.  The session will take the format of an unconference, with equal parts of peer-to-peer style learning and engagement, networking and relationship building, and interactive discussions.

Seats for this event are limited. To secure a place, interested participants are invited to pre-register at: 

https://internetsociety.wufoo.com/forms/collaborative-leadership-exchange-preregistration/

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.

Explains the role and importance of IXPs in encouraging the development of local digital content catalyzing the development of the domestic Internet economy.
The panel will look at the technical, policy and economic principles surrounding domestic Internet traffic exchange and the beneficial impact of IXPs, in developed and developing economies.
Themes addressed will include: the role of IXPs in making regions economically autonomous; how IXPs foster development of local content and culture; how IXPs facilitate cybersecurity and other critical infrastructure like the Domain Name System and Internet businesses.

IGF 2013 showed that the topic of services for migrants and displaced people was not covered except the workshop which representatives of the NRU HSE organized. In 2014 we propose to be more focused on services which help to socialize, assimilate, and propose to discuss particular educational services available for displaced people and migrants.

We would like to discuss the role of migrants and displaced people in the Information society.
Putting connectivity and ICT services within reach of vulnerable populations and especially migrants and displaced people is important to ensure the participation of all in sustainable human and economic development.

The trends in mobile connectivity, called a “mobile miracle” by the ITU, are not just technology enhancements. They are used by governments and different stakeholders to bring services to their citizens, including educational services.

We propose to focus on ICT services and solutions, which can help migrants, and displaced people to better socialize, assimilate and become an integral part of the public local life.
We would like to discuss particular Information society educational services and capacity building programs available or to be developed for displaced people and migrants.
We would like also raising the question of “virtual” universities and MOOCs projects and how these initiatives could assist and help displaced people and migrants to have the access to fare education.

The right to the fare education and access to the information is the Human right, which has to be ensured for everyone, including migrants and displaced people. The Information society Initiatives could help to better ensure the access to education and to information for the fragile groups of society: migrants and displaced people.

Human rights and fundamental freedoms apply equally offline and online. This principle has been clearly stated by the UN Human Rights Council, has been reiterated by the NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement and has been enshrined in the Recommendation on a Guide on Human Rights for Internet Users by Council of Europe Committee of Ministers.

The Council of Europe Guide is based on the European Convention on Human Rights as well as on other Council of Europe instruments defining an enabling environment for the full enjoyment of human rights. Nonetheless, the utilisation of the Guide should not be limited to the European continent but rather used to foster human rights’ protection and promotion at the global level. 

“This guide is a tool for you, the Internet user, to learn about your human rights online, their possible limitations, and available remedies for such limitations.”

The Guide targets the entire stakeholder spectrum and this Open Forum aims to ignite discussion with regard to the role and future implementation of the Guide. You will have the possibility to join the discussion and take an active role in shaping the future of Human Rights protection online.

Network neutrality (NN) is the principle according to which Internet traffic shall be treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference regardless of its sender, recipient, type or content, so that Internet users’ freedom of choice is not restricted by favouring or disfavouring the transmission of Internet traffic associated with particular content, services, applications, or devices.

To date, several countries have implemented NN laws, while many others are scrutinising the opportunity to elaborate such legislation. Meanwhile, growing attention is paid to the question of how to finance network expansion. Certain content and applications providers have been experimenting new typology of peering agreements that require them to pay ISPs for a direct connection to their consumers (aka “sender-pays” model). While some might argue that similar arrangements are necessary to support ISPs in enhancing their network infrastructure, the obvious counter-argument is that end-users are already paying for infrastructure maintenance (and enhancement) through their broadband subscription. Furthermore, in the lack of an industrial policy aimed at steering ISPs investments towards network enhancement, it seems difficult to assess whether ISPs will, indeed, invest their revenues in the enhancement of network infrastructure.

This workshop will interrogate such questions as:
(i) how does NN relates to network enhancement?
(ii) is the market alone able to provide appropriate answers to guetentee network enhancement in accordance with the NN principle ?
(iii) how can governmental policies promote private investments in network enhancement without impinging upon the NN principle?
(iv) is there room or need for State-subsidized network infrastructures?

