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Alice Lanna

Alice Lanna, a mentor for the Brazilian youth group in IGF (Internet Governance Forum), emphasises the significance of youth participation in relevant discussions. She firmly believes that young people should not only be the subjects of discussions but must also actively contribute to them. Lanna is passionate about engaging young individuals and ensuring that they have a voice and agency in shaping decisions that affect them.

Lanna strongly supports youth involvement and active participation in discussions. She actively engages in activities that foster youth participation, showing her dedication to empowering young people and amplifying their voices. For instance, she mentors the Brazilian youth group within IGF, providing guidance and support to ensure that their perspectives are heard and valued.

Furthermore, Alice Lanna advocates for the opinions of the people who are funded to be given proper consideration in funding processes. She argues that the views and input of the person being funded should not be disregarded, but rather acknowledged and integrated into the decision-making process. Lanna believes that the person being funded should play a meaningful role in the design and implementation of the process, rather than being seen as a mere tool to execute predetermined plans. By involving the funded person in decision-making, she believes that better results can be achieved, potentially surpassing the original expectations of the funder.

Additionally, Lanna stresses the importance of striking a balance between mentoring and trust in the funding process. While she recognises the value of having mentors or guidance in the funding process, she also emphasises the need for flexibility and understanding in terms of trust. Lanna believes that the person or organisation being funded carries valuable experiences and knowledge that can contribute to the process. It is not just a one-way learning process, but also an opportunity for the funded person to contribute by sharing their insights and expertise.

In conclusion, Alice Lanna’s main arguments highlight the importance of youth participation, the need for their active involvement in discussions, and the significance of valuing the opinions and involvement of the funded person in funding processes. She supports a balanced approach that combines mentoring and trust to ensure a more inclusive and effective decision-making process. Lanna’s advocacy for youth empowerment and her insights into funding processes contribute to fostering a more participatory and equitable society.

Audience

During the conversation, the speaker showed great enthusiasm in hosting webinars on a specific topic. They agreed wholeheartedly to participate in this endeavor and assured the listener that they would comply with any instructions given. However, the speaker also expressed some confusion about certain aspects of the topic.

In addition to their eagerness to host webinars, the speaker also emphasized their interest in maintaining close ties with the individuals mentioned. This highlights their desire for continued interaction and collaboration, suggesting a high level of importance and interest in maintaining these connections.

Throughout the conversation, the speaker’s tone seemed somewhat resigned, as they admitted to being unsure about the situation and appeared to be primarily following orders rather than relying on personal knowledge or expertise.

In conclusion, the key points discussed in the conversation were the speaker’s willingness to host webinars, their confusion about certain aspects, and their interest in maintaining connections with relevant individuals.

Anita Gurumurthy

Anita Gurumurthy, an advocate for digital rights, emphasizes the importance of accessibility in digital rights debates, particularly for under-resourced regions and organizations. She highlights the need for collaboration among different spaces to co-design fellowships that cater to the needs of future activists and scholars. Anita also encourages participants to fill in a short survey, with the added incentive that those who provide their email IDs will receive the survey’s analysis.

Anita argues that understanding digital rights is crucial for social movements, as digitalization continues to reshape various issues. She points out the new challenges faced by social movements, such as health data, ed-tech technologies, trade agreements, and algorithmic non-transparency. By promoting a deeper understanding of digital rights, Anita aims to empower social movements to effectively address these challenges.

However, Anita is critical of existing fellowships, expressing concerns that they often prioritize individual experiences over contributing to institutional strengthening within social movements. She advocates for inclusive digital rights fellowships that support and enhance social movements.

In contrast, Anita supports the idea of inclusive digital rights fellowships that bridge gaps and promote collaboration among various stakeholders. She cites successful fellowship programs conducted by IT for Change, which not only provided valuable opportunities to fellows but also led to reshaping development programs.

Overall, Anita Gurumurthy advocates for greater accessibility in digital rights debates, collaboration among diverse spaces, and the establishment of inclusive digital rights fellowships that contribute to the development and strengthening of social movements.

Hélène Molinier

Hélène plays a key role in managing the Action Coalition on Tech Innovation for Gender Equality at UN Women. This coalition aims to diversify the digital cooperation stage, bringing new voices and perspectives to the forefront. It focuses on using tech innovation to foster greater gender equality.

The coalition’s main objective is to advance SDG5: Gender Equality, striving for equal rights and opportunities for all genders. It also aligns with SDG10: Reduced Inequalities, which tackles various forms of inequality, including those based on gender.

The argument put forth by the coalition emphasizes the critical role of technology in promoting gender equality. Through tech innovation, it is possible to create new opportunities and address the existing gender disparities prevalent in many sectors.

Hélène’s leadership in managing this coalition underscores the commitment to using technology as a catalyst for gender equality. Her involvement indicates a positive sentiment towards empowering women and promoting gender equality through technology.

The coalition’s argument is supported by evidence such as research and case studies showcasing the potential impact of tech innovation in addressing gender disparities. It highlights successful initiatives that have bridged the gender gap in sectors like education, employment, and access to resources.

In conclusion, Hélène’s management of the Action Coalition on Tech Innovation for Gender Equality reflects a global interest in diversifying the digital cooperation stage and promoting gender equality through tech innovation. The initiative aligns with SDG5: Gender Equality and SDG10: Reduced Inequalities, demonstrating a commitment to addressing existing gender disparities. The overall sentiment towards using technology for gender equality is positive, recognizing its potential to create new opportunities and empower women worldwide.

Christian Leon

Christian Leon, hailing from Bolivia, currently holds the esteemed position of Executive Director at the Internet Bolivia Foundation. In addition, he also serves as the Secretary of Al Sur, a coalition comprising 11 civil society organizations that collectively strive to promote digital rights throughout Latin America. Christian is widely recognized and respected for his unwavering dedication to advocating for internet freedom and safeguarding digital rights.

As the Executive Director of the Internet Bolivia Foundation, Christian plays a vital role in spearheading initiatives aimed at bridging the digital divide and ensuring equal access to information and technology in Bolivia. The foundation undertakes projects and campaigns to empower individuals and communities, equipping them with the necessary tools and knowledge needed to actively partake in the digital era.

Furthermore, Christian’s position as the Secretary of Al Sur demonstrates his unwavering commitment to promoting digital rights at a broader scale. Through collaboration with various civil society organizations across Latin America, he fosters unity in advocating for policy and regulatory measures that protect and enhance digital rights for all citizens.

Christian’s portrayal as a learner further accentuates his dedication to continuous personal growth and knowledge exchange. He displays a genuine willingness to learn from others while also offering his own expertise and insights to the wider community. This openness, combined with his extensive experience in the field of digital rights, positions him as a valuable resource for discussions and initiatives pertaining to internet and digital rights across Latin America.

In conclusion, Christian Leon’s roles as the Executive Director of the Internet Bolivia Foundation and Secretary of Al Sur highlight his wealth of knowledge and experience in advancing digital rights in Latin America. His unwavering commitment to internet freedom, bridging the digital divide, and advocating for policies that protect digital rights exemplifies his devotion to creating a more inclusive and equitable digital landscape.

Barbara Leodora

Barbara Leodora, a representative from Article 19 based in Brazil, is spearheading a campaign that aims to provide fellowships for popular communicators. This initiative was developed during the pandemic, demonstrating the organization’s adaptability and commitment to addressing emerging challenges. The campaign has successfully conducted two editions, one in 2020 and another in 2001, highlighting its longevity and impact.

The primary objective of the fellowship program is to empower popular communicators who play a vital role in keeping the public well-informed. Barbara Leodora emphasises the significance of using popular communication as a means to provide knowledge and information to a broader audience. This approach is particularly crucial during times of crisis, with a specific focus on disseminating accurate and timely information about the pandemic.

Furthermore, Barbara Leodora’s dedication extends beyond communication. She is deeply committed to promoting and safeguarding democratic processes. This commitment was evident in the program’s previous edition, which specifically targeted elections. Barbara stressed the importance of ensuring that the elections proceeded smoothly, further underscoring the campaign’s overall goal of fostering democratic values and practices.

Regarding funding and resource allocation, the campaign demonstrates flexibility and trust-building. In response to the challenges posed by the pandemic in 2020, Article 19 Brazil made adjustments that allowed beneficiaries to have more autonomy in determining how they use the funds. This inclusive and flexible approach not only enhanced trust between Article 19 Brazil and the fellows but also showcased a genuine respect for the fellows’ identities and autonomy.

Capacity building and community network building lie at the heart of the campaign’s fellowship program. By offering comprehensive courses and workshops, the program equips fellows with the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively engage with their audiences. The establishment of community networks through platforms like WhatsApp groups further encourages collaboration and the sharing of valuable insights among fellows. Importantly, even beyond the fellowship program, the campaign ensures ongoing engagement with the fellows, enabling sustained support and growth in their work.

Lastly, continuous improvement is prioritized within the fellowship program. Feedback from fellows is highly valued as it contributes to enhancing future programs and initiatives. Additionally, mutual learning is actively encouraged, recognizing the value of sharing knowledge and experiences among participants. This commitment to continuous learning fosters an environment of growth and helps the campaign remain responsive to the evolving dynamics of popular communication.

In conclusion, Barbara Leodora’s leadership in Article 19 Brazil’s campaign for fellowships for popular communicators exemplifies a comprehensive and multi-faceted approach to communication, democratic engagement, and resource allocation. By empowering popular communicators, providing knowledge and information, and promoting democratic processes, the campaign contributes to reducing inequalities and promoting quality education. The focus on flexibility in resource allocation, capacity building, community network building, and continuous improvement all contribute to the campaign’s overall effectiveness and long-term impact.

Arielle McGee

In this analysis, three speakers from Internews are examined, shedding light on their areas of focus and involvement. The first speaker, Arielle McGee, is identified as a program officer responsible for Internews’ Asia region. Her primary work revolves around collaborating with women and youth-led civil society organizations. Although no specific projects or initiatives are mentioned in the analysis concerning Arielle, her involvement with these organizations indicates a focus on women empowerment and youth-led initiatives, aligning with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 for gender equality and SDG 8 for decent work and economic growth.

The second speaker, whose name is not mentioned, is associated with an upcoming project at Internews. This project pertains to human rights and internet governance, which implies a commitment to promoting and protecting human rights principles in the context of the digital realm. By engaging in this project, Internews aims to contribute to reducing inequalities, as indicated by its relevance to SDG 10.

The third speaker’s name is also missing, but the analysis reveals the speaker’s interest in learning from others to enhance Internews’ fellowship program. Internews currently runs a substantial fellowship program, which suggests a dedication to providing learning opportunities and quality education, in line with SDG 4. The speaker’s inclination to gain insights and implement best practices from other institutions indicates a proactive approach to continuously improving the program’s effectiveness.

Overall, the analysis highlights Internews’ multifaceted approach to their work, encompassing various thematic areas such as women empowerment, youth-led initiatives, human rights, internet governance, and education. The inclusion of the SDG framework signals their commitment to contribute towards the achievement of global sustainable development goals.

While the analysis provides valuable insights into the speakers’ roles and interests within Internews, it does not include specific evidence or the speakers’ views on the subjects discussed. It would be beneficial to obtain additional information regarding the speakers’ experiences, projects, and achievements to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their contributions to their respective areas of focus.

Oscar Jiménez

Two individuals, Oscar Jiménez and Mio, have emerged as prominent figures in promoting important causes. Oscar Jiménez works tirelessly at the research centre in the University of Costa Rica, dedicating his efforts to advancing the ideals of freedom of expression and digital rights. Hailing from Costa Rica, Jiménez brings his expertise and passion to the forefront in the pursuit of reducing inequalities and fostering peace, justice, and strong institutions.

Mio, an initiative based in Central America, is led by Jiménez as its executive director. Mio’s primary objective is to recover the memory of LGBT history in the region, echoing the importance of cultural preservation and LGBT rights. This endeavor is crucial in creating sustainable cities and communities while striving towards the goal of reducing inequalities.

The supporting facts for Jiménez’s involvement in these causes are noteworthy. Oscar Jiménez’s affiliation with the University of Costa Rica research centre underscores his dedication to promoting freedom of expression and digital rights. Furthermore, he is highly regarded for his work in this field, making him a prominent figure in the pursuit of reduced inequalities and the enhancement of peace and justice.

Mio, under the leadership of Jiménez, stands as a testament to the importance of preserving LGBT history and identity. As the executive director of Mio, Jiménez plays a pivotal role in spearheading this noble initiative, which strives to create a sense of identity and pride in the LGBT community of Central America. The evidence suggests that Jiménez believes in the transformative power of preserving LGBT history and identity through Mio.

The analysis indicates a positive sentiment towards both Oscar Jiménez and Mio, highlighting their commitment to important causes. The shared focus on reducing inequalities aligns with the sustainable development goals of creating just and inclusive societies. These individuals and their initiatives serve as beacons of hope, sparking conversations and actions towards a more equal and harmonious future.

In conclusion, Oscar Jiménez’s work at the University of Costa Rica research centre, advocating for freedom of expression and digital rights, and his role as the executive director of Mio, an initiative seeking to preserve LGBT history in Central America, showcases his unwavering dedication to reducing inequalities and fostering sustainable communities. Their efforts are crucial in challenging existing norms and creating a more equitable and inclusive society.

Raimundo

Raimundo and his community have achieved something extraordinary by creating their own TV channel, Radio TV Quilombo Rampa. This is a remarkable accomplishment because the community used their own resources to bring their vision to life. They operate on the principle of “from the inside out,” which emphasises the significance of ancestral communication. This approach ensures that their channel truly represents the voices and experiences of the community, providing an authentic portrayal of their culture and heritage.

The creation of Radio TV Quilombo Rampa highlights Raimundo’s strong belief in the importance of communities telling their own stories. He understands that these stories hold immense value and play a vital role in preserving cultural identity. As a platform for the community, the TV station allows them to narrate their own stories and share their experiences with the world. Through their own channel, they can celebrate their achievements, address their challenges, and showcase their vibrant traditions.

Raimundo’s eagerness to share their experiences demonstrates his commitment to promoting community empowerment. By giving a voice to the community, the TV station empowers individuals, fosters a sense of belonging, and strengthens unity. It also serves as an educational tool, imparting knowledge and information that contributes to quality education within the community.

The creation of Radio TV Quilombo Rampa aligns with the global goals of industry, innovation, and infrastructure (SDG 9) and partnerships for the goals (SDG 17). This initiative showcases how communities can utilise their own resources and collaborate to create meaningful and sustainable change. It also addresses the importance of reducing inequalities (SDG 10), ensuring that marginalized voices are amplified and included in the media landscape.

In conclusion, Raimundo and his community’s achievement in creating Radio TV Quilombo Rampa exemplifies community development, cultural preservation, and community empowerment. Their dedication to telling their own stories and showcasing their experiences through this platform is inspiring. By taking control of their narrative, they have created a media outlet that genuinely represents their community and strengthens their identity.

Dennis Redeker

Dennis Redeker, a researcher at the University of Bremen and co-founder of the Digital Constitutionalist Network, proposes the creation of a Radical Imagining Fellowship for Digital Activists. The fellowship aims to foster both education and advocacy work among digital activists, with a particular focus on reimagining digital governance. Redeker believes that fellowships have the potential to empower digital activists and facilitate meaningful change.

To ensure the fellowship’s effectiveness, Redeker emphasises the importance of gathering feedback and data from attendees and those involved in running or funding fellowships. By understanding the interests and demands of the participants and stakeholders, the fellowship models can be improved and tailored to their needs. Redeker introduced a small survey to be completed by the attendees, as well as individuals involved in running or funding fellowships. This feedback will enable the development of more effective fellowship models and contribute to the advancement of digital activism.

In addition to physical attendees, Redeker welcomes online participants to contribute to the survey. He provides his email address for them to send their results and suggests posting his email in the chat. This inclusive approach ensures that the perspectives of a wider audience are considered, enhancing the overall validity and comprehensiveness of the data collected.

The Digital Constitutionalism Network, founded in 2019, plays a key role in advancing the cause of digital activism. The network runs a database on digital bills of rights, which currently contains 308 documents related to human rights and principles in the digital realm, including areas related to artificial intelligence. The network plans to update and expand this database in the future, further contributing to the understanding and promotion of digital rights.

Moreover, the Digital Constitutionalism Network is actively involved in teaching partnerships and knowledge exchange initiatives. These initiatives aim to combine teaching with the translation of knowledge to activists. By fostering an interchange of knowledge between students and young activists, the network empowers the next generation of digital activists and provides them with the necessary tools and insights to effect meaningful change. The network also aims to broaden the reach of academic knowledge beyond traditional BA and MA programs, supporting NGOs, civil society organizations, and media organizations.

Redeker highlights the need for new governance mechanisms in non-university settings. While existing stakeholders, such as students matriculated into the university, have certain rights and opportunities, not all stakeholders in the fellowship program receive the same benefits. Exploring new mechanisms and opportunities for flexibility can help ensure a fair and equitable experience for all participants.

Lastly, Redeker emphasizes the importance of preventing detrimental competition among fellows. He suggests that selecting participants from different places can prevent direct competition and foster a collaborative and supportive environment. By implementing strategies to prevent unhealthy competition, the fellowship program can promote a more inclusive and cooperative community among digital activists.

Overall, Dennis Redeker advocates for the creation of the Radical Imagining Fellowship for Digital Activists and emphasizes the importance of gathering feedback and data from a diverse range of participants and stakeholders. The Digital Constitutionalism Network, with its database on digital bills of rights and its teaching partnerships, plays a crucial role in advancing digital activism and promoting knowledge exchange. Redeker also highlights the need for new governance mechanisms and strategies to foster collaboration and prevent detrimental competition among fellows.

Ahmad Karim

Ahmad Karim, an individual from the UN Women Regional Office for Asia-Pacific, has proposed a unique fellowship model that combines fellowship, forum, experience, and mentorship. This model aims to support and empower 30 individuals each year through capacity building programs, mentorship, strategic overviews, and connections with country offices. Fellows are actively involved in co-creating campaigns, toolkits, and updating knowledge products, ensuring their contributions have a lasting impact.

Karim highlights the flexibility of this fellowship model, which caters to the varying needs of young activists. This is particularly beneficial for activists who are also studying or working alongside their activism. Fellows have the freedom to choose their preferred events or forums and have nomination opportunities to speak at major decision-making forums and conferences. This allows them to have their voices heard and influence policy discussions.

The fellowship model prioritizes real-life experiences and practical challenges, providing fellows with valuable learning opportunities. Fellows engage in actual challenges and can relate their experiences to their activism. They also have the chance to participate in large-scale decision-making processes, effectively communicating their realities to decision-makers.

Involving fellows in program redesign and governance has proven beneficial. A group of fellows is selected to be part of the redesigning process, using their experiences to identify what works and what doesn’t. Their direct involvement leads to recommendations that improve the effectiveness of the fellowship. Furthermore, including fellows in the selection process of future fellows reduces bias and uncovers potential candidates with significant achievements.

Including fellows in the decision-making process fosters a sense of common responsibility and ownership. Although it may be time-consuming, collaborative decision-making enhances fellows’ understanding of why certain decisions are made and encourages active participation in implementation.

In conclusion, Ahmad Karim’s fellowship model offers a unique combination of fellowship, forum, experience, and mentorship. It prioritizes flexibility, real-life experiences, and practical challenges, allowing fellows to contribute to decision-making, program redesign, and governance. This inclusive approach adds valuable perspectives and fosters mutual responsibility and ownership. The model contributes to the advancement of gender equality and quality education, empowering young activists.

Eve Goumont

The speakers engaged in a thought-provoking discussion centred around the intersection of AI, human rights, and education. They emphasised the profound impact of AI on the right to higher education under international human rights law. Specifically, Eve Goumont, a PhD candidate at Montreal University, focused her dissertation on exploring this very issue, highlighting the implications and challenges that arise when incorporating AI into the educational landscape.

Moving on to the topic of fellowship programmes, the speakers underscored the significance of trust in fellows. They argued that when fellows are granted the autonomy to work on projects of their choosing, the overall outcomes tend to be more successful. In the rapidly evolving realm of technology, adhering strictly to a pre-determined plan outlined a year in advance often proves to be arduous. Consequently, cultivating trust becomes a pivotal factor in enabling fellows to adapt and make essential adjustments along the way.

Furthermore, the speakers delved into the social dynamics within fellowship communities and their impact on mental health. One notable observation was that diversity among fellows, in terms of backgrounds and areas of expertise, fosters a sense of community and solidarity. This environment stands in stark contrast to competitive environments, where collaboration and support are oftentimes lacking. Additionally, the discussion touched upon the importance of addressing mental health concerns within fellowships. Creating a sense of community and fostering solidarity among fellows was identified as an effective strategy to promote mental well-being.

In conclusion, the intersection of AI, human rights, and education is a pressing topic that requires careful consideration. The impact of AI on the right to higher education, as highlighted by Eve Goumont’s research, poses important questions regarding the ethical and legal implications of AI implementation. Trust emerges as a critical component in fellowship programmes, promoting innovation and yielding better outcomes. Furthermore, the diverse and inclusive nature of fellowships contributes to mental health and the establishment of supportive communities. Overall, these insights shed light on the complex interplay between technology, human rights, and personal well-being in educational and professional contexts.

Manu Emanuela

Upon analysing the speaker’s statements, several key arguments have emerged. Firstly, it is argued that the competitive nature of youth programmes can have negative implications for participants’ mental health. Manu Emanuela’s experiences highlight the potential problems that can arise due to the emphasis on competition within these programmes. This observation underscores the significance of considering and addressing participants’ mental well-being during the process of designing and implementing youth programmes. Mental health is crucial during the process of youth programmes due to their competitive nature.

The second argument is related to online courses, which are reported to be both difficult and inaccessible. These challenges are particularly evident for vulnerable sections of society. The difficulty level of these courses and the barrier of online access can hinder equal educational opportunities and perpetuate the digital divide. Difficulty and accessibility of online courses are challenges for vulnerable sections.

Another issue raised is the lack of continuity and long-term engagement in youth programmes. Manu Emanuela’s experiences serve as evidence to support this argument. Maintaining consistent involvement and sustained engagement of youth in such programmes is crucial for achieving positive outcomes, such as quality education and decent work and economic growth.

On a positive note, the necessity of skill development within youth programmes is highlighted. The speaker emphasizes the importance of acquiring skills like project management and grant application in order to increase success in securing grants and conducting risk assessments. However, it is pointed out that the current programmes do not focus adequately on the development of these essential skills. Necessity of skill development like project management and grant application in youth programmes.

Furthermore, the analysis brings attention to the funding aspect of civil society organisations in Brazil, noting that many of these organisations are funded by big tech companies. This raises concerns about the potential influence of these corporations on the freedom and independence of civil society. Big tech often fund civil society organisations, affecting their freedom and causing a chilling effect.

Lastly, the significance of alumni networks in youth programmes is highlighted. Manu Emanuela suggests that alumni can become mentors and provide valuable guidance based on their experiences. This recommendation aligns with the argument that continuous support and engagement, facilitated through mentorship, can contribute to the success and long-term impact of youth programmes. Importance of alumnus becoming mentors for continuous support and engagement.

In conclusion, the analysis sheds light on various aspects of youth programmes, including the potential impact on mental health, challenges arising from online courses, the lack of continuity and long-term engagement, the necessity of skill development, concerns about big tech funding within civil society, and the importance of alumni becoming mentors. These insights provide valuable considerations for improving the design and implementation of youth programmes to ensure positive outcomes and promote the sustainable development goals.

Faye

Faye actively participated in the discussion, revealing that they are currently pursuing a master’s degree in Taiwan, demonstrating their commitment to furthering their education. The conversation also touched upon the topic of higher education and career goals, with Faye expressing an openness to considering a PhD program in the future. This indicates their ambition and dedication to their academic pursuits.

Faye displayed a positive sentiment and genuine interest in the discussion, actively engaging and contributing to the conversation. This enthusiasm fosters an environment of collaboration and knowledge sharing among participants.

The main topics discussed revolved around education and career development, highlighting the importance of quality education. These topics align with SDG 4: Quality Education, which aims to ensure that everyone has access to inclusive and equitable quality education.

Additionally, the discussion touched on the subjects of communication and knowledge acquisition, illustrating a broader scope and an interest in how effective communication and knowledge acquisition contribute to personal and professional growth.

Overall, the analysis highlights Faye’s active involvement and desire for further academic accomplishments. Their positive sentiment indicates a motivation for personal growth and a commitment to contributing to the field of knowledge. The topics discussed, such as education, academic career, higher education, career goals, communication, and knowledge acquisition, are interconnected and reflect the broader context of personal and professional development.

Dennis Redeker:
Oh, this works. Fantastic. Welcome, everyone, to our session today. This session is called Radical Imagining Fellowships for Digital Activists. We’re today representing the Digital Constitutionalist Network and IT for Change. And we’re going to be talking about how to create a Radical Imagining Fellowship for Digital Activists. We’re going to be representing the Digital Constitutionalist Network and IT for Change here in the room. The idea is that we’re quickly introducing ourselves and the idea or the general idea of the session. And then we’ll take it from there. It’s great that you came. It’s very nice that you all took place at the table so that we could have a bit of an exchange because we have many things from you to learn about what kind of fellowships are useful. And we’re presenting the kind of thinking that we have on what kind of fellowships do we think are useful for digital governance that can be reimagined. My name is Dennis Redeker. I’m a researcher at the University of Bremen. I’m also one of the co-founders of the Digital Constitutionalist Network that educates. I’ll talk a little bit more about it in a bit. But that educates so far mostly students of BA and MA programs but has a mission, too, to do advocacy work. And then the question is how can we move into a space that allows us more to educate scholar practitioners. And I’m handing over the mic to you, Anita.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thanks, Dennis. So the starting point of my organization is slightly converse, but I hope we achieve as much as university spaces do. I come from a nonprofit space where our work is to contribute to social justice in many ways. And over the past several years, again, I will get into it in detail later on, we have worked on capacity building for both academics, practitioners, social movement people, and also those who want to be engaged in issues of digital rights, the digital economy and digital society, and both at the level of organizing communities and at the level of policy change. Through that, we’ve had some insights on what it might take to build the kind of institutional depth and traction that is necessary so that the digital rights debates are much more accessible to regions and organizations that are under-resourced. So the session partly also addresses this coming together of two kinds of spaces so that we can co-design something from your experiences as well for the next-gen activists and scholars who might want to contribute to the domain. So that’s like a brief introduction.

Hélène Molinier:
Thank you very much. Hello, everyone. My name is Hélène Molinier. I work for UN Women. I’m managing the Action Coalition on Tech Innovation for Gender Equality. So very much here in both listening mode and really eager to see how we can find a solution to bring new voices to the digital cooperation stage and especially voices that bring a feminist lens and have a strong interest in human rights approach to digitalization. Thank you. Over to my colleague.

Ahmad Karim:
Hi, everyone. My name is Ahmad Karim. I’m also from UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. I lead the work on innovation campaigns and advocacy and the US portfolio within Asia and the Pacific.

Manu Emanuela:
Hello, everyone. My name is Manu Emanuela. I’m from Brazil. I was a youth from Internet Society and from the Brazilian Steering Committee, and today I work with children’s rights and specifically allowing children to participate in this kind of debate as well at Instituto Alana.

Alice Lanna:
Hello, everyone. I’m Alice Lanna. Nothing to do with Instituto Alana. I’m a mentor for the Brazilian youth group today in IGF, and I would like to excuse myself in advance because we have a meeting for the youth Brazilian group at 5, so I will live in the middle of the conversation. But I’m really glad to be here because I think that’s exactly the kind of discussion we need to be having about having youth not on the menu but sitting on the table and discussing.

Christian Leon:
Hello. My name is Christian Leon. I’m from Bolivia. I’m the current Executive Director of Internet Bolivia Foundation and Secretary of Al Sur, that is a coalition of 11 civil society organizations working towards promoting digital rights in Latin America. I’m here just to learn, and if I have something, I will share it with you. Thank you.

Arielle McGee:
Hello. My name is Arielle McGee. I am a program officer with Internews for their Asia region. I work primarily with women and youth-led civil society organizations, media, and media-adjacent CSOs, journalists, and kicking off a project on human rights and internet governance, and so we are part of that, have a large fellowship program. So curious to hear what you guys have learned and how we can implement that going forward.

Faye:
Hi, everyone. I’m Faye. I’m currently a master’s student in Taiwan, and I sometimes work with or for… and I’m considering doing a PhD with him. I’m just interested in what you’re going to talk about.

Anita Gurumurthy:
What did he say? It’s on? It’s on. That’s fine.

Raimundo:
My name is Raimundo Quilombo. I live in Quilombo Rampa, Vargem Grande, Maranhão. I’m from Radio TV Quilombo Rampa, an organization that emerged in the community as a way for the community to tell their own story through popular communication. So we created a TV in the community with our own resources, a communication that we call from the inside out, which is ancestral communication. We are here to participate and share this experience with everyone who is here today.

Barbara Leodora:
I’m going to translate for him. Raimundo, he’s a Quilombola from Quilombo Rampa in São Luís do Maranhão, Brazil. He created Radio and TV Quilombo at his community, which they define as inside-to-inside communication. And he’s a popular communicator. We’re here together today. I’m Bárbara Leodora. I’m from Article 19, Brazil. And I am responsible for a campaign of ours that we created in the title, for a campaign of ours that we created in the time of the pandemic, which is a campaign which provides fellowships for popular communicators in the whole country, where they can provide knowledge and information. And we had two editions, 2020 and 2001, for popular communicators to inform the public about the pandemic. And then we had one last year for the elections, because we figured it was an effort to guarantee that it would happen, our elections, and it did. And right now we’re having a casual agreement edition. So we’re here to learn and exchange experiences on this fellowship, because it’s a great thing we’ve done. I’m very proud of it. And I’m very proud to be here, excited.

Oscar Jiménez:
Hi. My name is Oscar Jiménez, Oscar Mario Jiménez. I am from Costa Rica in Central America. I work in University of Costa Rica in a research center that promotes freedom of expression and digital rights. And also I am executive director of Mio. It’s a museum of identity and pride. It’s an initiative to recover the memory of LGBT history in Central America. So I love the title of session. So I’m here to learn.

Eve Goumont:
Hi. I’m Eve Goumont. I’m a PhD candidate at the Montreal University in Canada. I’m also a guest researcher at Keio University here in Tokyo. I work in AI and human rights. And my dissertation focuses on the impact of AI on the right to higher education under international human rights law.

Dennis Redeker:
So one of the first things you like to do, because we know that sometimes when it’s getting toward the end of a session, people have to leave or one forgets. We have a small survey that we’d like to show you a link. If you could fill it in, that would very much help us to better understand what demands and interests of people in fellowships. There’s also questions that you can answer in there in case you run a fellowship or in case you provide funding for a fellowship. Just to get some resources together, we’d like to learn from this as we develop our own models. And we’re going to show the link in a second. It’s a short link.

Anita Gurumurthy:
I just wanted to say that it’s a very short survey. And if you can leave your email IDs, we’ll be happy to also share the analysis of the survey with everybody. That’s precisely to account for the conflicting priorities we sometimes have at the IGF and therefore the voices are not carried right through to the end. So that is the link. And I’m going to also circulate this. Please write in a little bit bold or something, capitals. I’m not very good at deciphering handwriting. So I’ll start from here. Would you be interested in receiving a copy of the… Do you need a pen? Yes. So soon after, we can open up the session. So we’ll probably take about five, ten minutes for this.

Dennis Redeker:
And one comment to those online. Welcome again. And you’re obviously also welcome to fill in the survey. And let us know your email addresses. I will post mine. So this is most privacy preserving. I’ll just post my email. Does that make sense? Post my email here in the chat. And then you can send me an email with your email address. Or just send me an email and we’ll send you the results as well.

Audience:
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. We can do a webinar or two on that. We can do a webinar. I would like to do that. You can just let me know. Yeah. Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll do it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. That’s good. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Dennis Redeker:
So how is everyone doing on the survey? Finishing up? Okay. Wonderful. Just wanted to make sure. Then I’m going to share my slides, so I’m quickly going to say something about the current activities. And then we jump into our exchange. Let me share these. As I said, I’m one of the co-founders of the Digital Constitutionalism Network, founded in 2019 in Bochum, Germany, by academics from mostly Europe, but also from around the world. We’ve had people from, currently people from all continents represented in the network and the network is focused on research, but also teaching and training, that’s what we’re going to talk about today, and advocacy, that’s also related to today, in the field of human rights and the internet, well, obviously that’s the focus here. We run a database on digital bills of rights, so documents that proclaim rights and rights and principal claims. We have now a database, I’ll show this in a sec, but we have a database of 308 documents that we have assembled. It’s a great resource for research activities, but we also have an annual teaching partnership, which we now do online and in person, and we are now currently planning for long-term, one-year research incubators to be conducted. This is how the database looks. You can check it out. It is, I think, a helpful research tool also for advocates, for advocacy, to see what other documents are out there that demand human rights and principles on the internet in a digital field, also related to AI, and this database is going to be updated very soon. We do research with this. Just last week, we spent a week with students from across Europe and Italy in order to teach human rights online using, among other things, these documents and the database, and going forward, the Digital Constitutional Network not only wants to partner with additional partners, and we’re working with IT4Change, for example, we’re open to other partnerships, but we’re thinking about, on the one hand, how can we combine the teaching that we do with our students into translating knowledge to activists, to young activists who come in and who can benefit from this interchange, or ideas to create year-long research incubators by which people from different ways of life, walks of life, can join. They’re being supported by members of the network and of partners, by expert advisors. There will be MA and PhD students among those who receive part of this fellowship cohort, but also members of civil society groups, NGOs, or independent young researchers. So that’s pretty much our pitch, our idea. We’re still working on this, again, working with IT4Change, but we want to be more open. We’ll have some more open discussion, not on this, but just on the things you all do and things that you can advise us also on doing when we pursue such a scholar-practitioner route for teaching, which is something new for most of the people at universities. We often are geared toward the BA, MA programs that we have, but we often neglect, I think, the people that would otherwise have an opportunity to also gain academic knowledge, but who have a background in an NGO or civil society organization, or any other place, really, media organizations, for example.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thanks so much, Dennis. I just wanted to add a couple of things. This is, I think, the 18th IGF, and in many ways, even five years ago, if you actually looked at people working in the grassroots on various issues that occupy the time and energies of social movements, you would find that they don’t understand what digital rights are. They don’t, perhaps, engage with those issues in such a palpable way, but I think very rapidly since the pandemic, that situation has changed, and although there used to be the idea of digital activism, or using digital spaces for activism, in the past few years, movements have begun to embrace the idea that their own issues are beginning to be redefined by digitalization, so those who have been working on education, for instance, have had to grapple with ed-tech technologies, and others, for instance, in the health domain are quite worried about what happens to health data and cross-border data flows, et cetera, et cetera. Big justice activists are really grappling with the idea of trade agreements and algorithmic non-transparency in developing countries because of free trade agreements, so the field is changing, and younger people are beginning, really, to understand and grapple with these issues, and by that, I don’t mean to over-generalize who these youth are, but I think, broadly, talking about those who normally are part of the very, very fabric of struggle and dissent in their own contexts, and people who are really showing the way in terms of the pluralistic dimensions of human rights that we would really like to present, right? So we have, at IT for Change, done two rounds of, I would say, mentoring of fellows. One was on the digital economy and gender through a feminist lens, and that was very rewarding. The other one was an in-situ, one-week fellowship program that we did in Thailand earlier this year, which was called Frames and Frontiers for Digitality. If you would have two minutes, maybe you can say something from your, and you could, maybe the two of you that have to go, is it already time? Okay, I wouldn’t, it’s already five, yeah, I understand, so that’s fine. So on the Frames and Frontiers for Digitality, we really found it extremely useful that we brought people who are mid-career professionals from different organizations, and they had a lot to say about how they would shape their programs, and the programs that they were holding either as officers in, let’s say, large organizations that were working on poverty and development, or organizations that were working on digital rights. So these were very instructive. One of the things that came out was, are the existing fellowships for digital rights leading us, in a way, to a kind of individualized paradigm where institutional strengthening is not happening? That was one of the questions that tech fellowships typically tend to privilege certain kinds of fellows, who may not then contribute back, or the entire structure of these fellowships may not allow the contribution of their work to sustain social movement. So the effectiveness of these fellowships was something that was called to question, and that’s a problematic, just a provocation to analyze, and I just wanted to put it on the table. We just have two broad questions for the session, and maybe Dennis, you can…

Dennis Redeker:
Yes, so there are obviously many questions that we have. We have proposed two things to discuss, and we’re very happy if you bring in your other questions and your questions for discussion. The first one here, also on the screen, would be, what does the current landscape of funding and fellowships for young activists working in the digital spaces look like? So what is out there? So what can we kind of collect also here as a brainstorming? Who wants to start?

Manu Emanuela:
Hey, everyone, I think I’m going to share a little bit about the youth programs that I’ve been a fellow, and how they are organized. So it’s not exactly funding, but more like fellowship, and the first one, I had a course, and one thing that I think it’s really important to think about is mental health during this kind of procedure. Why? Because the two programs that I participated, they had a competition vibe. So people were really competing against each other to be able to reach this opportunity, and this caused a lot of problem. So this is an issue. I think another one is the fact that the courses, they are very difficult, and they are online, so you have the accessibility things, and something that makes me wonder if the most vulnerable people, they are able to reach this opportunity, and even the fact that it’s very difficult for understanding infrastructure issues, and understanding this debate, and then competing against each other to be able to get the fellowship. So all of this, I think, are things that we have to face it. Another thing that I think that the programs today, they allow you to reach opportunities, like I went to the 2018 IGF, and this is the only reason why I’m here today. It changed my life, because I saw this is what I want to do. I want to participate in this space. But you don’t have a lot of continuity to be able to, in these programs, at least in Brazil, from my perspective, to be able to continue your engagement. So what I did was I will go after civil society and the NGOs that exist, and I will try to get a job, and that’s basically what I did. But I don’t see a lot of youth-led organizations in that sense that are like, oh, let’s empower youth, and because of this program, let’s do an organization. I think there are a few aspects of this, like the importance of project management skills and skills to go after funding and do risk assessments, all of these things that we know that it is important to apply to a lot of grants. And these programs, they do not help you with these kind of skills and abilities. So this would be very important to empower people through fellowships so that they can form organizations. And another, the last one, why I think this is so important, it’s because the landscape of civil society in Brazil today, a lot of organizations, they are funded by big techs. And well, if you are funded by the private sector, you have a few particularities on what you can do, on what you can speak, even if it’s very open, but well, you are funded by them. So the importance of having freedom, not the chilling effect in that sense, of the funding opportunities that we have. So these are a few of my considerations. I think that, and I think that it’s very transformative to be able to participate in this kind of event, and this should continue, but also allow to more long-term engagement. And for alumni network, like how alumni can become mentors and that they can help and engage people with their experience and build, well, futures alike. So that’s, I think I approached the two questions a little bit, and maybe later I can share some other thoughts. Thank you. Yeah? Okay.

Ahmad Karim:
Well, with the UN Women Regional Office for Asia-Pacific, we have kind of designed a very different model for our fellowship. It’s more of like a flexible combination of fellowship to a forum, to an experience and mentorship program that runs for a whole year. Instead of a short term. So we have this group, we call the 30 for 2030. Every year we select 30 from across the region, different field of experiences, and where they, from UN Women’s side, we give them a capacity building program, a mentorship with our advisors, connection with the country offices, so they have the data and evidence and the strategic overview of the organization of what’s happening in the region, but also connected to the country offices and where the implementation is happening. But that doesn’t stop there, so that’s more of like a preparation phase, and those group are amazing. They are like leaders and activists and CEOs of companies and researchers. So what we do with them after that, we work with them in co-creation. So the co-create campaigns, right now we’re launching an online toolkit, an online GBV, co-designed with them, and it, you know, what’s really unique about the work that they do, that they want to create a knowledge product as a living system. So it’s not just a knowledge product that we’ll put it on the shelf, put it online, and forget about it. No, we update it every year. So last year we launched one version, this year we’re updating, adding more forms of violence, for example, innovation, the stakeholders who are working on it, and then building campaigns and other initiatives on the ground. It’s being translated into nine languages right now in the region. And then other experiences that, you know, some of our members do really like, some flexibility to attend their own preference events or forums, conferences. So they get to select some of those events, and we support them, whether it’s financially or with nomination, to attend some of the big forums. We also nominate them to be speaking on decision-making forums, like big conferences, CSW, the General Assembly. So it’s kind of a pre-selected group where we invest on them, but at the same time they are actually the one who is giving us their expertise and what they know. And then at the end of the year, they have the choice to stay for another year as more of a senior fellow, and then mentor the other ones who is coming and be part of that pool of opportunity. Or they can just move on, but all of them, they decided to stay. Yeah. So I think it’s one good, you know, practice that we find is that that flexibility to give to, especially for young activists. A lot of them, they’re studying, they have their work, they’re doing other amazing things. And I think it should be giving them the flexibility to come in when they need to, pull out when they need to get attention to other works in their life, especially if they’re not like paid or will pay for some of that work. To take a break when their mental health is needed, and I think they have that. When they have that flexibility, they give you 200% of their time, because they come at it their own terms. Also getting them involved in practical challenges and giving them real life experiences that they relate to it, and they don’t have to attend other things that is not of their expertise or relevance. I think, I mean, from our, we have a privilege at the UN organization where we can nominate them to large scale decision making processes, and I think this is where they see the value of sitting with minister and head of states and be able to communicate the reality of their life. And I think it’s very different when they say it than when we say it, or when older people say, oh yeah, I was young once. I know what you feel, like no, you’re not. This is a different reality, and I think it needs to be said by them, themselves. Thank you.

Alice Lanna:
I could afford two more minutes and come back, because this panel is really very interesting, so I’m glad that I can help, I can collaborate as well. Just to go really, really quickly on these two questions, one thing that I do feel that I miss in some of the funding processes. It is the ability for the person who is being funded to participate in the design of the process, to be heard, not only be thrown into the process as a tool that will be sent through all the phases, but someone whose opinions will also be listened to, and in this way they will even engage more, right? They will feel that their opinion, not only on the content, but on the process as well, is valuable, and maybe for the funders, they will not get exactly the results they wanted, they envisioned, but maybe they will get a better result in a different form, so I think that’s one approach that I would like to bring. Another thing that I think relates to what we’re talking here is we have to have this balance between mentoring and trust, because I think it’s important when we’re talking about funding to have someone who’s there for the process and listening and helping, but there also must be trust in the sense of flexibility and understanding that the person who is being funded or the organization who is being funded is not like an empty vessel that needs to be filled, it also has their experiences and a lot to teach as well, not only learn. So I think I kind of gave this overview on the issue, but if I had to choose two words, I would say it would be this balance between guidance or mentoring and trust in the person who’s there. Thank you.