Sustainability and development of the Internet can only be ensured if the net becomes a truly multilingual platform which can support everyone’s right to freedom of opinion and expression online.
The workshop aims to continue the study and investigation of how Internet can become more multilingual through the full deployment of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs). The yearly EURid-UNESCO World Report on IDNs in cooperation with Verisign includes new chapters about the human perception of the language in its different scripts and the introduction of the first IDN generic top-level domains. It also features an extended section on the universal acceptance of IDNs from the technical perspective. Geographical distribution and gender balance of the speakers will be one of the workshop guarantees as well as the time left for discussion with the participants.
The workshop will be organised as a round table with key speakers who have been working hard at multiple levels to ensure that Internet becomes more and more multilingual. At the time of finalising the list of the speakers, the organisers have contacted multilingual content creators to expand the discussion to the Internet multilingual content aspect.
It will be also moderated at social media level with a dedicated social media moderator.
The EURid-UNESCO World Report on IDN deployment is a yearly study that is going to be continued in the future in closer cooperation with the ccTLD regional organisations Secretariats as well as with the representatives of industry leaders who can contribute to make the Internet a truly multilingual environment. At the same time, the workshop will consider to produce a bullet point chart to be distributed at all levels to illustrate the actions that should be enforced for the aforementioned objective.

The discussion seeks to address the interrelationship that is developing between the copyright regime and born-digital content in order “to accommodate technological innovation and new social patterns of consumption whilst supporting creativity and economic sustainability in both the developed and developing world” (IFLA Trend Report 2013).

In this respect, it is clear that digital technology has a great impact on traditional methods of content creation and distribution. The Internet environment also reflects the development of collaborative creativity and the new, more dynamic position of the user in the network eco-system. On the other hand, the need for maintaining economic incentives for creators, publishers and producers in fields such as education or media appears essential, and challenges associated with how best to capture and preserve our digital heritage still to be resolved How to best balance the needs of creators, distributors, consumers, as well as what we preserve for future generations, is being discussed in a number of forums, with licensing models, voluntary agreements, legislative reform and other solutions being considered. The panelists will discuss these issues from a range of perspectives, identifying concrete barriers and possible solutions.

Values of Paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda, such as “Promote and assess, on an ongoing basis, the embodiment of WSIS principles in Internet governance processes” and “Identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the relevant bodies and the general public..” will serve as framework for the discussion.

UNESCO takes the Forum to share the initial findings and seek inputs through an inclusive multi-stakeholder consultation process on its ongoing Comprehensive Study of Internet-related issues as mandated by its 37th General Conference Resolution 52 (2013). The discussion focuses in the four fields of the Study (i) Access to information and knowledge, (ii) Freedom of expression, (iii) Privacy, and (iv) Ethical dimensions of the information society and also explores possible options for future actions as related to global Internet governance. 

Governments, private sector, civil society, academia, international organizations and the technical community are welcome to join this Open Forum and provide their inputs to the Concept Paper of the Study which UNESCO will present at the Forum and its guiding framework of “Internet Universality”, as well as UNESCO’s and other partners work on development of  Internet Governance Glossary, Ethics book, etc.

To stimulate the debate, the discussion will be structured in the five key questions of the study on (i) Access to information and knowledge, (ii) Freedom of expression, (iii) Privacy, and (iv) Ethical dimensions of the information society and (v) possible options for future actions texts. All speakers are invited to briefly comment and provide inputs to each question, and participants are also allowed to intervene during each discussion. 

All these documents are available at: www.unesco.org/new/internetstudy

All feedbacks on the study could be addressed to Internetstudy@unesco.org.

Agenda 

Chaired by Mr Getachew Engida, Deputy Director General of UNESCO

Presentation on the Internet Study,  by Mr Guy Berger (Director for Freedom of Expression and Media Development, UNESCO) and Mr Indrajit Banajee (Director for Knowledge Society, UNESCO)

Could we, as international citizens of the Internet, create a set of general principles, a "Magna Carta" for the Internet? Can we design a platform that enables us to crowdsource from across the world a vision for the "Web We Want"? Could we overcome linguistic, political, and cultural barriers in order to mobilize around issues of net neutrality and pervasive surveillance? How can we design both a technological platform and social process in a way that overcomes rather than increases barriers to inclusion? How can we get the participation of those who are disconnected or otherwise excluded from the Internet itself, the majority of the world?

It seems like such a document should be directly crowd-sourced from the Web itself, yet open-source tools for involving massive amounts of users in collaborative editing, discussing controversial topics, and reaching consensus are still in their early stages. Traditional Internet governance bodies work mostly over mailing-lists, but massive volumes of email prevent many people from participating in the age of Facebook and Twitter, and provide little help for structuring debates and issues. How can we build more effective socio-technological scaffolding is needed to let people engage effectively in multi-stakeholder processes?