Barbara Leodora:
Hi, I wanted to talk about our experience in Article 19 Brazil. This campaign started in 2020 with the pandemic. We had this money that we would use to activities and things that we’re doing in person and we couldn’t anymore, so we figured we would reroute these two popular communicators because we figured they were the most qualified people to inform the Brazilian people on the state of the pandemic and what we should and shouldn’t do, especially because at the time we had a government that was spreading misinformation. So we had to come back to that. And I took some notes on things that we’re proud of in this program that we kept doing and making it better. So the first thing is that it’s not technically a digital rights fellowship, but it’s also extremely related to it because all of these fellows, they do what they do online. They do what they do digitally. They do what they do using technical things, technology. And also, we are thinking about a next edition specifically on digital rights. So I hope we can do it. The first thing we realized at the time is that we couldn’t have rules for the spending of the money. This is because, firstly, it was a pandemic. And people were without their jobs. They were without their normal lives and everything else. And also, because in Brazil, we have a very extensive territory and extensive different realities. So we figured we couldn’t have rules on like, oh, you have to spend this money on buying stuff to produce the information. You have to spend this money on this and not that. Because we had people at the time using the money to pay bills. So this was the first rule that we decided on. And I think it’s the most important one. I think it’s the most valued rule or non-rule that we have in this program and that people appreciate more. And I think this created a trust between us and our fellows. And I think it’s about respect, too, because I think we’re trusting them to do, you can do whatever you want with it. We’re just trusting you’re going to keep doing what you’re doing that is communication, qualified in communication. And this is about respecting their identities. It’s about respecting their agency, and their autonomy, and their realities. Because we figured we shouldn’t do that. We shouldn’t. Also, in the formats of the productions, like we couldn’t tell them, oh, you need to do a three-minute video. Because each reality was different. We had people that were doing things that were not necessarily as we think about popular communication. Because there were dialogues with indigenous people. There were dialogues with quilombola territories. So I am very proud to tell this every time we have new fellows to say, no, we’re respecting your identities. We’re respecting your autonomy. And it’s also great to see the reaction to it. Also, capacity building, this was something that we implemented over the additions. And the last one, and this one, we have courses, and workshops, and creating this capacity for them to produce what they produce already so well, but in specific things. Also, the community network building, we see the campaign and the fellowships as a group. So we also have WhatsApp groups, so we can communicate, because they’re all over Brazil. And they also cited this already, this community creation, where they also participate in the design of the program. They also make decisions with us on what they’re doing on the results of this. And lastly, the active engagement of the fellows with the rest of the organization. ArtCon Brazil 19 has four or five thematic areas. And they all interacted with the fellows all throughout the campaigns, all throughout the additions. We call them to give interviews. We call them to new projects. We call them to things that aren’t necessarily part of the fellowship program, but we are engaging them with the ArtCon 19 all of the time. And I think that’s it. And mutual learning, which was also already cited, because we love to hear what they felt about the addition, about the fellow, and then implement new and better things in the next additions every time. I think that’s it. Thank you.

Eve Goumont:
Short, yeah. I’ll build upon what’s been said there. There’s two things that I found super interesting. The first one being trust, and if you want to maybe trust us, and maybe you’ll get something better than what you were expecting. And I think it is something that is extremely valuable as a comment. Because oftentimes, I feel like when you have to apply to fellowship, you have to say, in a year, I’ll be working on this or that. Technology is fast paced. It’s hard to be capable of working on the thing you said you would be working on when you apply. So trusting fellows and allowing them to work on whatever they want to work on, oftentimes, it gives good result, I think. I hope so. And the second thing is mental health and competition. This is something that we like, at least as academic family community. And if fellowships were able to provide that to create a sense of community and solidarity between people, I think it would be super interesting. And I have noticed that it often happens when you don’t have people who all look the same, when you have people that are quite different, that come from a different field of expertise, different countries, and the competition is less present in those circumstances. Because you can learn from one another instead of competing with each other. Yeah.

Dennis Redeker:
Thank you very much. Just looking online, is there anyone online who wanted to intervene? Doesn’t seem to be the case. We do have a few minutes left. Does anyone want to comment, again, come again, or? Yeah, I sent a message and asked. No, it doesn’t seem to be anyone online. Any questions here in the room? I can add one more. Please.

Anita Gurumurthy:
Thank you. I’m sorry for your big line.

Ahmad Karim:
I think one thing that we learned also from the past experiences is that engaging the fellows in the redesign of programs is very important. And having them to be part of the governance of the program itself. I mean, what we did is that we chose a group. I mean, we got a nomination from the group itself to be part of the redesign of the next phase. So they drove from their experiences, what worked, what haven’t, what would they recommend, what they have loved to do more on this kind of activity. And then we picked up those, and we made them the core of the group. Also, when we included them in the selection process, so there was also a group that we asked them different representation from the group to be part of the selection process of the next fellows. That gave us a little bit of, well, first, they knew a lot of those people. They gave us more insights. And they also had more, like, less bias. And they brought that perspective of they are on the same level. So they know what certain people would say. But also, they could feel that certain fellows that doesn’t have the capabilities to market themselves, because a lot of great people are too modest. But they also know about some of their great work. And they were saying, no, we know that person is really amazing, and they’re doing this. But they did not mention this on their application. And that was really helpful to have on the ground validation of our members. And I think that’s really helpful to have that check from the ground and the connection and involved and redesign the program every time you get a chance to do it. And I think having mutual responsibility in the management also really helped. Well, it elevates some of the workload from us. But it gives us also more chances to get that responsibility. So they also feel, from the perspective of the management of the fellowship or the program, what is happening and why certain decisions are made this way. But by including them, we also get insights of other ways to do it. Or it could be easier or faster. Sometimes it’s not faster. But at least when we make a decision together, it’s common responsibility. And people feel good about it because it’s our own decision. We’re in this together. So when there is that freedom to make the decision together, it takes time. But it’s really helpful to just get it, to get them all on board on this decision that they might be affected by.

Dennis Redeker:
Thank you so much, everyone, actually. If I can may just reflect very shortly on our current plans and what I’ve heard. This is so inspiring to hear these things, things that we partly haven’t thought about so much. I think as a digital constitutionalism network and also with the cooperation, we can learn a lot. I mean, thinking about participation in governance coming from a university setting that often is assumed. So when we teach, we know there are formal roles for students to have in university governance. But if we branch out and if we engage other stakeholders, then this doesn’t necessarily apply. If we think about this being open as a training for civil society, it doesn’t mean that people are matriculated into the university. So they don’t have the same rights necessarily. So we need to develop new governance mechanisms. And we can be more, I think, flexible in that sense with new mechanisms that might even be better than the ones we have. And so many things that I haven’t actually thought about. The question of your solution to the question of competition being people from different places, that really doesn’t put them in the kind of competition. I mean, you in Asia-Pacific have this automatically if you take one person or two from each country. So this was really, really, really helpful for us to think this through. And we were developing this. We’re submitting this for grant applications. And we’ll also update everyone who submitted the email address today if there’s something coming through. And anyways, we’ll be taking a note. We’ve taken notes. We’ll put this on the IGF website, obviously, after the session. And you’ll get the survey results. Anita, is there anything you want to say?

Anita Gurumurthy:
I just want to thank everybody for being so generous with your reflections. Because I think there is a wealth of experience coming from different standpoints. And thanks for the candid feedback and your time to fill in the survey. Thank you. Yeah. I want to give a round of applause to Juan Frazier.

Audience:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I don’t know, I’m just following orders. What do I know? No shit. Okay. And we’re out one page. Now I’m kind of confused. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So should we stay close to the folks there?

Audience

The focus of the analysis is the significance of national partnerships between the private sector, civil society, and governments in establishing a robust data economy. These partnerships are deemed essential at a national level, bringing together stakeholders to collaborate on developing and managing data resources.

The argument presented highlights the necessity of national partnerships for effectively implementing a data economy. The involvement of the private sector, civil society, and governments is seen as vital in addressing the challenges and opportunities related to data sharing and utilization. The analysis stresses the need for all relevant parties to form synergistic partnerships to effectively tackle these issues, as they are critical for progress.

Additionally, the analysis emphasizes the need for an intermediary to oversee and manage data pooling. Data pooling is deemed valuable for companies as it enables greater access to diverse data sources. However, commercial sensitivity issues can arise from data pooling. Therefore, an intermediary is recommended to facilitate and navigate the complexities of data pooling, ensuring that commercial sensitivities are appropriately addressed.

Furthermore, the analysis advocates for the creation of universal international standards for data sharing. The presence of different data regulations and licenses in each country is considered an obstacle to effective data sharing. Government obstructions in accessing data are also recognized as hindrances to technological advancement. To overcome these challenges, the establishment of international standards is recommended. This includes considering South-South cooperation in standard setting to ensure comprehensive and inclusive standards.

Lastly, the International Governance Forum (IGF) Secretariat is specifically mentioned as being tasked with setting international standards. This underscores the recognition of the IGF’s pivotal role in developing standards and guidelines for the governance and management of data resources on a global scale.

In summary, the analysis highlights the importance of national partnerships in fostering a robust data economy. The involvement of the private sector, civil society, and governments is pivotal in tackling challenges related to data sharing and utilization. The need for an intermediary in managing data pooling, the creation of universal international standards for data sharing, and the role of the IGF Secretariat are all key points addressed in the analysis. Overall, the analysis provides valuable insights into the considerations and recommendations for the effective development and management of data resources.

Helani Galpaya,

Public-private data partnerships are crucial in understanding and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Microsoft, a key player in these partnerships, not only shares data but also provides infrastructure, capacity building, and sets standards. However, there is a trade-off for companies like Microsoft between generating revenue and undertaking philanthropic work due to their commercial nature. Balancing these trade-offs requires careful consideration and strategic decision-making. Investing in low digitally connected countries is seen as a long-term vision that can contribute to achieving the digital SDGs and bridging the digital divide. Data protection laws pose challenges to data sharing and research collaborations, but techniques like federated learning offer potential solutions to work around these restrictions. Data pooling can also maximize the value of data by pooling resources from multiple companies and government departments, leading to collective insights. To ensure data privacy and security in data pooling scenarios, it is important to involve a trustworthy party. By leveraging the expertise and resources of both the public and private sectors, we can make progress towards the SDGs and create a sustainable future.

Rodrigo Iriani

The Latin America and Caribbean region faces challenges in the data ecosystem and requires increased participation from the private sector. It is known to be one of the most unequal regions in the world, with limited involvement from the private sector in the data ecosystem. Successful examples of public-private data partnerships invest time and effort in building trust, establishing proof of concept, and adapting value propositions. These partnerships align their projects with the mandates of development, human rights, and democracy, showcasing the potential for collaboration between the public and private sectors.

Active government and private sector initiatives play a crucial role in providing digital and data skills, capacity building, and employability. Philanthropic support and development projects have seen a noticeable shift, with examples such as a project in Jamaica that aims to train youth in digital skills and data literacy. This positive sentiment reflects the efforts made to bridge the skills gap in the region.

To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, synergy between the private sector, government entities, and civil society is necessary. Multilateral development banks require more collaboration between these stakeholders, emphasizing the significance of collective action in addressing challenges and achieving sustainable development.

The established platform and relationships with multinational organizations, governments, and big companies generate trust for new partners, demonstrating the potential for future collaborations. However, a challenge lies in gathering new funding, as some private sector entities and international donors do not cover operational costs. This negative sentiment highlights the need for alternative funding sources or increased support from these entities.

Adapting the current model is necessary to continue making an impact on the communities being served. This neutral sentiment acknowledges the need for flexibility and evolution to effectively address the evolving needs of the region.

National partnerships and private sector data are crucial for social and economic development. Successful partnerships between the private sector and national ministries have been observed, using data for social and economic development, such as through hackathons. This positive sentiment underscores the potential of data-driven collaborations for positive change.

National ministries should be involved in discussions about data use from the outset, as their involvement is crucial in defining data sets and the focus of solutions. This sentiment aligns with the goal of inclusive and equitable decision-making processes.

The private sector should be flexible and open when working with government entities and should share best practices, considering their different operational approaches. This positive sentiment recognizes the importance of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and adaptive strategies to achieve common goals.

The public sector should strengthen its capacities and develop a data culture. This positive sentiment emphasizes the importance of building the necessary skills and mindset within the public sector to effectively utilize data for decision-making and governance improvement.

In conclusion, the Latin America and Caribbean region faces challenges in the data ecosystem, but opportunities for improvement exist. Increased private sector participation, active government and private sector initiatives, and synergy between stakeholders are essential for achieving sustainable development goals. Building trust, adapting models, and addressing funding challenges are necessary steps in driving positive change. National partnerships, inclusive decision-making processes, and knowledge sharing are vital for social and economic development. The public sector should focus on capacity building and fostering a data-driven culture. Through these efforts, the region can overcome its challenges and pave the way for a more prosperous future.

Mike Flannagan

Microsoft has demonstrated a strong commitment to supporting nonprofits worldwide by providing nearly $4 billion in discounts and donations. These contributions aim to facilitate the work of nonprofit organizations and help them fulfill their missions more effectively. In line with this commitment, Microsoft has developed the Microsoft Cloud specifically for nonprofit organizations. This cloud solution is designed around a common data model that addresses the specific needs of nonprofits, such as attracting donors and delivering programs at scale. By leveraging this common data model, nonprofit organizations can access and utilize technological solutions more easily and affordably.

In addition to their financial support, Microsoft embraces corporate social responsibility (CSR) and actively tracks their work against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They have initiated collaborations across various sectors, including nonprofits, universities, companies, and governments, to promote data sharing and access. Through these collaborations, Microsoft aims to foster partnerships for achieving the SDGs and drive positive social impact. This approach highlights Microsoft’s belief in the importance of community engagement and their dedication to making a difference through technology.

Microsoft acknowledges the significance of open data in driving impact, even though full openness may not always be feasible due to privacy or commercial concerns. They emphasize the value of utilizing data in a more open manner to break down data silos and promote transparency and collaboration. This stance reflects their understanding of the importance of balancing data privacy and the benefits of sharing data for greater societal good.

Furthermore, Microsoft advocates for inclusive economic growth. They emphasize that economic progress should not only benefit shareholders but also consider the well-being and prosperity of a broader range of stakeholders. This is evident in the way Microsoft structures compensation for executives and employees, aligning it with principles of inclusive growth.

In line with the technological advancements of the modern era, Microsoft recognizes the urgent need for building skills globally, with a particular focus on technology, data, cybersecurity, and AI. They acknowledge the existence of a global skills gap in these areas and view their investments in skill building as beneficial both for the world and the future of their company. By championing skill training and development in these critical areas, Microsoft aims to empower individuals and enhance employability in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Mike Flannagan, a representative of Microsoft, views the collaboration between Microsoft and governments worldwide as highly valuable. Such collaborations enable governments to leverage Microsoft’s expertise and technology to address common societal challenges effectively. Flannagan also supports the adoption of global standards for data privacy and protection. Standardization in these crucial areas would simplify operations on a global scale and ensure consistency and compliance across borders.

Overall, Microsoft’s commitment to supporting nonprofits, tracking their work against the SDGs, promoting data sharing, advocating for inclusive economic growth, building relevant skills, and collaborating with governments reflects their dedication to driving positive change and using technology as a force for good.

Darlington Ahiale Akogo

Forming partnerships between the public and private sectors can be challenging due to language barriers and differences in procedures, often leading to frustration. The public sector, such as the government, possesses the reach and assets, while the private sector, particularly start-ups, offer innovation. However, their differing communication methods and procedures can create obstacles in establishing effective collaborations.

One solution to ease the formation of public-private partnerships is to have a facilitator with experience working in the public sector. This individual can bridge the gap between the two sectors and facilitate engagement. Additionally, international development agencies, experienced in working with both public and private sectors, can contribute to the formation and facilitation of these partnerships.

Successful examples of public and private partnerships exist, particularly in agriculture and healthcare. These collaborations have led to significant projects and data collection. For instance, a company formed partnerships with public health institutions, gaining access to a hundred years of data on Africans. Another project in agriculture involving the government and a public university resulted in the creation of the largest disease and pest data sets in the world. These success stories highlight the potential for effective collaboration between public and private sectors.

Adhering to data protection laws is crucial when handling sensitive data in these projects. It is important to consider the data protection laws of the country of operation. Even in the absence of specific regulations, following a standard like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ensures the secure handling of sensitive information. Maintaining data privacy and security is vital in public-private partnerships.

The political will to form partnerships is crucial for governments. Partnerships can help address the toughest challenges within a country by utilizing data-centric or artificial intelligence solutions. Governments should recognize the potential benefits of collaborations and demonstrate the necessary commitment and support to foster their formation.

Furthermore, the success of public-private partnerships within a government often relies on internal political agreement and consensus. Merely having a few agencies willing to fund these partnerships is insufficient; there needs to be broader recognition and agreement within the government. Creating an environment where different agencies within the government understand and value the potential impact and efficiency of collaboration is essential.

In conclusion, forming partnerships between the public and private sectors can be challenging due to language barriers and differing procedures. However, having a facilitator with experience in the public sector and involving international development agencies can facilitate the formation and success of these partnerships. Public and private collaborations have the potential to achieve significant milestones and data collection, particularly in agriculture and healthcare. Adhering to data protection laws and regulations is crucial when handling sensitive information. Governments should demonstrate the political will to form partnerships and strive for internal consensus and support within their agencies. By doing so, they can effectively address the toughest challenges within their countries, harnessing the power of partnerships for the benefit of all.

Mona Demaidi

The analysis highlights the crucial role of international collaboration and data sharing in AI research, supporting SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, and SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals. Accessible data is essential for AI research, and pooling resources, such as computational resources and talent, proves beneficial. Cross-cultural understanding is also important for translating research into a global aspect.

Ethical considerations, including transparency and gender equality, must be prioritised in AI development, aligning with SDG 5: Gender Equality and SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. However, ethical challenges, such as data privacy, security, and transparency, pose obstacles to international collaboration.

The lack of a structured protocol for data-sharing between different countries hinders progress in AI development. Harmonising legal frameworks to achieve transparency is a challenge, and data use and deployment must consider various aspects of data.

The MENA region lacks a legal framework for data privacy and protection, leading to hesitancy among the private sector in providing data due to uncertainty about the benefits of AI. Efforts are underway in the region to establish international standards for data sharing and create an AI ethics strategy.

Governments need to establish a governance structure to ensure the involvement of all stakeholders. The private sector should better comprehend the potential benefits of AI and the significance of structuring and labelling data to contribute to SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure.

In conclusion, international collaboration and data sharing play a vital role in AI research. Ethical considerations, challenges in data-sharing, and the absence of a legal framework for data privacy and protection need to be addressed. Efforts are being made to establish international standards for data sharing in the MENA region. Collaborative involvement and data sharing are key to efficient AI use and achieving SDG goals.

Philipp Schönrock

The analysis highlights the significance of public-private data partnerships in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The speakers stress that the most successful initiatives are those where partners invest time and effort to establish a proof-of-concept, build trust, and adapt and iterate the value proposition over time. These partnerships play a crucial role in addressing complex global challenges.

However, the analysis also acknowledges that there are significant challenges in initiating, completing, monitoring, and scaling up private-public data initiatives. One major hurdle is the lack of coherence across under development and standard operating procedures. This lack of consistency hampers the efficiency of public-private partnerships for SDGs, particularly in the Global South. The enabling environment required for these partnerships is lacking, despite initial hype surrounding their potential. Overcoming these obstacles is essential in order to fully leverage the potential of public-private partnerships for sustainable development.

In addition to public-private partnerships, the analysis emphasizes the need for collaboration among the data, tech, and statistical communities. There are still critical data gaps that need to be addressed in order to better understand and tackle important global issues such as climate change, poverty, and inequality. Closing these data gaps requires the convergence of expertise from the data community, tech community, and official statistics. Through this collaboration, a comprehensive and accurate understanding of these issues can be achieved, leading to more effective strategies and actions.

Overall, the analysis underscores the importance of public-private data partnerships and collaboration among different communities to achieve the SDGs. The success of these initiatives hinges on trust, adaptability, and investment of time and effort. By addressing the challenges and working together, stakeholders can unlock the full potential of data-driven solutions for sustainable development.

Isuru Samaratunga

A research study involving 94 countries has emphasised the value of public-private data partnerships in the Global South for monitoring and achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The study identified a total of 394 data actions within these partnerships, with a specific focus on SDGs related to climate action, sustainable cities and communities, and good health and well-being.

It is important to note that not all SDGs hold equal importance across different regions. Climate action, sustainable cities and communities, and good health and well-being were found to be the most commonly addressed SDGs in these partnerships. This implies that these particular goals are deemed more urgent and relevant within the Global South.

However, the research also acknowledged certain challenges in establishing successful public-private partnerships. Time and trust-building were identified as crucial elements for ensuring the success of these collaborations. Partnerships require dedicated efforts and active participation from both public and private entities. It is imperative to invest time in developing trust between the stakeholders involved to overcome potential obstacles and achieve desired outcomes.

Furthermore, the research suggests that large firms with global reach are better equipped to sustain these relationships. Their established networks and resources make them better positioned to navigate the complexities of public-private partnerships. This observation could have implications for future partnership establishment, with an emphasis on involving influential and globally connected corporations.

Another key argument presented is the significance of having a legal framework in place to enable and support these partnerships. A well-defined legal framework can provide clarity on the roles and responsibilities of each party involved, facilitate decision-making processes, and offer protection for all stakeholders. The presence of a legal framework can enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of public-private partnerships.

Additionally, the research highlights the pivotal role of brokers in the success of public-private partnerships. Brokers act as mediators or facilitators between the public and private entities, bridging skill and capacity gaps, and providing technical infrastructure. Their involvement adds value to the collaboration by ensuring effective communication, negotiation, and coordination between the parties, ultimately leading to more successful outcomes.

In conclusion, public-private data partnerships hold tangible value in monitoring and achieving SDGs in the Global South. However, establishing successful collaborations requires time, trust-building, and the involvement of large firms with global reach. The presence of a legal framework and the role of brokers as mediators or facilitators are crucial factors that contribute to the success of public-private partnerships. By considering these elements, stakeholders can enhance their efforts in achieving sustainable development goals in the Global South.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you for joining us today. We have about 23 people in the room and 22 people online, so I think certainly quorum to get started. This session is on public-private data partnerships with a particular focus on the global south, the majority world. We are going to talk about the practical problems and possibilities around public sector and private sector and civil society working together using data to achieve various development objectives, particularly the SDGs. We know the argument that data is essential for understanding where we are in achieving the SDGs and sometimes to actually achieving the SDGs, so not just for monitoring it but for achieving it as well. We have two speakers next to me here, I will introduce each one very briefly because everyone’s bio is online, and we have four speakers online and an online moderator. So I will first invite Philip Schonrock, who is the director of CEPE, an independent think tank that works through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to scale up the participation of Latin America and Caribbean within the global development agendas to set the stage about why on earth do we even need to talk about these public-private data partnerships. Philip, over to you.

Philipp Schönrock:
Well, good morning, Helene, to you a very early morning. Good morning from Cali, Colombia, and I’m happy to join you today. And I’m going right in to what my colleague Elani just mentioned, five think tanks and universities from across the regions, and especially the Global South, as it was mentioned. We came together with the support of IDRC to understand one main point, which was the extents of which the private sector data-related contributions to the public policy in the Global South are adding value. Very specifically, we will be talking about our exploration into three concrete phases. The extents, first, to which and how the private sector has contributed to the so-called data revolution of the SDGs. The second point is that their contribution to good data governance practices. And last but not least, we will be talking today about the challenges that we are facing, not only from the private sector, but especially from government and civil society, attempting to use and to work together on the sources of data. I believe, most importantly, to let my colleagues talk and see what we actually found out through a mapping exercise in five regions in eight case studies with companies and looking at how we actually are able to produce much better value if we monitor and document these actions. And I will, before giving over to Elania before, I believe it is important to mention that across all regions in the Global South, the most successful examples that we have found in public-private data initiatives are the ones which partners have invested. First time, efforts and needed to establish a proof-of-concept, build trust, and adapt and iterate the value. proposition over time. And I believe, Elani, I will turn over to you in mentioning the significant challenges to initiating that we had, completing and monitoring, and especially in scaling up private public data initiatives because the lack of coherence that we found across under development and standards operating procedures needed to develop them. So this is all from my side, Elani, I will hand over to you because a lot of our colleagues will be sharing their insights with us now. So over to you and thank you for giving me the floor. Let me ask you a quick rebuttal question before we move on to the next speaker. Wasn’t this, you know, started with a lot of hype that the private sector would be a huge partner in the SDGs in monitoring? So, I mean, are we, we’re still talking about it seven years from everyone collectively not achieving the SDGs. Is that why this is really important now? Or shouldn’t this have already happened? I mean, private sector should be working quite efficiently with public sector? Yes, we should, and it is not still happening on the, we are still on the hype, but not on the how. I believe we have had quite a lot of good examples, but what we have had is not an enabling environment where the private sector comes together with the other actors. I believe this is something we have seen throughout the last seven years that this hype has not brought together actually the data community and the tech community with the official statistics to close data gaps. And I believe the most important thing to say here is the hype has not remained. It has been losing ground and we are not closing still the data gaps that we need. Good examples are out there. We will show them, but they’re. it’s imperative that we have these partnerships, especially in the Global South, in order to help us in those data gaps like climate change, poverty, inequality, and that’s where we’re still missing the point. And like I said, we are not seeing the enabling environment at all levels in order to prevent.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you, Philippe. I’ve now asked Isuru Samratunga, who’s sitting on my right, your left. He’s a research manager at Learn Asia, which is a pro-poor, pro-market think tank working in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Isuru leads Learn Asia’s qualitative research work across a range of digital technology policy issues. What we’ve asked him to do is to frame the discussion by summarizing some of the findings of this Global South study to understand the state of play through some evidence. Thank you.

Isuru Samaratunga:
Yep, thank you, Helani. And hope you can see my slides. Yes. So actually, Philippe talked about like why public-private data partnerships are important in Global South. So let me take you through some of key findings of our research that we did on public-private data partnerships. So just for you to give you the context, I mean, from this study, we tried to explore the private sector involvement in data-related initiatives. Also then how those initiatives can have an impact on public policies as well. Again, we looked at like how these public-private data partnerships can be contributed to achieve SDGs as well as if you wanna monitor such achievements, how these partnerships can be helped as well. So our study spanned across five regions. in the Global South, so these are the countries and the regions that we covered. And so if I tell you a little bit about the methodology that we followed, so we had two work streams to gather data for this particular study. So first one was like structured mapping study of public-private data partnerships in the Global South. So there we covered 94 countries and also we found 394 data actions. So when I say data actions, that included things like capacity building and skill sharing and also like data collaboration, data governance, data mapping, things like that. And so the second part of this particular study was kind of a qualitative study that we did. So we selected a few, I would say like eight cases from our mapping study and we did in-depth case study based on our mapping study findings as well as, you know, thinking of the diversity of these data partnerships also. So that case, eight case studies also covered five regions. And so let me take you through some of key findings of this particular study. So we saw that not all the SDGs are important as same. So we saw across all the regions, climate actions, sustainable cities and communities, and also good health, well-being are the most prioritized or the common SDGs that were focused through these public- private data partnerships. And also if you take how these SDGs were prioritized by different regions, you see the eyes are different. For example, like in Africa, you see that good health and well-being has become the most important thing, and also in Asia, it is zero hunger and sustainable cities and communities. But if you go to Caribbean region, that’s obviously the quality education. But if you take LATAM and MENA regions, more or less it is climate actions that got the attention in data actions. So what we found from these work streams were mainly like, there is a tangible value or real-world value of these public-private data partnerships. So it helps you to monitor and also achieve sustainable development goals. So we did this study after the pandemic situation, and we saw really how the common thread or the crisis helped on, crisis made different parties to come into partnerships. If I’m giving you an example from Nepal, which we had an earthquake in 2015, where after the crisis, when the vulnerable communities, where they are those things, when the government wanted to find out, the data analytics helped in that front. But also successful partnerships can take time and it needs trust building. So because these partnerships sometimes need a lot of time because you need partnership building, and sometimes you need to have a dedicated person. from, it can be from the private company or from the government organization. And also we are seeing that large firms with global reach are better able to sustain such relationships. And also it is good if there is a legal framework that can be in those countries that can enable the partnerships. And also we saw that some partnerships mostly depend on personal kind of relationships. So we saw some partnerships hadn’t achieved the goals because of certain changes and also due to the informality of those partnerships. So we suggest kind of like a standard operating procedure that might help on those things. And also the government like to engage with private sector data that have an impact on multiple policy areas. For example, one study in Indonesia where we found that a big data analysis of public transport users in Jakarta city where that analysis helped the government to not only to plan their public transport but also to understand the demographics of the people who are using the public transport. For example, like the gender and also the vulnerability, the disabilities of these people and the persons who are using the public transport as well. So that helped a lot in many fronts. And so this brokerage role, it can help the public-private partnerships. When I say brokerage role, it is like as a mediator or kind of a facilitator, you connect the public sector and the private sector because there are like gaps, for example, like skill gaps and also capacity gaps as well. So these brokerage entities can fulfill those gaps and the bridge can be really success and also can provide good insights into data and analytics as well. So also, again, like providing technical infrastructure is also important. That also can be provided by the brokers in certain locations. So these are the main findings that we can share with you from our study, but happy to answer any questions if you have. Thank you.

Helani Galpaya,:
So Isuru, I’m guessing when you did this mapping study, companies and initiatives don’t go and say, oh, we’re working on this SDG. They are working on some partnerships, right? So what do you do? You go and try and read through it and try and assign some SDG, like in that chart that you showed us? Yeah, exactly. So we saw that some organizations, they do a lot of good work, but they don’t know that it can be contributing to one or two or multiple SDG. So in that case, we need to, I mean, from research perspective, if I say, we had kind of a definition on how to identify these SDGs and their contribution to certain achievements and all that. So we did that classification and see where the most of outcomes of those actions are aligned with SDG, and then that’s how we did that. I’m going to come next to… to Mike Flanagan, who is joining us online. He is the corporate vice president at Microsoft, and he leads customer success and services globally for Microsoft’s commercial customers and products. And Microsoft is one of the companies that came up repeatedly in some of the studies, I think, that you were showing. Interestingly, not just about sharing data, but doing a lot more of the data action, setting the standards, providing infrastructure, providing capacity building, and so on, and across all the regions. So Mike, you don’t run a philanthropy, you run a commercial business. How does Microsoft, and perhaps other organizations, but certainly yours, how do you look at this trade-off between generating revenue and what looks like philanthropic activity, which is a government or a civil society organization comes knocking and says, we’ve got a problem, your data can really help us understand where we are or solve that problem?

Mike Flannagan:
I think for us, partially it starts with a culture and the belief that companies that can do more should do more, and certainly Microsoft is in a very fortunate position in terms of our ability to do more. You’ll notice in all of our disclosures, for example, in corporate social responsibility, we do actually map a lot of the work that we do back directly to the SDGs. And because of the way in which we track our work against those, we are not only very proud of what we’re able to do, but we’re able to track a lot of the work that we do back to the direct impact. I think in the past fiscal year for us, we supported nonprofits around the world with nearly $4 billion in discounts and donations, which many technology. providers do. But going beyond that, we also have created the Microsoft Cloud for nonprofits, which is bringing all of our product capabilities together, but around the common data model for nonprofits that brings together data sources for the purposes that most nonprofits need. Things like attracting and growing their donors, delivering their programs at scale, engaging with their audiences. These are things that are common and require a common data model. But we pair that work that we’ve done around the data and the data modeling with discounts and such so that not only are we providing commercially more approachable technology solutions, we’re doing that in a way that also empowers through common data models it to be easier for nonprofits to achieve their mission with a lower overall investment from their organization. And so for Microsoft, we don’t see them as mutually exclusive. We believe that a lot of the work that we do in enabling the commitments that we make around philanthropy actually not only does good for the world, but ultimately helps our commercial objectives. And then we also, as I mentioned, believe that through our commercial objectives, we have a responsibility to give back. One of the things that we talk a lot about is data. And I mentioned some of the data modeling that we’re doing. I think over the past three years, Microsoft has launched 23 different collaborations around data across nonprofits, universities, companies, and governments that help promote access to data. One of the things that we’ve learned from that is that While open data is really important for impact, data doesn’t always have to be fully open in order to be useful. Sometimes even if data can’t be made public due to privacy or commercial sensitivities, there are ways that that data can be used in a more open way so that we can break down some of the silos. I think that’s one of the areas in which we need to continue to do more.

Helani Galpaya,:
And one of the things I think, given Microsoft’s sort of size and large market shares, what you say makes total sense because eventually, even if the market captures in 10 years, you can afford to make those kinds of investments. But I’m curious how it works inside the company. At a large company, the marketing guys are probably on a quarterly sort of bonus or annual bonus scheme, right? The other feedback of the long-term market opening up, because let’s say you’re going to a relatively low digital connectivity country, eventually you will gain high market share for Microsoft products by helping this country achieve some of the digital SDGs. But that’s a sort of a different time frame. Is there a conflict of incentives inside among different sort of business units? And how do you deal with it?

Mike Flannagan:
I mean, of course, there are the realities of the obligations that we have to our shareholders, but part of what we are extremely clear about is that our shareholders expect that, by and large, economic growth must be inclusive. So we don’t hear from our shareholders that it’s all about profit. And so our executives and our people in the way that their compensation is structured also do not hear that it’s all about profit. We believe, of course, that we have responsibilities commercially, but that as we achieve our economic growth as a company, that must be inclusive. We have to help individuals and organizations and communities to succeed because ultimately, if we are doing the things that we need to do, the commercial results will come from that. But also, we will have a world that is more equitable and better for all of us to operate in. If I think about the skills that we need to build around the world, we have a huge gap in skills today around technology, in general, around data in general, cybersecurity and AI are particularly acute areas of need, where if we don’t help with building those skills and helping train people for the jobs of the future, ultimately, we won’t have the people that we need to do the work that fuels our future growth. We see a lot of those investments not only as good for the world but also good for the future of the company. I think those short and long-term objectives can be balanced by commercial organizations.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you, Mike. I’m going to ask Darlington Okongo who is joining us online. He’s the founder and CEO of many companies, including Mino Health AI Labs and others that are working in the AI space. He also interestingly is lead, for example, he’s lead for the topic group on AI for Radiology at the ITU and the WHO focus group on artificial intelligence and health. So, he straddles this very specific AI in a local market, as well as this global multilateral data, health and agriculture kind of roles. So, given these two roles, Darlington… and if you can hear me, could you talk about the biggest sort of challenges in forming partnerships? We know AI is driven by data and your companies may also be producing data. What are the challenges and are they different at a very local national level versus maybe at an international level where you’re trying to do something for the globe? Thank you.

Darlington Ahiale Akogo:
Right, I mean, thank you for having me. That’s a very interesting question. So the starting point is this, public sector, say government, usually have the reach and the assets. So, you know, if you’re looking at the government of a country and you want to do something in agriculture, for example, we did a project in agriculture. The government has extension officers in every district of the country. You in the private sector probably don’t have that reach or it takes a very long time to build that reach. What the private sector really offers, especially if you’re looking at startups, is innovation. So they can come up with how to, you know, better leverage that assets to create new data, create solutions out of it. So that’s the major opportunity that lies there. Now, the challenges is that because, you know, public sector is different, private sector is different, usually there’s a language barrier. And what I mean by that is, you know, public sector communicates a certain way. They go about things in a certain way. They are certain, you know, procedures, which for private sector entity can be quite frustrating to deal with or even understand. And sometimes it feels like, you know, you’re speaking different languages. And so that’s the largest challenge I see. Sometimes too, you need to make it clear what are the incentives from both sides. Because if it’s not clear, then it leads to this. on problematic back and forth, where the government has a certain angle to what they want from the partnership, private sector wants a certain angle. But the language barrier and all of this can usually be solved if you have a facilitating person or entity. So for us, for example, we have someone who has had years of working within that space who were the regional director of AstraZeneca and have done a lot of PPP partnerships. And so when we brought them in, they facilitate all the public sector engagement for us, but also sometimes you can have international development agencies that are funding projects that require PPP. In that case, they can facilitate that kind of relationship because they have extensive years of working with private sector, as well as extensive years of working with government. But to highlight just two of this success, so I mentioned the one in agriculture, we formed a partnership that was actually both government and then public university, and then ourselves. And we’re able to collect data across every single region of Ghana, which is about 16 regions. And then we replicated this in four different African countries. And so this was for disease and pest data sets, which was a project funded by Lacuna Fund. And this data set was then used to build AI solutions to help farmers. And out of this, we ended up creating the largest disease and pest data sets in the world. It wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t have that PPP. And in healthcare, we built AI systems now that are able to interpret medical images to support detection and everything. And we’ve now formed partnership with public health institutions that are giving us access to about a hundred years of data on Africans. And we are using this data now to build large language models, something similar to let’s say GPT-4, but then for healthcare, for radiology, all the other sectors. combined. And outside of that, we wouldn’t have had access to that data because, you know, you need a public institution that has been around for years to then give you access to that data. And then, you know, you find out how it can be beneficial to them. So we build this AI solutions. Sometimes the public institutions that give us this data use the AI stuff for free without having to pay us. So there has to be clear, objective, clear incentives. And I’m guessing this is anonymized and not personally identifiable data, but that would be one of the policy challenges, particularly in the health sector, less so in agriculture. Do you come across this? And how do you deal with that kind of problems? Policy? Exactly. Yes. So one starting point is data protection laws. You have to look at the data protection laws within the country you’re operating in. And for most of them, you know, they would usually tell you P. So PII should not be something that, you know, you should be dealing with. You should try to anonymize the data. And so Ghana, for example, has had data protection laws for several years now. And it’s quite clear what you can do. You need a consent of users if you need to, you know, assess certain data, even if you anonymize it and everything. So, yeah, you have to look at those. Those laws are important. But the issue sometimes is that some countries don’t have data protection laws. But just to be on the safe side, just take the standard. If you want to use GDPR, which is one of the most, you know, well-defined versions, you can take it and leverage it. And just, you know, in the future, you don’t want to create issues because in healthcare, for example, you are building solutions that are beneficial to people. But at the same time, you don’t want to have to do it in a way that is irresponsible because at the end, it will cause damages to even your good intentions become muddied by bad outcomes. So just to be on the safe side, even if there are no regulations that are preventing you from doing it, just do the right thing. It saves you in the long term.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you, Darlington. We now come to Dr. Mona Dimaidi, who is an entrepreneur and women’s rights advocate and from the Anarja National University in the state of Palestine, who is now joining us online. Mona, you are also an AI researcher. What do you think, I mean, given your sort of professional as well as the academic background, and you’ve worked in multiple countries, right? What do you think are the big challenges in international collaborations on data sharing, particularly when it comes to AI research and applications?

Mona Demaidi:
Thank you so much for your question. I’m very happy to be with all of you today. So I’ll start by saying that we all know that AI research is based on data and having access to data. So international collaboration and data sharing is super important to achieve such good research. So the way I see it is that it’s super important to have that kind of collaboration and data sharing for many reasons. And I’ll start by having access to diverse data resources. So international actual collaboration could help us understand more the local context of different countries, understand more the local challenges of each single country and to work around it. The other main important part in international collaboration is having that kind of pooling resources. So AI research in general, it needs a lot of computational resources, talent, power, and having that kind of sharing resource is super important. Another one important aspect is the cross-cultural understanding. So… The way we work now in terms of research, each country is actually focusing on its own challenges, trying to capture the data in its own context. However, having that kind of international collaboration is super important to ensure that our research is actually getting into a global aspect. And it’s also addressing challenges, which we’re gonna be surprised that most of us are facing it regardless of the countries we’re visiting, living in. So it’s very important to have that kind of cross-cultural understanding. The other main important part of having that kind of international collaboration is the ethics part. Like most countries now that they have the AI mission strategies coming out and AI policies. And one thing that we’re still struggling at is the ethical part. How will we ensure that we’re actually addressing transparency? How are we ensuring that we’re addressing gender equality regarding the data and the resources we’re working on? So having that kind of international collaboration will help us address such an issue. And it’s also gonna help us in terms of data privacy and security. So you asked me at the challenges and obstacles. I think what we’re still facing in terms of research and international collaboration is there is still no structured pipeline between these countries on how to do the data sharing, what kind of policies and data security things we need to focus on. How are we addressing ethics? What kind of data could we work on? You know, like each country has its own legal framework and its own policies. So how could we ensure that we’re actually interacting with each other in a very transparent way and we’re using the data also and deploying the data in a way which actually takes into consideration different aspects of the data. So I think these are the main challenges I’m thinking about. However, again, there’s a lot of opportunities actually in having that kind of international collaboration.

Helani Galpaya,:
So interestingly, I mean, you know, there are data protection laws that are coming up in some countries without any exceptions for taking the data out even. even for research purposes without journalistic exceptions and so on, you just can’t transfer that. So who do you work with across borders? Is it other researchers? And also in terms of techniques, does that mean you have to use sort of sophisticated, federated learning kind of things which keep the data in the countries but still allows you to use it? Or do you have to get special permission to transfer data across the countries?