Panelists from across the world will discuss and compare their experiences in large-scale constitutional crowd-sourcing, and will suggest best practices in order to extend these efforts in designing participatory platforms to engage users in political discussion and action. Ranging from the Tunisian Constitution and the “Decálogo da Web Brasileira (Brazilian Web Decalogue) to technical standardization at the W3C and the work of the IGF on Internet rights, we hope to learn how to build from these experiences to create a "Magna Carta" for the Web, so that we can build not only the Web We Want, but the world we want.

The Korean government has actively engaged in various activities to enhance internet environment as an ICT power house. 
We foster a multi-stakeholder discussion to develop national internet policy and to participate in the global dialogue including establishing 'Korea Internet Governance Alliance (KIGA)' in 2012. Another important ongoing effort to enhance internet environment is to promote IPv6 deployment. In this open forum, we want to review the ways IPv6 have sailed and try to find the reason why there are gaps among countries in IPv6 adoption rate. And we will discuss solutions how to promote IPv6 deployment. Korea has been pushing away with various capacity building activities to support less developed countries. Among others, for instance, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning operates ICT training program called K-LinK for government officials from other countries. 
In addition, Korea keeps to engage various international fora and dialogue including participating in NETmundial as part of the High-level Multistakeholder Committee. And we are committed to contributing to the international internet governance discussion as the chair of the upcoming ITU Plenipotentiary Conference to be held in Busan in October. 
Through this open Forum, we would like to share our experiences and take a broad variety of ideas and recommendations for the wary forward.

With the digital Data in volumes expanding beyond the petabyte and exabyte levels, open data and data publishing are rapidly advanced. The Big Data has changed and will continue change the styles of peoples, as well as the data-driven research and economics. There is an urgent need for decision makers, academics, civil societies and private sectors to work together closely to improve the existed governance system in the world in order to make the data-driven research and economy efficient.

The workshop will focus on the following issues in the discussions: (1) How the integrated governance mechanisms could enhance the data publishing actively and efficiently? (2) What international governance system could benefit Property ID for worldwide data publishing?(3) What are the government responsibilities and how to play its governance role in open data and data publishing?(4)What are the academic responsibilities and how to play its governance role in open data and data publishing?(5) What are the private sector responsibilities and how to play its governance role in open data and data publishing?(6) How government, academic and private sectors could work together in open data and data publishing?

Draft message:

This note provides some suggested summary points which might be formulated into a message from the IGF to the Human Rights Council.

Participants at the United Nations Internet Governance Forum 2014 met on Friday 5th September  to reflect on Forum workshops related to the issues of enhancing digital trust and the internet and human rights. Aware of the United Nations Human Rights Council 27th Session and the Panel which will consider the reportof the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Right to Privacy in the Digital Age.

At IGF 2014 approximately 47 out of 87 workshops focus directly or indirectly on human rights, with privacy, surveillance, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and economic, cultural and social rights emerging as main themes. IGF 2014 participants (including from governments, civil society, private sector, academic and technical community) therefore considered whether to formulate an input that could be brought to the Human Rights Council on the topic of the right to privacy in the digital age. 

Suggested key messages

•        The right to privacy was a significant thematic issue at IGF 2014 (this para should include key themes or summary points from relevant workshops and roundtable discussion at IGF 2014)

•        We agree with the High Commissioner that: “Effectively addressing the challenges related to the right to privacy in the context of modern communications technology will require an ongoing, concerted multistakeholder engagement.”

•        We not only agree, we also embody such multistakeholder engagement through our participation at the IGF which is a United Nations mandated multi-stakeholder forum.

•        We therefore agree that Human Rights Council’s response to current challenges “should include a dialogue involving all interested stakeholders, including Member States, civil society, scientific and technical communities, the business sector, academics and human rights experts.”

•        We urge the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights Council Members and Member States to engage with the Internet Governance Forum as a space for dialogue involving all stakeholders and which can assist and inform the Office of the High Commissioner.

•        We urge the High Commissioner for Human Rights to participate in IGF 2015 which will take place in Brazil.

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Background 

The Internet and human rights have come to the fore of Internet related public policy discussions over the last year and this is reflected in the large number of human rights related workshop and capacity building proposals for IGF 2014. The relationship between the Internet and human rights has become increasingly intertwined. In many instances, threats to the open nature of the Internet have become threats to human rights such as freedom of expression and opinion, privacy or freedom of association. MAG members supported the holding of a human rights roundtable at IGF 2012 as a way to develop the cross-cutting issues of human rights and development and to include feedback into the Taking Stock and the Way Forward session. This roundtable was hosted by Kenya, in partnership with APC, Finland and Sweden. At IGF 2013, the first main session on Human Rights was held with the Chair’s summary highlighting human rights as a significant theme.