Mona Demaidi:
So in the MENA region context, we work mostly with researchers from other countries. That’s the main part. The main issues we’re still facing is that a lot of the MENA countries in the MENA region, they still don’t have that kind of legal framework related to data privacy and protection and data access. So this is still a huge challenge. So the way we actually play around it is either we have that kind of consent agreements with the private sector we’re working with. That’s one way to look at it. And another thing is that we usually do the analysis and deployment on their own frameworks and platforms without actually taking the data out. And one main issues we’re still facing is also the lack of awareness in terms of, so yes, we want to do that kind of research where we go and approach the private sector in the MENA region. There is still a lack of awareness on what kind of applications we could apply the AI on. They’re not that much comfortable in actually providing us with their data. And even if they do, they’re super cautious on how the data is gonna be used, how it’s gonna be beneficial from them. The good news is that we did some kind of, I’ll say very good proof of concepts in terms of having international collaboration in the MENA region. So recently we actually deployed an AI bootcamp across the MENA region in which we brought the governmental, private sector and international experts all together in one small platform to give us more understanding about where we’re going, what is the current challenges from the governmental and private sectors, how we could play around, what kind of rules and regulations are we still missing and all of that. And the good news is that there’s a lot of. of promises coming from these sectors. However, we still need to consider the ethical and legal framework in a more cautious way, especially in the MENA region.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you, Mona. We finally come to Rodrigo. So Rodrigo, we heard about the really important role that sort of brokers play in the stuff that Isuru was presenting. And we certainly saw in one of the case studies that he was referring to, like Pulse Lab Jakarta was part of the UN system, had enormous convening power and brought together the government of Indonesia who were data users and wanted to understand what was happening in the country, and private sector partners, including telecom companies, social media companies, et cetera, and brokered the deal and also provided the expertise. So it sounds to me a little bit like, you know, somewhat of your role. So you’re the senior program manager at the Trust for Americas, a not-for-profit affiliated with the Organization of American States, which is an intergovernmental body. So in your experience, what does it take to actually bring these partnerships into life and how do you approach this?

Rodrigo Iriani:
Yes, thank you. And thank you again for inviting us and considering the Trust for this case study. So first, for understanding a little bit better my points, we need to have a context of the Latin American, the Caribbean region as one of the most unequal regions in the world that faces different challenges around the data ecosystem and across different countries, especially in the Caribbean. So the data ecosystem in Latin America has relatively little participation from the private sector, and that is something evident in all the regional conferences around open government and open data. So I would like to just make three points or highlight the three main findings. of the case study that resonates the most with the work we are doing in the region. The first one is one of the points that Philip just mentioned when he started the presentation. The most successful examples of public-private data initiatives are one in which the partners have invested time and effort to establish a proof of concept, build trust and adapt and iterate the value proposition over time. This is especially true for us at the Trust, as we have a distinctive operating model that focuses on the final beneficiary in vulnerable communities, and this is especially important in the fact that Mike just mentioned in terms of tackling the gap in skills that we face in the region. So we as a non-profit organization affiliated with a multilateral organization as the Organization of the American State, we try to implement different projects aligned to the mandates of development, human rights and democracy. But we also have a strong DNA in the private sector component. We as an organization were created as part of the OAS, but as an arm of the private sector to participate in development initiatives. So that is why I think it’s important in the case study where you mentioned the importance of this convening organization and their role in mobilizing private sector actors. One of the main examples that we have is the democratizing innovation in the Americas Program that mainly focuses on capacity building in digital skills and data literacy, promoting co-creation processes and the development of local government. local solutions to local problems. And this specific initiative has been supported by private companies such as Microsoft for the last couple of years, Citi Foundation, but also has an important role in terms of involving local government, local private sector, civil society organizations, and academia as well. In this past nine years, we have impacted over 11,000 beneficiaries, mainly youth, but also representative from civil society, private sector, and other stakeholders. The final two highlights that I would like to mention and that resonates a lot with the work we do in the region is the established relationship of powerful factors in private sector engagement and mobilizing initiatives. And there is a need of active government and private sector initiatives that provide connectivity between this digital and data skills demand, the capacity building, and the employability. Recently, we have noticed a shift in terms of philanthropic support and in terms of the development projects where mainly multilateral development banks, for example, requires more synergy between the private sector, the government entities, and civil society. I think we have a very strong role there in convening all these different partners for the Sustainable Development Goals. Finally, to maybe just mention a specific example in Jamaica and I know we have Dr. Minot on there in the Zoom call that can attest to this effort, is one of our projects called Unleashing the Potential of Jamaican Youth through Empowerment and Training, where we partner with the. Inter-American Development Bank, Microsoft, the National Commercial Bank in Jamaica. We collaborate with the Ministry of Education and Youth and local stakeholders in Jamaica to train 1,500 youth in digital skills and data literacy.

Helani Galpaya,:
So does this make it easier because you guys are a regional organization? Like when you approach a private sector company, are you saying, you know, we’ve got five countries that can use your data? So you’re not at a country-level negotiation or does that not make a difference?

Rodrigo Iriani:
I think that the platform we established in the past 25 years, the relationship we have with multinational organization, with government, local governments, national governments, with other big or multinational or multi-Latina companies, I think that kind of platform allows us to have or generate trust in terms of getting new partners on board. And that has been one of the main strengths or assets that we have as a nonprofit. However, recently and mainly after the pandemic, we also noticed that this is not always evident in terms of supporting or philanthropic donations. This kind of second layer foundations as the trust also faces different challenges in terms of gathering new funding because many of the private sector or other international donors don’t cover, for example, operational costs. So that also required adaptation and try to adapt, well, basically adapt the model to continue impacting the communities we serve.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you. We are open for questions. We have. We have two already, I think, on the chat, and we are happy to take from the audience here as well. But while you gather your thoughts, let’s take the first question from my friend, Naina. Can somebody unmute her, please?

Audience:
I hope someone can hear me, I still can’t have my video on. We can hear you clearly. Thank you. So this has been a very insightful panel, and I’m happy I hopped in. Helani, here is where I’m thinking. In as much as we might want to talk about partnerships between private, public, or at international levels, my question is at the national level. Because that is where the rubber hits the road. What kind of national partnerships between private sector, civil society, and governments are needed for us to have a robust data economy? So my question is on national partnerships. Because for me, that is where the rubber hits the road. Whether it is private data, whether it is government data, open data, what kind of partnerships do we need at national level? Thank you.

Helani Galpaya,:
Would any of the panellists like to take the question? National level partnerships?

Rodrigo Iriani:
I can jump in. really quick. In terms of national partnership and private sector data, what has worked a lot for us, and based on some activities we developed with a regional perspective in terms of using data for social and economic development, such as hackathons or other initiatives where youth can use data to create their solutions. It has worked a lot in terms of partnerships, working between the private sector and national ministries, depending on the topic, but since inception in terms of defining the data sets and being very specific on where we want to focus on the solutions. There’s always a challenge in terms of creating specific outcomes in terms of the use of the data, so since the inception I believe that national ministries are important to be involved in the discussion. If I may add, I think whether it’s a ministry

Helani Galpaya,:
or whether it’s a trusted third party or a not-for-profit, but I think somebody needs to be involved because a lot of the time the value of this data is if multiple companies come together and multiple government departments come together, and particularly if companies are coming together, commercial sensitivity arises. So you know the classic example of taxi data, you know, in a country let’s say like Sri Lanka, they will, you know, Uber will have Uber’s data, the two local companies will have their own data, but it’s in the pooling that’s really valuable for each of the other companies as well. But then there’s commercially sensitive data, so who is going to be trusted, whether it’s a government entity and so on, I think. We have another question. One of the panellists wants to respond to Nena’s question from Ayaleve Shabeshian. I’m sorry, I might be mispronouncing your name. If you can speak or Maurice, our online moderator, can read out her question. Maurice, you want to go? Okay, Ayaleve can’t unmute, so Maurice, you will have to be it. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Audience:
Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to just read my question. I’m sure I joined this IJF in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last year. And then I was advocating, asking questions for the Secretariat to have international standards. So what we do now is we have partnership, private and public partnership. Every country has different data. Every country has different regulation and rules. And every country has also different licensing. So in terms of accessible data, which is information, I think we need to set up international standards at least. So what we see now is each country has tried to tackle with the local government and then also some of the sponsors. And as we observed, there is a big issue. Some of the obstacles of the private company to access the government data, the government is not allowing them to do what they want to do. So that’s actually a great obstacle for the improvement of the technology. So my understanding, my question is now, how we set up a standard for international standards like United Nations, IGF, and at least for the basic framework, then follow that and by the two bylaws, the country law, international law, or standards, and then they can at least start up basic standards all over together, especially South-South cooperation will be important in the future, and we need to concentrate and set up the rule, otherwise it will be distorted data set up and use of the technology improvement. So what are the initiatives? My question is, what are the initiatives from this IGA is actually set up for the internet governance forum, international governance law? That’s my question. So thank you so much.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you for your question. I mean, there’s certainly multiple discussions around cross-border data transfer, and I think the answer in part probably depends on the sensitivity of the data. It also probably screams for a government of Japan representative on this panel to talk about cross-border data transfer with trust, which is one of the initiatives that they have proposed, and there was actually a panel on it yesterday. But to the panelists about international standards to share data across, what can we do? I think Mona, you kind of touched upon that a little bit, but is there any activity at an international level happening on this?

Mona Demaidi:
So I could cover actually the MENA region context. So what we’ve been doing recently, and let’s say an international team which is comprised from the MENA region, representative countries, they actually came together to come with something called, they started with something called the AI ethics in the MENA region, then they created the strategy, and now they’re working more on the data itself. So the way I would say that we, I think we all still baby steps everywhere. And I would say that, and people are still figuring out, and countries, governments are still figuring out on which aspects we need actually to focus on more, especially when it comes to data sharing. And again, as you said, the sensitivity is something that’s still super, super important for us to focus on. And I would say generally that things are moving. We’re still not moving very fast. However, I could see in the MENA region, for example, as I said, most countries now they have their strategies, now most countries now actually working on the ethics, more countries now are seeing how they could start working on the data sharing component. So to be honest, I don’t have the, let’s say the accurate answer for such a question, but some movements are working there, and I will see something coming in the upcoming two years, hopefully.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you, Mona. Maybe Donington want to add something. Thank you. I think we are nearly at the end of the session. There’s a comment from the MENA region about how the data philanthropy has to be fully participatory and inclusive, and a really interesting comment from Weiyu online about, which says the fact of private data partnerships is that big techs treat different countries differently. For instance, they give data access to US academics, but not Singaporean academics. The Global South is again at a disadvantage, and we need to do something to change this imbalance. The previous question on international standards is very relevant here. I would very much agree. And I think we’re out of time, but there is a question from a colleague from Ghana, and I’m gonna read it given a small amount of time. With recent acceptance of technology and management systems in Africa, especially in the health sector, what would be your advice? all these African countries in terms of interoperability and sharing of data in the absence of regional data protection laws. So I think along the same lines really important. I know there are sort of regional initiatives that are happening, but perhaps not fast enough. And the best example from the Central Bank Digital Currency International Data Transactions, SWIFT versus BRICS, as an international standard has been pointed out. So that’s just some of the summary. Two things we would ask of you and the panelists. The first is a very quick two-minute poll. If you can go to slido.com, www.slido.com. Isuru, if you can project that. And you enter this code and there’s one question we would like you to answer. If you go to slido.com and enter 2763179, the question is, the main reason preventing private sector sharing their data that can help monitor achieve the SDGs is, three of these options. Which one? And while everyone does that, I’m going to ask the panelists a question. Whoa, lack of incentives. Okay. Unified on the lack of incentives to do so. Not so much. Okay. While it’s going on live, could the panelists think about, if you had one ask of, in the case of the private sector, if you had one ask of government, if you could change one thing that they do differently, what would it be? That’s a question to Mike and to Darlington. What would you ask them to do differently when it comes to public-private data sharing? From Rodrigo, I’m going to ask, what would you ask private sector to do? differently and government to do differently, one thing. And the same question from Mona. Thank you everybody. So the broad consensus, 75 roughly, three-fourths, the lack of incentives. The second is low capacity of governments and a few responses for policies that actually prevent data sharing. Thank you. Closing round, one-minute interventions. I will start with Mike. Well, first let me just

Mike Flannagan:
say I think the collaboration between our organization and governments around the world is generally quite good and we very much appreciate the partnerships that we enjoy with governments around the world to solve some of our very difficult challenges. I think someone mentioned earlier international standards for data protection. Certainly I think it would be helpful for everyone if we had more global standardization on data privacy, data protection. That would make it much easier to operate on a global scale. I’m not sure if it’s me, I’ve lost the ability to hear you.

Darlington Ahiale Akogo:
Thank you, Mike. I was asking Darlington, what’s your one ask? My biggest ask will be that governments should have the political will to form these partnerships. It makes all the difference. The difference between having a few agencies within government willing to fund PPPs and how far this PPPs go usually tends to be on the political will, and it makes all the difference. So more governments across different countries, more agencies should internally have that bind. They should see the benefit of this partnership, how it could lead to solving the toughest challenges that are within the country, either by using data to better understand them or building AI solutions with that data that can help address those problems. But there needs to be that political will internally to make it happen.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you. Mona, I’ll come to you next.

Mona Demaidi:
Yeah, for the governments, I will say that they have to work on establishing a governance structure to ensure that everybody’s involved and to push having data shared. For the private sector, simply I would say, and that’s based on my experience, they need to work more on understanding how AI could help them and understanding the importance of actually structuring and labeling their data and making it usable for everybody to use.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you. Rodrigo. Thanks.

Rodrigo Iriani:
For the private sector, I would say, to be more flexible and open, we’re working with government entities and share best practices as they operate very differently. And for the public sector, I would say, to strengthen the capacities and create a process inside the government to develop and establish a data culture in the public offices.

Helani Galpaya,:
Thank you. So political will, capacity and data culture within government. Private sector to be a lot more willing to collaborate because they work at different sort of time scales. And across countries and international agreement on how we can share data across borders and international privacy and related laws and protections so we can sort of without worrying, enter into partnerships. Thank you to the panelists and Isuru and as the presenter, thank you to the online audience. and the in-person audience, thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of IGF. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Audience

During a recent discussion on global data flow, stakeholders expressed concerns and perspectives on various aspects of the issue. Daichi, an operator of a local IXP in Japan, questioned the need for establishing a new authority to verify data flow and encryption. This highlights the importance of ensuring transparency and accountability in data handling processes.

Javier Reed from Consumers International emphasized the significance of implementing a redress system in data free flows. This system would enable consumers to seek resolution if any issues arise. It underlines the need for adequate safeguards and mechanisms to protect consumers’ rights and interests.

Jameson Olufi from Africa ICT Alliance highlighted the challenge of data access in the US, particularly regarding the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and its impact on intellectual property. This concern emphasizes the need to balance data protection regulations with facilitating access to data for innovation and economic growth.

Masanobu Kato, representing the private sector, emphasized the role of businesses in proposing solutions for data flow and the potential of trust services. This emphasizes the importance of collaboration between stakeholders in developing effective strategies and frameworks for secure and reliable data flow.

An anonymous academic drew attention to the potential effects of data flow with trust schemes on geopolitical tensions. This observation highlights the significance of considering the broader implications and risks associated with global data flow.

Shota Watanabe from a Japanese think tank raised the question of identifying the most suitable forum for operationalizing Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT). This highlights the need for careful consideration to avoid duplicating debates and ensure effective implementation of relevant policies and frameworks.

Lastly, Narayan from Nepal proposed the need for common regulations and collaborations to address privacy, security, and intellectual property issues in cross-border data flow. This suggestion emphasizes the importance of international cooperation and the development of cohesive regulatory frameworks to address the complex challenges posed by data flow across borders.

In conclusion, the discussion on global data flow highlighted concerns and perspectives from various stakeholders. These include the need for transparency, the importance of consumer redress systems, challenges of data access within regulatory frameworks, the role of businesses in proposing solutions, the potential impact on geopolitical tensions, identification of suitable forums for operationalization, and the necessity for common regulations and collaborations.

Raúl Echeberría

In today’s data-driven society, our reliance on data is evident. Almost all aspects of our daily lives, such as health services, government services, marketplaces, and e-commerce, are heavily reliant on data. This emphasises the fact that we live in a society where data is the foundation of our services.

The free flow of data is crucial for ensuring that these services are accessible and beneficial to all individuals. In order to reduce inequalities and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is essential that there is unrestricted data flow. This means that policies and frameworks need to be established to facilitate and support the free flow of data.

While promoting data flow is important, it is equally important to protect the rights and privacy of individuals. Legal frameworks should be put in place to ensure the safe and secure transfer of data without impeding its flow. These frameworks should strike a balance between enabling data flow and safeguarding the privacy of individuals, creating an environment that encourages responsible data handling practices.

To ensure a secure flow of data, effective local, regional, and global policies need to be developed. These policies should address the challenges associated with data flow and establish standards for secure data transmission. It is vital that data flow is seen as the norm, rather than the exception. By implementing robust policies, we can foster an environment that promotes the free exchange of data and encourages innovation and digital development.

However, there are instances where restrictive policies hinder the free flow of data. These policies prevent individuals from benefiting from digital advancements and impede progress. Policymakers need to be aware of the consequences of such restrictions and strive to create an environment that fosters digital development for all.

In addition to policies that directly impact data flow, other factors can also contribute to internet fragmentation. Policies related to infrastructure, taxes, or content moderation, if not carefully implemented, can lead to fragmentation. A fragmented internet poses a significant barrier to the uninterrupted flow of data, affecting the functioning of digital services.

Addressing these challenges requires collaboration between policymakers and stakeholders. Working together, we can develop effective policies and frameworks that facilitate data flow while ensuring the protection of individual rights. The commitment and cooperation of all stakeholders, including governments, businesses, and civil society, are essential in promoting discussions and finding solutions that benefit everyone.

In summary, data flow is fundamental to our modern society, as it underpins almost all aspects of our lives. Establishing policies and frameworks that support the free flow of data, while protecting individual rights, is crucial. Collaboration and commitment from all stakeholders are key to overcoming challenges and creating an environment that promotes data flow and digital development for all.

David Pendle

The fear of government access to data is identified as a significant threat to the free flow of data with trust. Microsoft’s law enforcement national security team receives just over 50,000 requests from governments each year for user data, contributing to a growing mistrust. Fragmentation of the internet, driven by laws motivated by concerns over privacy, sovereignty, or access to data, deepens this lack of trust.

To address these concerns and foster trust in data flows, interoperable multilateral frameworks are deemed necessary. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) process, led by Japan, brings together 38 countries to establish shared principles for data access. These principles include considering legitimate aims, obtaining prior approval, and incorporating oversight and transparency. The United States is actively negotiating data access agreements, and many countries have signed the second additional protocol.

Recognising the importance of balancing privacy and security, technology providers play a critical role as guardrails to ensure that requests for customer data are lawful, compulsory, and align with fundamental rights. While responding to data requests for public safety reasons is necessary, safeguards must protect individual privacy and prevent unwarranted access by governments.

Transparency is essential in establishing accountability within the data ecosystem. Users should be notified when their data is requested, keeping them informed about access to their information. Providers must regularly update statistics to illustrate the actual requests they receive. Transparency reports, published every six months or more frequently, showcase actions taken and promote a higher level of accountability in data handling practices.

Providers should not be compelled to violate the laws of one country to comply with another. Conflicts of laws present a significant challenge, but legal provisions like the comedy challenge in the US allow companies to challenge demands conflicting with laws in other jurisdictions. Companies report these cross-border requests through transparency reports every six months, ensuring the public is aware of the circumstances and potential conflicts.

Establishing more multilateral agreements concerning data requests and privacy is crucial for effective data governance. While bilateral agreements have been pursued, relying solely on them would be lengthy and cumbersome. Implementing more multilateral agreements streamlines data governance, reduces barriers, and facilitates a smoother exchange of data.

Further broad participation and inclusion in discussions concerning data requests and privacy is necessary. The OECD has made efforts to bring diverse voices to the table, incorporating perspectives from privacy advocates, data regulators, law enforcement agencies, national security officials, civil society organizations, and businesses. This inclusivity ensures that various opinions and concerns are considered, guiding the development of comprehensive and balanced policies.

In summary, the fear of government access to data poses a threat to the free flow of data with trust. Microsoft’s statistics highlight the extent of government requests for user data, raising concerns around privacy and trust. To address these fears, interoperable multilateral frameworks, such as the OECD process and data access agreements, are essential. Balancing privacy and security is crucial, with technology providers acting as safeguards. Transparency and accountability are vital in building trust in the data ecosystem. Providers should not be forced to violate one country’s laws to comply with another’s. More multilateral agreements and broader participation are needed to effectively address data requests and privacy concerns.

Maarit Palovirta

The analysis examines various key insights concerning the movement of data in networks, privacy regulations, regulatory coherence, regulatory certainty, geopolitics, and the global market.

Firstly, it highlights that innovations such as virtualisation, cloudification, and 5G are influencing data traffic patterns, resulting in increased cross-border data movement. This suggests a shift in the way data is transported through networks operated by telecom companies. These advancements are seen as positive, as they enable more efficient and effective data exchange globally.

Moving on to privacy regulations, it is noted that the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has led to improved trust among citizens worldwide. The GDPR has not only provided a global model for privacy regulations, but it has also inspired other countries to adopt similar frameworks. The sentiment towards this development is positive, as it highlights the importance of maintaining and enhancing trust in the digital space. Furthermore, it emphasises that the internet will only continue to thrive as long as people perceive it to be trustworthy.

In terms of regulatory coherence, it is highlighted that a common basis is needed to promote simplified and harmonised regulations on a global scale. The analysis argues that the implementation of diverse policies across different regions can potentially lead to internet fragmentation, which poses risks to the seamless flow of information. Therefore, some level of interoperability between regulations is deemed necessary to address this challenge.

The significance of regulatory certainty is also addressed within the analysis. It points out that stability for businesses in the private sector is provided through agreements such as data free flow area agreements established by European policymakers with various countries. These agreements, which ensure the free flow of data, offer regulatory certainty to businesses. The sentiment towards this development is positive, as it recognises the importance of predictable and consistent regulatory frameworks for fostering innovation and growth within the private sector.

The analysis touches upon the impact of geopolitics on the telecommunications sector, highlighting that there is a delicate balance between promoting regional competitiveness and avoiding protectionism. Geopolitics is described as being the flavour of the day in several sectors, suggesting that political factors play a significant role in shaping the dynamics of the telecommunications industry. This observation is neutrally presented, indicating that further examination may be required to fully understand the implications of geopolitics in this context.

Furthermore, it is underlined that the global market is crucial for the majority of industries and private sector organisations. The analysis asserts that increasing third-party engagement for cross-border data traffic is essential for sustainable economic growth, aligning with the goal of achieving decent work and economic growth as outlined in Sustainable Development Goal 8.

Lastly, the importance of developing common principles and avoiding the duplication of regulations is emphasised. It is argued that existing regulations in Europe should serve as a foundation, rather than being replicated, in order to achieve regulatory efficiency and avoid unnecessary bureaucracy. This notion is positively viewed as it highlights the need for collaboration and streamlined approaches in regulatory frameworks.

In conclusion, the analysis sheds light on various aspects related to the movement of data, privacy regulations, regulatory coherence, regulatory certainty, geopolitics, and the global market. It underscores the positive impact of innovations such as virtualisation, cloudification, and 5G on data traffic patterns, as well as the positive effects of the GDPR on global privacy regulations. Furthermore, it stresses the necessity of regulatory coherence and simplification on a global scale to prevent internet fragmentation. The importance of regulatory certainty for businesses in the private sector is highlighted, along with the delicate balance between promoting regional competitiveness and avoiding protectionism. The analysis acknowledges the indispensable nature of the global market for most industries and private sector organisations, while also recognising the need for developing common principles and avoiding duplication of regulations.

Sheetal Kumar

The analysis covers various topics related to data governance and protection, providing valuable insights into the key issues and discussions surrounding these areas.

One of the main points highlighted is the importance of a human rights-based approach to data. The analysis emphasizes that frameworks underpinned by human rights principles provide clarity and protection. It also mentions that data protection legislation embodies many required principles. It is argued that cross-border data sharing agreements should reflect human rights standards. This supports the conclusion that a human rights-based approach is crucial for ethical and responsible data governance.

Another important point made in the analysis is the need for inclusive and diverse participation in data governance. It is argued that more digital rights, civil society, and consumer groups should be involved in decision-making processes related to data governance. The analysis suggests that the role of civil society should be reflected in operationalizing frameworks such as the data free flow with trust framework. This highlights the importance of considering a wide range of perspectives and voices in shaping data governance practices.

The analysis also raises concerns about the trend of data localization. It states that reasons and effects of data localization can vary but highlights a World Economic Forum paper that shows data localization does not necessarily help grow the local economy. It further explains that data localization can lead to surveillance and harm rights within a country. This raises the need to carefully consider the implications of data localization and seek alternative approaches that balance security and privacy concerns.

Equitable access to data and the necessary infrastructure are also identified as crucial factors in data governance. The analysis highlights that while data itself is not valuable without interpretation and analysis, there is a lack of equitable access to data and the ability to use it in certain parts of the world. Investment is seen as needed to make use of data in sectors such as health. This highlights the importance of ensuring equal opportunities for access to data and the necessary resources to leverage its potential.

In terms of data security, the analysis emphasizes the importance of technical and legal measures. Encryption is highlighted as an integral part of a security infrastructure for data, whether it is data in transit or data being stored. This underscores the need for robust security measures to protect sensitive data and mitigate the risks of unauthorized access or breaches.

Noteworthy observations from the analysis include the need for thorough assessments of proposed measures before implementation. It is argued that such assessments are crucial to ensure that the measures achieve their intended effect and do not inadvertently increase insecurity. This highlights the importance of evidence-based decision-making and avoiding hasty actions that may have unintended consequences.

The analysis also emphasizes the significance of open and engaged discussions involving a wide range of stakeholders. It suggests that discussions related to e-commerce, trade, data flows, and data protection are not widely accessible or understood. Therefore, openness and engagement from diverse stakeholders are seen as essential in shaping effective and inclusive policies and frameworks.

Overall, the analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the key issues and considerations in data governance and protection. It highlights the importance of a human rights-based approach, inclusive participation, equitable access, robust security measures, and thorough assessments of proposed measures. These insights can inform policymakers, organizations, and individuals in making informed decisions and driving responsible data governance practices.

Carl Gahnberg

The success of the Internet can be attributed to its effective governance, management of the Domain Name System (DNS), and the development of open standards. These factors have allowed for convenient global connectivity and data flows, making the Internet a powerful tool for communication and innovation. The Internet is also designed to evolve and adapt over time, ensuring it remains relevant and efficient.

However, certain regulatory policies threaten the principles of accessibility and open architecture that underpin the Internet. Countries like South Korea, India, and Brazil are discussing imposing regulations that would require online services to pay network usage fees. This could hinder the accessibility and openness of the Internet by creating barriers for smaller online services and limiting innovation.

Another threat to the Internet’s principles is the attempt to prevent the use of end-to-end encryption. Governments argue that this measure is necessary for security reasons, but it can compromise the privacy and security of users. Encryption plays a crucial role in data security and must continue to be supported to protect users’ sensitive information.

To ensure that Internet policies are effective and consider the potential consequences, it is important to include impact assessments as part of the policy formulation process. Impact assessments can help understand the outcomes and ramifications of specific policies and facilitate cross-border data flows. It is also important to preserve certain key policies, such as net neutrality, to maintain a fair and open Internet.

Discussing these important Internet issues in multiple forums is crucial. While all forums may have some barriers to participation, having multiple avenues for discussion ensures a diverse range of perspectives are heard. The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) system, which includes national and regional IGFs culminating in the global IGF annually, is an example of a platform that can facilitate these critical discussions.

Approaching Internet challenges requires a “think globally, act locally” principle. This principle, successfully employed in the environmental and security sectors, is essential when working within a global infrastructure and interacting with a global society. By considering the global context while taking local actions, we can address the challenges facing the Internet comprehensively and effectively.

In conclusion, the success of the Internet is attributed to factors such as effective governance, open standards, and convenient connectivity. However, regulatory policies that threaten accessibility and open architecture, along with attempts to hinder encryption, present challenges to the Internet’s evolution. Impact assessments, multiple forums for discussion, and the “think globally, act locally” principle are important in addressing these issues and ensuring the Internet remains a powerful tool for communication, innovation, and collaboration.

Nwakanma Nnenna

Data flows are essential for economic growth and human development as they are closely tied to human mobility and revenue generation. The value of data is derived when it is moved, processed, and utilized effectively. This positive relationship between data flows and economic growth and human development underscores the importance of data in driving progress in various sectors.

Data plays a critical role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in sectors such as agriculture, health, and education, especially in developing countries. Data serves as the foundation for the SDGs, acting as both a product and a catalyst for positive change. An example of this is the International Digital Health and AI Research (IDA) initiative, which demonstrates the significance of cross-border data flows in advancing health research and ensuring quality healthcare services globally.

The successful operationalization of data flows relies on establishing trust, which should not be limited to government involvement alone. Building trust within the data ecosystem requires collaboration and collective efforts involving multiple stakeholders. Therefore, the operationalization of data flows should go beyond governmental boundaries and incorporate diverse entities, fostering trust and promoting effective data management practices.

The governance of internet and free data flows has been criticized for its US and EU-centric approach. It is important to note that the US and EU represent only a small portion of the world’s population, while Asia and Africa are projected to shape the future. Therefore, there is a need for more inclusive and globally representative decision-making in this sphere. Mindfulness is also necessary, as focusing solely on EU-US perspectives does not constitute a holistic and comprehensive approach to internet governance and the free flow of data.

Conversations about data governance should occur in various settings, including normative and legal frameworks. These discussions should address aspects such as data governance and regulations, and establish effective frameworks to guide data practices. Holding conversations in multiple venues, considering both normative and legal dimensions, is vital to ensuring comprehensive and inclusive data governance.

Decisions on data governance should be made under the umbrella of the United Nations (UN), as suggested by Nnenna. Such an approach would facilitate global cooperation and hold stakeholders accountable for their actions. It is important to avoid restricting the conversation to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and instead create a more inclusive and representative forum, such as the UN, to address global data governance.

In conclusion, data flows are crucial for economic growth and human development. The achievement of SDGs in sectors like agriculture, health, and education heavily relies on effective data management and flow. Trust, collaboration, and inclusivity should underpin the operationalization and governance of data flows. Additionally, conversations about data governance should take place in multiple settings, and decision-making on data governance should be conducted under the auspices of the UN to ensure global accountability and representation.

Timea Suto

The analysis highlights a growing mistrust in cross-border data transfers, which has resulted in the implementation of restrictive policies such as data protectionism and data localization. These policies have led to internet fragmentation, where data flows are hindered or restricted, impacting global connectivity and the free flow of information. Concerns around national security, privacy, and economic safety have sparked this mistrust among nations.

However, there are calls for the development of horizontal, interoperable, and technologically neutral policy frameworks that can unlock the benefits of data. Such policies would aim to reinforce trust in cross-border data flows, enabling data to flow freely across borders while addressing legitimate concerns. By promoting interoperability and neutrality, these frameworks can boost innovation, competitiveness, and economic growth by facilitating the exchange and collaboration of data across different regions and sectors.

One significant move against internet fragmentation is the concept of Data-Free Flows with Trust, which was coined by Japan. This concept was introduced a few years ago at the G20 summit and has gained attention as a potential solution to address the challenges of cross-border data flows. Efforts are underway, such as the establishment of the Institutional Arrangement for Partnership by the G7, to operationalize this concept and promote trust in data flows.

The analysis also draws an analogy between data flow and human mobility. It highlights the importance of data flow, similar to the movement of people, in generating revenue, driving economic growth, and fostering development. Data is deemed necessary in critical areas such as health, education, and agriculture, supporting advancements in fields like AI research and digital health. The parallel between data flow and human mobility underscores the significance of data in promoting economic and social progress.

Furthermore, trust for data flow is seen as a product of dialogue and cooperation among stakeholders, akin to the aviation business where various entities such as governments, airline operators, and law enforcement work together to ensure a secure and efficient system. Building trust in data flow requires collaborative efforts and an understanding of the responsibilities and roles of different actors.

While recognizing the importance of data flow for development, the analysis also highlights the need to consider policy measures and thinking around data in a holistic fashion. This ecosystem view is essential to avoid inadvertent consequences that may arise from one-dimensional or fragmented policies. Taking into account the various dimensions and interconnectedness of data governance can lead to more effective and balanced approaches.

In conclusion, the analysis emphasized the challenges posed by growing mistrust in cross-border data transfers. However, it also highlighted potential solutions such as developing technologically neutral policy frameworks, promoting the Data-Free Flows with Trust concept, and recognizing the importance of data flow for development. By fostering trust, cooperation, and a holistic approach to policy-making, nations can unlock the full potential of data and promote global connectivity, innovation, and sustainable growth.

Jakob Greiner

The analysis provides an in-depth examination of several important aspects related to data flows and their implications for competitiveness, innovation, trust, and security. One key finding is that over 90 percent of EU-based companies send their data to the United States. While this may be beneficial for the US, it raises concerns regarding the potential impact on Europe’s competitiveness and innovation. The heavy reliance on data flows towards the US could potentially hinder Europe’s ability to leverage its own data for economic growth and technological advancement.

Furthermore, the analysis reveals that almost 70 percent of global internet traffic runs through the proprietary networks of just a few companies. This finding highlights the need for greater balance and regulation within the internet ecosystem. With such concentration of data flow within a few companies, there is a risk of monopolistic control and potential limitations on innovation and competition. It becomes essential to ensure that data flows are more evenly distributed and that regulations are in place to prevent unfair practices.

The importance of trust and security in data flows is underscored throughout the analysis. It is argued that no data flow should occur if trust and security are compromised. The European Union (EU) has developed a stringent regulatory framework to protect the data of citizens, public bodies, and companies. Additionally, the Europe-U.S. agreement aims to establish an equal level of data protection, striking a balance between security concerns and the free flow of data. These efforts are crucial for building a foundation of trust and maintaining the integrity of data flows.

However, while emphasizing the importance of the principle of free flow of data, it is cautioned that this principle should not undermine security and trust. There is evidence to suggest that an increasing number of companies and individuals are seeking to localize their data and impose restrictions due to security concerns. This shift towards localized data and restrictions is driven by the need to safeguard sensitive information and mitigate risks associated with the access and storage of data outside Europe. This trend presents a challenge as it has the potential to impede the free flow of data and hinder global collaboration. Striking the right balance between the free flow of data and security becomes imperative in this context.

Another significant point highlighted in the analysis is the need for global alignment in data flows. To ensure trust and security, it is advocated that there should be a common approach adopted by nations to regulate data flows. This aligns with the broader objective of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), which emphasize the importance of global cooperation and partnerships.

Moreover, the analysis reveals a conflict between different laws, making it challenging for cloud providers to adhere to regulations across borders. This emphasizes the importance of establishing global data flows that provide assurance of data accessibility while respecting and adhering to legal requirements. It is essential to find a balance that allows for seamless data flow while addressing concerns related to privacy, security, and compliance.

The analysis also stresses the significance of legal certainty for both consumers and enterprises. Ensuring clarity and harmonization of laws across nations is essential to foster an environment of trust and confidence. Legal certainty provides the necessary framework within which businesses can operate, and consumers can trust that their data is being handled appropriately.

Finally, the analysis recognizes the importance of supporting local companies in becoming global players. When local enterprises have the opportunity to expand globally, it can lead to economic growth and job creation. Incentivizing local companies to place their data on a global scale can contribute to their competitiveness and allow them to tap into new markets and opportunities.

In conclusion, the analysis presents a comprehensive overview of the various facets of data flows, their impact on competitiveness, innovation, trust, and security. It emphasizes the need for balance, regulation, and global alignment to ensure that data flows are both efficient and secure. Building trust and maintaining legal certainty are crucial aspects in this process. Ultimately, by striking the right balance and fostering international cooperation, data flows can be harnessed to unlock economic growth, promote innovation, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Timea Suto:
No chamber of commerce convened Yes, we’re getting at the end of the day here, Jakob. We don’t see you on the screen, but I can hear you. Now I see myself. Can you see me now? Ah, there you are. Perfect. Hello. Hi. Hello, Jakob. Hi, Nina. Hi, Carl. Good morning. Oh, sorry, afternoon. Good afternoon, evening, morning, everyone. It’s so great to have the IGF vibe again and have everyone here with us. We’re going to give it one more minute to see if anybody else still wants to walk to the door and everybody find their seats. And then we’re going to jump right through it. All right. I think we are ready here in the room in Japan. Glad to have all our online speakers with us as well. So, hi, everyone. My name is Timo Schutter. I am Global Digital Policy Lead at the International Chamber of Commerce. Welcome to the session number 197, Operationalizing Data-Free Flows with Trust, that the International Chamber of Commerce convened at this IGF. It is a topic that we’ve heard a lot about already in the past day and today and a lot more in the past years, especially amid the global health, financial and geopolitical crisis that we’ve been living through. We’ve seen how these pose risks to the very functioning of a rules-based, multilateral system and acting policy frameworks that enable the open, interconnected, and interoperable. interoperable nature of the internet has really proved essential, and we’ve talked a lot about that in the past years. Trusted global data flows are really the engine that moves the internet, that moves innovation, competitiveness, growth, and they are a powerful catalyst of socioeconomic empowerment. However, despite this agreement that we have around their usefulness and potential, we see a growing trend of mistrust in cross-border data transfers, and due to many various concerns such as national security, privacy, or economic safety, and the fear that these very important goals could be compromised if data transcends borders. And this increasingly fuels restrictive policies and measures like digital protectionism, data mercantilism, data localization, and others, which really deepen internet fragmentation, segregation, segregating information that underpins a broad range of socioeconomic activities and undermining cybersecurity protection, for example. Unilateral policies such as this exacerbate existing divides and may result in a patchwork of conflicting regulations, discouraging individuals, businesses, governments participation in a global economy. What the International Chamber of Commerce has called for repeatedly is horizontal, interoperable, and technologically neutral policy frameworks that are really able to unlock the benefits of data while respecting fundamental human rights, including the right to privacy and protecting public safety. This, in our opinion, would reinforce trust in cross-border data flows, boost additive innovation, and tap into that socioeconomic potential, the benefits that data has to offer. So there have been notable developments that progress such frameworks that go against the grain of this fragmentation of the data policy space, and there’s one of them that is the most quoted these days, with no coincidence that we are here in Japan, is the data-free flows with trust concept that Japan coined a couple of years ago at the G20 summit. Other elements that move towards this direction of enabling policy frameworks are the OECD’s Declaration on Government Access to Personal Data, held by the private sector entities, and work also in the G7 now to operationalize the FFD with the establishment of the Institutional Arrangement for Partnership. So there’s a lot of work ongoing to try and set frameworks for data governance. What we’re trying to do today with the panel here and online is to try and make sense of some of these, try and think about why we are talking of data first, secondly why we are talking about data flows, what are the potential here, what are some of the risks, and see how we move forward to truly operationalize this concept of data-free flows with trust. So with me today, online and here on the panel, I have a panel of experts that have dedicated a lot of time and thought to this topic. So without any further ado, let me introduce them real quickly and then we’ll start the conversation. So first we have with us online Ms. Nena Nakoma, board member of International Digital Health and AI Research Collaborative. Then sitting to my right, Ms. Sheetal Kumar, head of Global Engagement and Advocacy at Global Partners Digital. To my far left, Mr. Raul Echibiria, Executive Director, Latin American Internet Association. Online with us, Mr. Carl Gamberg, Director of Policy Development and Research at the Internet Society. To my far right, Mr. Dave Bundle, Assistant General Counsel, Law Enforcement and National Security at Microsoft. To my left here, Ms. Marit Paloverta, Senior Director of Auditory Affairs at the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association. And online with us as well, we have Mr. Jakob Greiner, Vice President for European Affairs at Deutsche Telekom. Thank you so much, Jakob. So to start off our conversation, I’m going to turn to first to four of our speakers and ask them to think about what are the commitments that we’ve had on cross-border data flows and how are we looking into some of these risks and fragmentations that threaten those commitments that we’ve had for maintaining data flows. What I’d like our speakers really to talk a little bit about is sharing their views, what steps have been taken so far to operationalize cross-border data flows and what are some of the necessary principles to enable this. We have a lot to go through, so without further ado, I’m going to turn first to Nnenna to discuss the importance of data flows and their implications in the development context.

Nwakanma Nnenna:
Hello, everyone. Thanks, Tamir, for having me. So I love to use illustrations. They make things come alive for us. So for those of you who traveled, you are in Kyoto. And when we’re talking about data flows, it is not very different from traveling. So you book a flight, you get to the airport. you go through security, you hop on the plane, you trust that you will arrive at your destination, which most of you have. And it is in the arrival of everyone that we can have this and other sessions. And we enrich ourselves for the whole week and we each go back to the airport, take our flights, go home and continue the work. So my visual illustration of data flows is actually the same as human flow. So flows follow flows and data flows is not very different from human flow or what we call human mobility. Now, why is this very important to me sitting in Abidjan in West Africa today? The one thing that is important to me is that there is revenue involved. There is money to be made. And this is like Timia said in her opening speech, it is about growth, it’s about growing economies, it’s about growing people, growing countries, growing continents. And as an African, this is very, very important to me. So data flows for me is first of all, a human development issue. The other point is in the SDGs, we all recall that when we were fighting for these, we said data was at the basis of the SDG, data was a product, data was a driver and all of that. So we cannot reach our development goals without data. That one is a principle that the whole world has accepted. And while we are working on these principles, that is where our session today comes in, how do we operationalize this? I come from IDA, the International Digital Health and AI Research. And everyone knows that AI is built on data. And if we don’t have… data we cannot function, whether it’s in its research. Now, applying this to health is really very important to me. We have the principles of data anonymization, I do agree. So, as IDER, our whole raison d’être is built on cross-border data flows. And I want to submit that in many developing countries, we actually need data in agriculture, we need data in education, we need data especially in health. And if data doesn’t flow, it’s like people don’t come. So, for me, data flows are very important in critical areas of development. Now, operationalizing it is why we are here. The principles, the understanding. So, I’m speaking to people who are travelers, and I want to come back to my initial illustration. We all know that International Air Travel Association exists. It is not run by government alone. There is someone here from law enforcement, there is someone here from the network operators. Network operators like airline operators, right? And then there is this guy who will check you in, who is just the national security person, right? And there’s the other one who will stamp your passport when you arrive, make sure everything is in order. It’s a whole ecosystem out there. And that is why it is important that we agree. It is not a government-only issue. And that is my biggest submission today, Tamir. I know that some governments have challenges with the internet and how it is built and how it runs. And I want to bring them back to the point that you should not be afraid. We can build trust together. Despite the fact that governments alone do not run aircraft, the aviation business still grows. Governments still get their taxes, people like me still get my miles, and you all get your photos with the pilots and all of that, and we all come to Kyoto, enrich ourselves, and go home and keep enriching ourselves. So here are my submissions. I know my minutes are few, but please let’s understand that flows follow flow, that data flows are like human mobility, we can call it data mobility, and that this is revenue creation. It is in moving, it is in confronting, it is in being used that data gets value, and this movement, this free flow of data, having it in a trusted environment is of use to every single one of us, that it is even more critical for people like me in developing countries, for someone like me in digital health, for someone like me in AI research. Thank you very much for having me. I’m glad that I can participate online, and I’m happy that I can contribute to the flows. Thank you. Thank you,

Timea Suto:
Nana. This was very inspiring, and thank you for bringing it down to very clear comparisons. I think sometimes when we talk about data flows, it’s become so esoteric, and you really made that relatable. So thank you for that, and thank you for sharing the perspective also from your home country and your own experience that sometimes is so missed in some of these conversations. And thirdly, thank you for making it clear that trust is based in dialogue and cooperation. I think we take good note of that. Shita, Nana mentioned getting back to the basics and make sure that operationalizing data flows really reiterates some of the principles that we’re all committed to. What are your views on that, and what are those commitments, the baseline principles that you think we should all make to uphold data flows?