The number of human rights related workshops in the IGF continues to grow: in 2012 approximately 40 workshop proposals made specific reference to human rights related issues. In 2014, approximately 47 out of 87 workshops focus directly or indirectly on human rights, with privacy, surveillance, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and economic, cultural and social rights emerging as main themes. Since IGF 2013, the United Nations General Assembly and Human Rights Council have passed at least 10 resolutions and decisions that reference human rights and the internet. Most recently, the UNGA has reaffirmed the right privacy in the digital age as  one of the foundations of a democratic society,  and mandating further consideration of this issue at the global level. In July 2014 the High Commissioner for Human Rights released her report on this topic.

The report is a strong, clear and very persuasive analysis of human rights and mass surveillance, metadata collection and retention, the application of human rights to extraterritorial actions of governments (including telecommunications related). The High Commissioner makes clear findings on the right to protection of privacy in the digital age, including mass surveillance as a violation of fundamental human rights. The report focuses on the role of business and other stakeholders - it is an historic and ground breaking report that governments in particular, but all stakeholders, will need to respond to and which will be discussed at IGF 2014. 

The High Commissioner’s report will be tabled at the Human Rights Council's  27th session, which will take place right after  IGF 2014 and will also be considered by   the General Assembly's 69th session which will also open in September. It is vital that the IGF considers how to contribute to these deliberations, particularly as the Commissioner calls for assistance from multistakeholder engagement: 

"49. Effectively addressing the challenges related to the right to privacy in the context of modern communications technology will require an ongoing, concerted multistakeholder engagement. This process should include a dialogue involving all interested stakeholders, including Member States, civil society, scientific and technical communities, the business sector, academics and human rights experts. As communication technologies continue to evolve, leadership will be critical to ensuring that these technologies are used to deliver on their potential towards the improved enjoyment of the human rights enshrined in the international legal framework." 

We therefore propose using the opportunity of the human rights round table at IGF 2014 on key messages  interested stakeholders at the IGF might wish to send the Human Rights Council. This should be done with the understanding that all interested stakeholder groups are involved and contributing. 

This IGF roundtable provides an ideal, unique and very exciting opportunity for participants to consider the High Commissioner's recommendation and to offer suggested inputs to the UN HRC session that will follow the IGF, including the Council's multi-stakeholder panel on September 12th. Some IGF participants will be going to the HRC 27 session or some other contribution. But this is an opportunity for the IGF to produce tangible outputs that can be inputs to other processes. It is also a great opportunity also for the HRC to receive timely inputs from a multistakeholder process that will assist its work and we therefore suggest the roundtable be focused in this very practical, concrete way. 
Objective

The objective of the roundtable for human rights and digital security workshop organisers is to provide a wrap up session in which to gather comprehensive feedback from the various main sessions and workshops on human rights issues discussed by stakeholders and to use those inputs to strive to formulate a message/input that could be brought to the Human Rights Council on the topic of the right to privacy in the digital age.

This roundtable should be done with understanding that all interested stakeholder groups are involved and contributing.

Format 

The round table will be held in a multistakeholder environment in which speakers/participants who took part of the various main sessions and workshops bring their perspectives in a concrete manner to feed the Taking Stock and Way Forward session and propose ways to advance the HR discussion within the IGF.

 1. To take place during the last day of the IGF to invite people who have discussed/presented during workshops and main session on issues related to HR and the internet, in particular the right to privacy.

2. To have as the overall topic for the roundtable the issue of HR in the IGF and the right to privacy in the digital age

3 To ask participants to respond to specific questions such as: a) Now that the General Assembly has adopted a resolution on the right to privacy in the digital age and the Human Rights Council will consider the right to privacy in the digital age during HRC 27 in September 2014

(a)  What have been the main discussions on the right to privacy in the digital age at IGF 2014?

(b)  What message might the IGF participants wish to send the Human Rights Council to assist in its deliberations on the right to privacy in the digital age?

(c)  How can discussions on human rights and the internet held in the IGF be consolidated in the context of a potential resolution at the upcoming HRC session?

Preparatory Process

We propose to seek co-organisers from diverse stakeholder groups. Workshop organisers will be invited to participate and provide inputs to the roundtable and to share their workshop discussions. We have already prepared a preliminary analysis of workshop proposals to assist

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