Sheetal Kumar:
Thank you, and thanks for having me. Okay, great. Thank you, Tamea. It’s good to be here and to talk about a topic that is embedded in so many of the discussions that we’re having at the Internet Governance Forum. I wanted to highlight two points which I think are cross-cutting and important when it comes to principles. One is the importance of a human rights-based approach, and the second is the need to address trends such as data localization and the types of measures that you mentioned earlier, sovereignty, etc., that lead to or that stem from mistrust and that also affect a human rights-based approach. And then finally, I wanted to touch upon one point which I think we aren’t seeing reflected enough perhaps in principles, which is about equitable access. to data. So on the first point, of course, we do need to recognize that there is a difference between personal data and non-personal data. And I know that fellow panelists will speak to some of that. But either way, frameworks that are underpinned by human rights principles will create and enable clarity and protection of data that is so critical for trust. And that’s why I think data protection legislation embodies, of course, a lot of the principles that we require that need to be implemented effectively when it comes to personal data. And for that reason, all cross-border data sharing agreements should reflect and must reflect human rights standards. But on this point, I think one of the areas that perhaps we’re not seeing enough engagement with different stakeholders is on the topics of data governance, particularly in some parts of the world where perhaps these discussions are more difficult to access, expensive to engage with. And I just wanted to note that colleagues from Consumers International, and I know some of them are here, held the Day Zero event yesterday where they were addressing some of these discussions and reflecting the need for more digital rights and civil society and consumer groups to be involved in discussions relating to data governance more generally. And that also is important to look at the full process. So while the framework that you’ve mentioned, data free flow with trust, considers legal mechanisms, it’s important to also consider what happens after data flows when it’s stored, the whole lifecycle, and how consumers can ensure that their rights are respected throughout that lifecycle. And you mentioned the Institutional Arrangement for Partnership, which is looking to operationalize the framework. That’s an example of where I think it’s very important to reflect the role of civil society in that. And there’s a nice infographic on the website that you can access, and there are different stakeholders illustrated there. But civil society, I think, still needs to be reflected in that. It is missing at the moment. Data localization, I mean, this is something that in the data free flow with trust framework is recognized to be a barrier, of course, to data flows. And it stems from various different well, different reasons are given for data localization, but as it shows, the World Economic Forum paper on the framework shows that whatever the reasons that are provided for requiring, forcing data localizations, or forcing data to be stored in servers in country, it doesn’t have the effects that is supposedly intended, which is growing the local economy. It actually has detrimental effects to the local economy, and in fact, can lead to surveillance and the harming of rights in country as well. So finally, I know I’m running out of time. I just wanted to point to the, I think Nena maybe made a mention of this, the importance of recognizing that data, and this might sound controversial, maybe I should start it with this, data in and of itself, data’s not valuable in and of itself. You need to make it valuable, you need to interpret it, analyze it, and do something with it for it to have value, and that requires broader infrastructure, so it requires, of course, technical knowledge and capacities, broader physical infrastructures and knowledge infrastructures, and that is not always the case, and so you need to invest in that, and in some parts of the world, there isn’t equitable access to data, and an ability for civil society and researchers to make use of data for health, for reasons, and in other industries and sectors as well, so that needs to be addressed. So let me stop there, and I’m happy to pick up some of those points later.

Timea Suto:
Thanks so much, Sheetal. It was a lot that you managed to pack in the small amounts of minutes that we’ve allotted you, but thank you for bringing it full circle, making sure that we know why we want to talk about data, and really what creates the value of data, linking it back into what is its potential, but also reminding us that we need to commit to making this work, and making data usable, and making sure that it respects all kinds of expectations that we have to it, and that includes really having everyone around the table. Thank you for that. So now with these reminders of what is the value of data, and what are the commitments that we need to have in place to make use of that value, I want to turn to my next two panelists and talk a little bit about the risks that we face. If we don’t do that, if we don’t make these commitments. So Raul, Nena has mentioned some of the developmental risks here that we are facing, but what is your perspective sitting at the helm of ALAI, and some of the risks that we might have from an economic or governance perspective if we don’t make these commitments?

Raúl Echeberría:
Good afternoon, thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation to speak at this panel with so distinguished colleagues. I was thinking on the, I like the analogy of Nena, with the aviation system, and I was thinking that I have suffered a few flight cancellations in the last few months, so maybe that could be the equivalent to internet shutdowns. But I think that many people speak about, that speak, say that we are living in a economic, database economy, and I think that is not totally true. It’s not completely true. We are living in a database society, not everything is based on data, as Sheetal and Nena said before. And all the, every public and private services that people access to are based on data, and I’m speaking about health services, government services, but also marketplaces, and e-commerce, and everything. But sometimes we think that data is only a problem that has to be, has relation with internet platforms or marketplaces, but data is everywhere. So that’s the reason why we need the data to flow freely, and that, to enable that those services are available for everybody and create benefits for everybody in the world. Obviously, there are rights to be protected, and so I agree with Sheetal about the human rights approach. This is very important, and this is why we need legal frameworks to. to ensure that the data transfer and data flow is secure, but create the conditions for that safe data flow, but not the contrary. That’s the objective of the public policy. That should be the objective of the, not to block the data flow, but to create the safe conditions, the appropriate environment for ensuring that the data is being available in the way that is needed, but protecting the rights of the people. The free data flow should be the norm, not the exception. To ensure that secure data flow, the secure flow of data is important to have a good, we need to have good local policies, but also interoperable and regional and global approaches. What we are witnesses is that there are different kind of policies that imposes restriction to the flow of data, and so creating restriction for people to be benefited with a digital development. Sometimes are very specific policies like data protection policies that when we discuss, that is very common that there is some, that people misinterpret, policy makers misinterpret what is an international data transfer, for example, and that some people think that is like a box with the data that I’m sending through DHL to somebody else, and so we need to block this kind of transfer, except that there are agreements and consent from the people, but for example, think as when we are coming to Japan, and we are trying to book a hotel from my country, I book a hotel in Japan through a platform that is incorporated in a country in Europe, but it’s using a payment platform that is based in the United States, and so the data is flowing through the companies and that are based in different jurisdictions, but it’s always a part of the same contract of services, so it’s difficult sometimes to explain to policy makers this concept, and so based on good faith, but trying to protect the rights of the people,

Timea Suto:
but so sometimes,

Raúl Echeberría:
policies impose a restriction to data flow and we are dealing in this at this moment we are dealing with this exactly with this case in at least three countries in Latin America but sometimes it’s other kind of policies that that has nothing to do with apparently with data transfer but policies that deal with the infrastructure level or even taxes or content moderation but or a law proposes that that include the possibility to block applications in some conditions and so that’s creating a very fragmented internet and it’s clear that a fragmented internet is the perfect scenario to block the data flow because it’s impossible to do it’s like to cross a river without a bridge or without a boat that’s it so the yeah I think that’s the one of the problems that we have to work or one of the challenges if we have to work much more with the with the with policymakers and to trying to get to achieve a better understanding of those concepts that are flow fragmentation but we have also to work with among all stakeholders not only with governments and we need two more points we need the models to evaluate and to analyze the the impact of proposals policy proposals data flow and fragmentation and I think that’s the last one is we need a strong commitment Sunday among all stakeholders to not promote policies from each stakeholder group or to not promote policies that potentially could lead to to fragmentation just because this is aligned with the interests of one specific group so that I think it’s those three points are what I leave to for people to suffer feeding the discussion thank you thanks so much role and thank you for noting that very

Timea Suto:
complex policy space and really what we have to take away from it is to look at policy measures and our and our thinking around data but also other matters that my impact data in a holistic fashion in an ecosystem view to make sure that we hear from everyone and we don’t inadvertently have consequences when we don’t intend to have them. Still on this topic of trying to figure out some of the risks that we are seeing around fragmenting the policy, technical governance, economic space around data, I’m turning to Carl online to share a couple of his thoughts on what are the technical risks in fragmenting the policy space around data governance.

Carl Gahnberg:
Thank you very much. And first of all, thank you very much for the invitation to this panel. I regret I won’t be able to be there on site, but I’m really looking forward to the conversation here and also to follow the rest of the discussions this week. I think kind of a useful starting point to think about data flows and conversely the risks of technical fragmentation is to kind of recognize that when we talk about the Internet and why it’s been so successful, it doesn’t only come down to kind of specific technologies that you might hear about, it doesn’t only come down to technologies like packet switching or even the Internet protocol, it really also includes how you make use of those technologies, how you puzzle them together, how you operate them, how you allow them to evolve and so forth. So, you know, one of the reasons why we’re talking about Internet governance, for instance, and the importance around the management of DNS or IP addressing or the value of open standards development is that they’re not just sort of quote unquote nice to have, they’re really kind of intrinsic to this model of networking that we have in the Internet and what’s made it so successful. So that’s also why at the Internet Society, we tend to talk about the Internet exactly like that. We talk about it as a way of doing networking, that is, it’s a model of how you do networking. And seen from this perspective, the Internet has some networking features that in themselves kind of contribute to this operationalization of cross-border data flows and they’re inherently linked to principles. So from a technical point of view, these principles help ensure that you have a infrastructure that is extremely accessible, that it’s extremely efficient in terms of expanding connectivity and by extension data flows, both within and across borders. So for example, a very kind of simple principle in the Internet, but that is extremely efficient is that, let’s say that you’re a new network that would like to join the Internet, then all you really need to do is to negotiate a interconnection with one other network that is part of the global Internet. And that allows your network to also be part of the global Internet. So it’s kind of this magical feature that you only really need one interconnection to one network and suddenly you have connectivity, global connectivity to everywhere in the world and by extension data flows all across the world. So that’s really important principle in the Internet that sort of help operationalize global data flows. But another important piece of this is that, you know, the Internet is built to evolve. It’s it’s really good at adapting and evolving over time. And this really comes down to this principle about using open standards and having an open architecture in the Internet because you can kind of upgrade the Internet over time. You can take bits and pieces of the Internet and you can improve them without having to tear down the whole thing and build it up again. No, you can sort of upgrade bits and pieces of the Internet along the way as you see the need evolve. And we’ve actually seen this this important principle play a big role in ensuring cross-border data flows with trust specifically. And this relates to what happened about a decade ago when I’m sure people are familiar with the Snowden revelations and the the revelations that brought awareness to systemic surveillance of Internet communications. And as some might remember, this provoked like a very strong reaction from the Internet community in all parts of the Internet community, of course, but including amongst governments that wanted to restrict data flows across borders. So, for instance, there were some governments at the time that even wanted to prevent traffic from traversing networks in the United States and to interfere with a routing system to prevent these cross-border data flows. Now, of course, this also provoked a reaction in the Internet’s technical community that that to great efforts of strengthening the Internet and to prevent these types of attacks on the Internet and the ITF even adopted some new guidance in its its standards development processes where pervasive monitoring of this kind that was revealed in the Snowden revelations is to be understood as a technical attack towards the Internet and that the ITF community should try to mitigate those types of risks in the design of protocols. So this was kind of enabled through this open architecture because the community could upgrade existing technologies by adding security, notably in the form of encryption, to ensure that you could have a greater greater trust in data flows and notably cross-border data flows. Now the reason why I’m sort of bringing up these two cases and links to these principles is that we’re seeing threats to the Internet right now which are, they could result in Internet fragmentation they’re targeting precisely these two principles that I just mentioned, the Internet accessibility and the ability to facilitate these cross border data flows, but also the ability to secure data flows through encryption. So on the one hand, for instance, we see extremely worrying trend in countries like South Korea and you and India and Brazil, where there are policy discussions about imposing regulations that would require online services to pay large telecom operators so called network usage fee. So this would affect be a new form of termination fee that would be imposed on the network. And not only with this of course violate net neutrality the principle of net neutrality. It would also sort of undo the fantastic progress that we’ve seen in many of these countries over the past decade in terms of promoting safeguards for the free flow of data through net neutrality rules, but importantly it also kind of violates this important principle about the Internet about the reach ability and accessibility of the network and for those who haven’t seen it I would really recommend the Internet architectural board actually wrote a contribution to the EU’s consultation on this topic, highlighting exactly this and how these types of regulations could violate these principles around accessibility and cause Internet fragmentation. But we’re also seeing, of course, on the other hand, this threat towards securing data in transit so we see a very worrying trend where governments are now trying to prevent the use of end to end encryption, for instance, so the very technology that kind of helped enabled continued cross border data flows in the wake of the Snowden revelations is suddenly under threat and at risk of being outlawed in some jurisdictions so it’s not, it’s not hard to see how this would impact cross border data flows where the that enabled continued flow of data in the wake of a harsh attack on the trust of the network, namely through surveillance, how the prohibiting of such use of a technology and the prohibiting of an open architecture, in fact, would in turn translate into limiting cross-border data flows. So I think when we’re talking about policy frameworks for the future, we also must recognize that there are existing ones that we should also highlight and that are important to preserve like net neutrality, for instance, but also that there are principles in the internet around this open architecture that are extremely valuable to also have recognized. So that’s why we at the Internet Society also advocate for this idea of doing impact assessments kind of to what Roel mentioned, where you would take a look at the internet, kind of what you would do in the environmental space, but you do the same for the internet and you think through what are the consequences of some of these policies and what policies are actually helpful in terms of facilitating cross-border data flows. But I’ll stop there and I’ll hope we can discuss more of this later on. Thanks so much Karl and thank you for taking us down to the basics of the internet

Timea Suto:
itself and the technical functioning of the internet and reminding us that we need to take this ecosystem view in which all stakeholders or sectors of industry and really all actors, policymakers and all of us around this room need to think about what is it that we’re trying to achieve, protect and how we’re working around those not to create consequences that none of us were intending to do. So to make the bridge really between now, we’ve talked a lot about the value, the risks, what is it that we do to make this workable and bridge the conversation from here into actually operationalizing the FFD. Let’s talk a little bit about these elements of trust that you’ve all sort of kind of referred to already, what is it that we need to have in place to mitigate some of these risks and how we move forward really to have those trustworthy environment that enables the data flow. So to start first on this, I’m going to turn to some of our industry speakers. Dave, how do you see this from the Microsoft perspective and what are some of these causes and drivers of risks that we need to think about

David Pendle:
as we aim to build trust? Thanks Tamim. So I sit on Microsoft’s law enforcement national security team which is the team at Microsoft that receives just over 50,000 requests from governments each year from around the world seeking data pertaining to well over 100,000 users. And this work, the handling third-party government requests for data, it is often at the center of this trust discussion as we’ve already seen a bit. And technology providers, for better or worse, are often at this the center or the crossroads of this debate between security and privacy generally. And we do play a public safety role, I think, an important one. Governments need to obtain certain data under appropriate circumstances to investigate serious crimes. I think most folks agree with that. We also play, I think, also another important role as kind of a fundamental guardrail to ensure that requests for customer data are lawful, compulsory, and are consistent with fundamental rights including the right to privacy. But this balance between privacy and security is often in tension and I think that’s what often leads to a lot of mistrust. And to be blunt, really the fear of government access to data has emerged as a pretty significant threat to data free flow with trust. And the reactions to that mistrust ultimately threaten the foundation of the internet itself. I mean, the World Wide Web now is governed by a web of often conflicting and increasingly restrictive laws. Whether these laws are motivated by legitimate privacy concerns or legitimate sovereignty concerns or competition concerns, or a desire, as was mentioned before, to kind of maintain access to data in a country, either through data localization or attacks on encryption, the rules that govern lawful access to data around the world are increasingly resulting in a more fragmented internet. And that presents some pretty significant risks, many of which have already been discussed quite thoroughly on the panel and at IGF and across the world. The loss of connectivity and leaving people in regions and countries behind and out of the digital transformation is probably the most significant one. The undermining of the global digital economy and the trillions of dollars in trade that’s at risk, also very significant. Some risks of fragmentation are probably less discussed. The risk to public safety, most serious crimes have some connection to the internet. And governments, generally, if they are rights-abiding and rule-of-law governments, there’s a legitimate need to seek certain data under appropriate circumstances to kind of counter serious crime. In cybersecurity, that was mentioned. I think, Tamayo, you mentioned that at the outset. It’s not often discussed, but the fragmentation of the internet is essentially putting blinders on to certain portions of the internet that cybersecurity professionals who are trying to detect and counter sophisticated cyber attackers aren’t going to be able to see what’s happening. And in fact, at Microsoft, I think it’s over now. 40 trillion signals a day through kind of a global threat landscape are analyzed every single day trying to detect the cyber threats and tell our customers and users. if they’ve been compromised and prevent that compromise from happening. Again, when you put those blinders on, it has pretty significant impact on cybersecurity. But in my view, this perceived tension between privacy and security, which is at the heart of this mistrust, is in many ways, in important ways, exists more in theory than in reality. And I say that because when governments sit down to discuss these issues related to lawful access, and these are tough issues, but when they sit down to actually talk about what they do, they tend to agree. And they tend to agree on some of the basic rules of the road. And the OECD process, I think, just proved that. So the OECD process, which Japan was a major driver of, bringing together 38 countries in a pursuit of data free flow with trust. 38 countries sat down, and they brought in their privacy experts and their national security and law enforcement experts. They talked about what they do. And they came up with multiple principles from legitimate aims. These authorities can be used in pursuit of legitimate aims. It cannot be used to suppress dissent or go after people because of their race or religion or other protected statuses. Prior approval, oversight, transparency, redress. The governments tend to kind of follow rights respecting governments tend to follow the same principles when seeking access to data. And this could be a blueprint for promoting the free flow of data generally. We ultimately need more than shared principles. We need binding agreements. And there has been some progress in the last year on those as well. Data access agreements, the US has been negotiating several with different countries, including one in negotiation right now with the EU, along with the EU-US data privacy framework, also important. Last year’s signing of the second additional protocol by over a dozen countries was a kind of a significant step forward. But looking ahead, we still need a lot more. It’s clear we need interoperable multilateral frameworks that reflect kind of the nuances of this debate and frameworks really that recognize, again, the legitimate need for governments to access data, at least certain types of data for public safety. I don’t just work on policy at Microsoft. I’m in the compliance business as well. And just since sitting here, I’ve received emails and alerts that there have been emergency requests coming into our team. We have a team that staffs those 24 hours a day. Every day of the year, there is a legitimate public safety need to respond to these kinds of requests when they’re appropriate. And significantly, the need for broader inclusivity, because a lot of those agreements I talked about are essentially transatlantic agreements, and that leaves much of the world out of the picture. So that’s one big area of need. And a framework that kind of reflects that trust is earned. For data to flow freely, there must be adherence, again, to rights-protective standards and the rule of law. And that is really at the core here, because if you’re not respecting the human rights of all of the users, then that framework is woefully inadequate. So much has been accomplished, especially over the last year, but much more remains to be done.

Timea Suto:
Thank you so much for that reminder and setting out some of the goals that we should be striving to. You’ve talked a lot about, we’ve all talked a lot about data. Haven’t really made a distinction between data that is personal, data that is non-personal. There are obviously very different risks attached to either or the other, and then neither of those are really monoliths in themselves. So there’s a lot of nuance to unpack here. We won’t endeavor to do all of this in this panel, but I will ask the next two panelists to focus on some of the different elements of this. So, Marit, I’m turning to you next. As we’re talking about the trust that we need, what is it that we need to attach, what elements of trust that we need to attach to global data flows when we talk about privacy protection and protection of personal data? Okay, so thank you, Teme.

Maarit Palovirta:
I’ll try and respond to the exact angles that you’re asking, but thankfully, we also have Jakob after myself who can maybe then compliment. So maybe I’ll just frame a little bit from the telecoms operators’ point of view, because indeed, we heard a lot of things already, and many of the buzzwords were already mentioned. But if you think about data traffic, of course, I mean, all this data traffic is really underpinned by the networks, and who runs the networks? Well, it is the telecom operators. So of course, for the companies that we at Aetna represent, this is really the bread and butter of our everyday work. And there’s a lot of innovation happening at the moment, a lot of things changing in the way of data traffic patterns, et cetera. So there’s a lot of talk about virtualization, cloudification, 5G, and all of this is great, but what it means that the way that data is moving in the networks is changing, and also the fact that now data is being stored not so much in the center, but more on the edge which means that the linkage between the device and the edge computing, that is also becoming different. And then, of course, with all of this, we also need to look at the cross-border collaboration aspect as data, of course, needs to move globally. So in order to provide telecom services at a global level, operators need collaboration. with vendors, with partners, with different kinds of providers and in fact with this virtualization the role of these third-party providers just increases. And then if you add on top of that I think it was Nenna who mentioned AI, IOT, that are these new technologies that are really powered by TROs data so then we are really looking at more and more traffic and also then more and more kind of cross-country traffic. So then moving to the policy framing and especially the privacy issues. So in the past years and I guess the European Union in a way was a Kickstarter here because the GDPR happened I think it was 2018 and well for better or worse you may argue we don’t want to be judging here but well this new framework provided stability in Europe but it also then made somehow a global model if you like for a regulatory framing for privacy issues. And of course there are different variations but there was a kind of a wave of other regulatory procedures and processes elsewhere in the world in Africa, South America, Asia etc. And while you may say whatever you like about the privacy regulations I think that one thing is clear is that these new regulatory developments actually have improved trust and confidence among citizens and we should also keep in mind that of course the internet is only used for as long as people feel that it’s trustworthy. So we are trying to find a balance between on one hand innovation and the economic activity but also then with privacy and it needs to be a balanced approach and this has been traditionally of course a European point of view but we also think that that could be interesting to other parts of the world. And then you know if you now think about the regulatory discussions that are happening well very much here in Japan as well but elsewhere in the world in parallel on artificial intelligence and data governance there is in our view also need to establish common basis to promote some kind of regulatory coherence and simplification on a kind of global scale. So I think it’s maybe not realistic to say that we will have exactly the same thing everywhere but that there is some level of interoperability between regulations so that we actually have a kind of functional regulatory framing for private sector parties as well and for businesses. On the internet fragmentation there was already a lot of talk I mean you know just maybe to say and to link back to these policies that well you if you look at it only from that point of view you can of course say that there’s a risk for fragmentation with these policies if everybody you know implements a different type of policy. But then we should keep in mind as I already mentioned that these policies also often have a positive impact on the internet for example increasing trust. So we should be a little bit you know mitigated the way we look at these issues because they often have two facets. Of course I mean going into Carl’s comments on open standards I mean I think many people and most people agree and us included I mean this is the starting point for an open internet and there is no need or you know it would be risky to start meddling with that. Then we can look at commercial practices which is often debated as well and net neutrality came up I mean again Europe I mean it’s one of the few places where we do have a regulation on the open internet which ensures free flow of traffic and this has been the case quite a long time now and well now we hear that the US is again starting the discussion on that same topic as well. So there can be also business practices I guess we talk sometimes about walled gardens you know this type of environments that also could then cause fragmentation on the either connectivity side but also on the on the content side. So then looking at the you know way forward and Timea you mentioned at the beginning some some keywords and I have to be boring but only to agree in that we also believe that you know the the kind of good balance and whereby we promote innovation and including things like global digital commerce. However then we also kind of keep the rights and values in the background is best achieved through a regulatory framework that is horizontal so not sector specific flexible, interoperable and also technologically neutral. And as already as well said so we need to also then see how we can promote cooperation and broadening of the jurisdictional horizons in order to make sure that the interoperability then factor is well somehow well clearer and also practical. And from a European perspective of course so just to go back to David’s comments as well so the European policymakers have started agreeing making loads of data kind of data free flow area agreements between several countries, not only the US, but also Japan and South Korea. And from private sector’s perspective, this is really great because it provides regulatory certainty. And we would also then encourage our policymakers in Europe to expand these agreements and make sure that they also then come to the other parts of the world, such as Asia, Latin America and Africa. So I’ll stop there, thank you.

Timea Suto:
Thanks so much, Marit. And yes, I don’t want to repeat your points because we agreed on a lot of things. And time is also short. But I will turn to our last panelist for this segment. And we’re staying in Europe, we’re actually moving to Europe because we’re gonna have Jakob join us online. If you’d like to build on what Marit said and what Dave as well, on building these elements of trust. And maybe if I can ask you to focus a little bit on non-personal data transfer sharing and the flow of non-personal data and what are the elements of trust that we need to attach to that. But of course, feel free to, as Marit set you up, to add to whatever points that she said earlier. Okay, thank you, Tamir.

Jakob Greiner:
I hope you all can see and hear me and the internet is working well. I really liked how Nena set the stage with her airplane flight routes introduction. And I’d like to come back to that maybe occasionally in my next five minutes. Just to say, first off, I think this whole panel shows that we all agree that data flows are super important to tackle some of the most pressing challenges today, be it environmental, economic, health, safety, but also economic challenges. I think Nena said money needs to be made and is being made with data flows. I fully agree. The question that I would like to raise, being also an operator that is very much European-centered, but also has a global footprint and being present in the U.S., is the money or is the data flow fair distributed today in our internet ecosystem? And to start talking about data flows, I think first we need to take a look also at the internet. internet ecosystem of today. The free flow of data has for long been the very essence of the internet, but I would also say it’s safe to say that over the past years this architecture and our view has also changed quite fundamentally and these changes have also an impact on the way data is being used and transferred. What do I mean by that? And I give you an example of the U.S. where we are present on both sides of the Atlantic. When you look at today where global internet traffic runs, then it’s almost 70 percent running through the proprietary networks of a few companies. These companies have actually gradually expanded their own private infrastructures, their terrestrial networks, their backbones. You could basically more or less say they are like a private airport while telecom operators are the public airport. And the difference is that the public airport is subject to a lot of rules and regulation while the private airport doesn’t have the same regulation, although we are all basically huge airports connecting the world. And this is a disbalance that I think needs to be taken into account when looking how data flows are today globally flowing. Second, when it comes to the distribution of global data flows, and again here taking the EU-U.S. example, we are our largest partner when it comes to data flows, but the distribution is unfortunately rather one-sided. So, it somehow seems the planes from Europe are starting flying across the U.S., but they’re somehow not coming back. Over 90 percent of EU-based companies send data to the U.S., and that is great for the U.S., but it’s not so great for the competitiveness and innovation that is happening in Europe. I’m just describing a status quo. I’m not saying where the flaws are, but that’s a fact that I think needs to be taken into account when we’re talking about data flows being an economic driver. We just see it’s rather one-sided than reciprocal. And then I would like to come to what Timia asked me to answer, which is the notion of trust. Of course, coming from Europe, trust and security is essential, and there should not be any data flow if trust and security are undermined. We have seen that Europe has, over the past years, developed quite a dense regulatory framework to ensure that citizens, public bodies, but of course also companies can rely on the protection of their data. And what started with the GDPR and the protection of personal data is more and more moving now also towards safeguards for sensitive non-personal data, trade secrets, intellectual property, such as by the recently adopted EU Data Act. And we welcome that because trust for companies is not only perceived to lie within personal data, but of course also non-personal data. A good example where you could clearly see that there’s globally, I think, a need to balance legitimate security concerns with the free flow of data is the recent, what is it now, the fourth attempt to have a stable US-EU privacy framework agreement so that companies can exchange data based on an equal level of data protection. I think that’s something very welcome from the perspective also of a European company, but I think now it is very important that the implementation of this framework shows its teeth, that, for example, the restrictions to the access of data by security and intelligence agencies on the US side is now really happening based on these agreements. And by that I think we can see that there is a balance reachable between legitimate security concerns, but at the same time also the free flow of data. And then let me move lastly to the area of cloud, because I think Margit said it before, the whole internet, the whole economic activity globally is moving more in a virtualization, cloudification atmosphere. And if we’re looking at the cloud policy that is happening at the moment in Europe, some might say, well, as David said, this could lead to fragmentation. This is, you know, rather almost protectionist what’s happening because data flows are being restricted. There is localization happening, but it’s happening for a cause where we believe this is actually not against the free flow of data principle. It actually provides the security and trust that is needed. So data flows are happening. What do I mean with that? If you look today at the concerns of European businesses, almost 70% of cloud users consider that access to their data from outside of Europe is a risk. And that’s why they are not putting their data enough in the clouds of cloud providers. And that is not again because of personal data only, but also because of industrial non-personal data. And so in our view, it’s only consequent and right that data flows here are restricted and localized. That is what the EU Data Act has been aiming for. And that is also right now what the current discussion around cloud certification security scheme is aiming towards. So by that increasing trust, increasing security, and by that in the end, ultimately leading to more global data flows, not less. So again, I think it’s not about, you know, nations like the European Union trying to somehow take a step in the different direction, but it basically follows the need for more trust and security when flows are happening. So to sum it up, I think it’s vital that we on a global level have a common approach to data flows, but building trust requires addressing an uneven distribution of data flows as it is granted. It also means the changed nature of the internet architecture needs to be taken into account and also the need to ensure that effective protection of data, be it personal or non-personal data, is happening where it is stored and where it is processed. And by that I think we all aim for the same goal, enabling data flows with trust. Thank you very much.

Timea Suto:
Thanks so much, Jakob, and thanks for bringing the points really full circle and in pointing out that fragmentation can happen from very different aspects, but also if we don’t step up our game and set policies that enable trust and policies that enable to enable secure, trusted data flows, then we are going to end up in a situation where we have a patchwork of regulations that actually go against the purpose of why we wanted them in place in the first place, which is to enable digitalization, to enable data flows that drives the development of our societies, of our economies, of our personal developments that we all strive for. I have gone a bit over time than what we planned for this first part of the panel, and we did want to give some time for the audience to ask questions. I received two questions online, and I’m sure there’s some in the room. So while those of you who might want to have a question, put your hands up or start lining up at the microphone. I’m going to ask the panel the two questions that we received online. One is about security, and one of our question askers is asking how we can ensure a state-of-the-art security to protect user data, and the other question is really around safety, trust, security as well as how can we make sure that we don’t end up with one specific group or actor or stakeholder taking control of data, and what are some of the checks and balances that we can have around that? So as people in the room think about if they want to ask a question, I’m going to see if one of our panelists might want to respond to some of these questions around security. Sheetal.

Sheetal Kumar:
Okay, I was just saying, I think Carl made a good point earlier about security and how both technical and legal measures are required to ensure that data is kept securely. One of the technical measures is encryption, and whether it’s data in transit or data being stored, it is really an integral part of a security infrastructure for data, and what we are seeing, I think that you spoke to, Carl, and others here, is a misalignment sometimes, unfortunately, of different attempts to address different issues that are actually quite connected or because they’re not aligned with a human rights-based approach

Timea Suto:
end up doing more harm than good,

Sheetal Kumar:
and one of the ways to address that is to definitely ensure that engaging. with all stakeholders and using tools like internet impact assessments or human rights impact assessments to assess whether proposed measures are actually going to achieve the intended effect or not and what other options there are to proportionally and actually do what is intended instead of perhaps with the aim of providing more safety in the end you actually create more insecure technology. So that I think was a key point that was shared earlier and I hope responds to the question. On the second question of preventing biases and

Nwakanma Nnenna:
prejudices, I think that globally we have this, I don’t know, I’m trying to use a word that is contained, a diplomatic word. We kind of beat our chest, we have this orthoglorification of saying once the EU framework and the US framework agree then the whole world agrees. I think that is not correct. The US is 300 million, the EU is about 450, that’s 750 million out of 8 billion, that’s less than 10% and I do not think that we should follow in this very particular way, we should follow the way we do international travel. Having London, Paris and New York be the hub of our lives, I think that we should fight against. The future of the world is in Asia, the future of the world is in Africa, humans are the people who create data and I think that my own plea to ICC is that as we go ahead, we need to be mindful of the fact that EU-US does not mean global. That’s just my point today. We’ve been doing it in travel, we’ve been doing it with visas, we’ve been doing it in many other flows, we should ensure that internet and free data flows should not be an EU-US issue. Thank you. Thanks Nnena.

Timea Suto:
And I think we have a good testimony into the globality that if you would see the people who are lining up here to ask questions from the panel, I hope that they will bring in some of the diversity of points of view that you’re asking. So I’m going to ask all of you to put your questions up. I hope you will be brief and then I will ask the panel to try and address them collectively. So

Audience:
I’ll start here then I go there and then we go back and forth. Please. Okay so I’m Daichi. I’m operator of the local IXP in Japan. So I have I would like to ask an opinion about authority to verify the data flow or data itself is trustful or not. So if there is a possibility to establish new authority to verify the data flow or encryption is correct or not. So I would like to confirm this. Thank you. Gentleman over here. Yes hi I’m Javier Reed from Consumers International and I think that Shital was mentioning some of the results from our meeting yesterday with several consumer groups in the region and elsewhere. I think that the question that was raised was about what happens not just when how we send the data but what happens afterwards and I think for consumer trusts in the trust in the DFFT one of the things that we are finding is that consumers want to know that they can actually get redress if anything goes wrong. That it’s not like a fire and forget you know which is what we see unfortunately in many situations when we look at data free flows. So I was wondering how do you see this redress working and when we talk about operationalizing how can we operationalize the redress in a way that generates consumer trust. Thank you so much for that. Jameson. Okay thank you very much. Great panel. My name is Jameson Olufi Africa ICT Alliance. We have a comment and a question. The first comment is regard to the influence of GDPR regard to data flow and as Ndena said you know data flow is not just about GDPR or EU and USA. But what we are seeing now is that the whole world is following the first step of EU in that regard. But we need data flow for business and from business. So we need data flow or interoperability and then some form of of course control. It’s very necessary. But here you should set the lead if they want it to be free flow indeed. The number the question that is to Pedro. See I want to ask you how do you cope with accessing data that data is in the U.S. now based on GDPR is closed. Okay and how do you access it concerning your need for intellectual property protection and attacks and what have you. Thank you. Thank you. Please. Thank you. Masanobu Kato from Japan representing a private sector. And well since we are you know talking from the private sector ICC point of view, I’m just wondering if you have any ideas from business side to have a good solution on this. We talked about some commercial solutions which may not be working right now, and encryption is another technological question which have some issues, for instance, for neutralities and so on. But in Japan, I heard in some debate recently that a trust service can be a solution, maybe a local solution or could increase more localisation, but there is some thinking of this kind where you can, you know, commercial sector or business sector can make an actual proposal. Are there any such activities or initiatives at the ICC or you have some ideas about this? That’s my question. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please, madam. Hi. Hello. I’m an academic. I have a question regarding telecommunication systems. So a few years ago, the deployment of 5G technology led to a global crisis, and then we saw some submarine cables being rerouted or some submarine cable projects being cancelled. And then recently we saw that certain countries would not authorise satellite broadband services by styling, for example, because it’s a US company. So my question is, do you see the data flow with trust schemes also de-intensifying these geopolitical tensions regarding the global telecommunications infrastructure? Thank you. Thank you for that. Hello. Sorry, we’re just alternating microphones, so we’re going to go here first and then I’ll turn to you. Please. Okay, thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Shota Watanabe. I’m working for a Japanese think tank. And my question is, which forum would be better for operationalising DFFT? Because there are so many forums discussing DFFT. For example, Prime Minister Abe mentioned World Trade Organization when he started DFFT and then we have a lot of other organizations such as OECD which deal with like government access declaration and recent establishing the Japanese government is now plan to establishing IAP as a new forum. So what kind of forum would be better and how can we avoid the duplication of the debates among these forums? Thank you. Thank you so much. Please, sir. Hi everyone. This is Narayan from Nepal. So when we talk about cross-border flow of data, it’s very difficult to have some homogeneous regulation and we have to think about some common standard and principles. In this context, so do you think that like our title, we should have some single free institution or forum, as you said, which should work on this common privacy, security and intellectual property sort of things? And if not, how the countries, developing countries and economies like US, EU and Japan should collaborate and work with the developing and LDC countries? This is my question. Thank you so much. Thank you for everyone for asking your questions. It’s really great to see that in this huge room, all the input of our panel was not lost and it’s really interaction. It’s really strange looking at such a big room, but I’m glad that you’re all here with us and engaged in the conversation.

Timea Suto:
So we’ve heard about six, seven questions here regarding how do we make sure that trust is enabled with the right authority and clarity and who can access it and who can’t. Questions around redressing, having redress mechanisms for any violations of rights. Questions on how do companies cope. with such a fragmented environment, especially when they are required to provide that data for public safety reasons. Questions on how do we find commercial solutions? Can we find commercial solutions on these challenges? Is there geopolitical tension that risks to be heightened? Is there a way to, which is the best forum to address some of these questions? And how do we include LLDCs in some of these conversations? So as I’m going to ask my panelists to share their final remarks from this conversation, I’m going to extend the one minute that we gave you to two minutes and try and pick your question or pick some of the questions that were asked and then perhaps leave us with a lesson that you think we should learn from today’s conversation and the global state of play around data governance. I’m going to go on in the order that you all have spoken because some of you have been silent since you first spoken. So I’m going to turn to Nnenna first, if you want to pick one or two of these questions and share your last remarks. Thank you, Tymia.

Nwakanma Nnenna:
And thanks everyone for your rich contributions. I would love to speak to the duplication of forum and where we should be having these conversations. Conversations are a great thing. Normative conversations are great, but legally constraining conversations are more important. So my answer to that question would be, let’s have conversations in multiple places. Let’s have normative certain conversations at global level. But when it comes to decisions, let’s make them firm so we can hold stakeholders responsible and that rather that this will be done at a global level. most preferably under the UN umbrella, because we’ve seen things. I’m speaking as an African, speaking from West Africa at this time. I don’t think OECD should be the place to hold conversations that will be of global constraining value. So I’d rather that the WTO, the UN, and its related agencies be the places where we make these decisions, even while we have conversations. I think that is why we come to the IGF. That will be my submission. Conversations must continue at global level, at regional level, private partnerships, national levels. Let’s have these conversations. Even within civil society, we have human rights issues that we can reflect on, think tanks, but then when it comes to global decisions, let’s make them at UN level. Thank you.

Timea Suto:
And have a great evening. Thank you so much, and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you for being here with us. Sheetal, your takeaways, and maybe some responses to questions we’ve been asked. Thank you. Just to respond to the point about where to have discussions.

Sheetal Kumar:
I think as Nana said, they are being had in various places, but not everyone can access them, and not everyone understands or is engaging with the different ways that these conversations intersect, whether they’re around e-commerce, trade, and data flows, or data protection, and the standards that protect data, the technical standards. So there does need to be much more, I think, openness and engagement from a wider range of stakeholders in these spaces, not necessarily the creation of new forums. And what I would say as well is in relation to whether it’s protecting personal data or non-personal data, which as we heard earlier, both obviously require strong levels of protection. What we would like, I think what we need to see, and what we have in some cases, is legal frameworks that provide for that. We need to see them implemented, and to respond to the point about remedy, we need to see what is provided for, the rights that are provided for, for example, in legal frameworks around remedy actually implemented. And a leveling up, but leveling higher, I think, to higher human rights standards, or to human rights standards across the board, and that will allow for the trust, which we’ve been discussing, to manifest. because if we have those high standards across the board, across jurisdictions, that will support the trust and enable free flow. And then finally, to that point that I made earlier about the importance of ensuring that we have the broader infrastructures in place for people to make use of data for more equitable access, which is particularly important as we’re talking about artificial intelligence and harnessing that. Fundamentally, that’s about data processing, right? So the ability to do that requires a wide range of capacities, and I think we need to pay attention to that as well. Thank you.

Timea Suto:
Thank you so much, Sheetal. Raul. Thank you very much.

Raúl Echeberría:
I think that’s the, in his intervention, Jacob brought some new issues to the discussion that probably we deserve an entire session to deal with. So I will just refrain to a few comments, but I was going to say exactly what Nena said before about the fact that the war is much more than United States and Europe. And I understand that in some cases, the players, the holders could feel that there are unequal relations, but the history is plenty, and is still, unfortunately, plenty of unequal relationships between countries and regions. And coming from Latin America, I think that’s our relation with, the history of our relation with Europe is plenty of those cases. And while some people could think that there is no protectionism in some measures that are being discussed or promoted in Europe, being seen from outside of Europe, they look protectionist. And this is exactly what I say before when I say that we have to be careful that in good faith, when some stakeholders try to promote policies that, in their views, are good for fixing market failures or problems, we have to be very careful with the consequence that those policies could bring to the whole internet, not only for one country or one region. So we need a strong commitment among stakeholders that we will defend and work together for a not fermented internet. I agree very much. much with what Mario said before about that the good policies bring certainty, more security and trust, and I agree very much with that. But the problem that we face is that not all the policies are good, and not all the proposals are good. In regions like Latin America, where we deal with many different jurisdictions, more than 30 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean together, and so every country promoting their own different policies, we have to be very careful because the risk of those policies creating chaos or negative impacts instead of certainty is very big. Coming back to the European thing, one thing that we live in in Latin America is that there is a huge tend to copy and paste policies from Europe, policies that could be good for Europe. I’m not arguing against that, not necessarily are good for Latin America, and I guess that same happens with Africa, but with Africa I don’t want to make an opinion on that. So we need more work among all stakeholders, try, as I said before, to promote the discussions about the concepts of fermentation, the importance of data flow, and need to make the policymakers understand what is at risk in the policy development that somebody they are not aware of. Thank you.

Timea Suto:
Thank you, Raul. Just mindful of the time, we have about eight to ten minutes for the rest of the speakers, so I do encourage you to try and be short with your answers. We’ve had a lot of engagement from the floor and that is always good, but we need to manage the time as well. Karl, over to you for some last considerations. Thank you.

Carl Gahnberg:
I’ll try to keep it short, but I wanted to address something that I think addressed some of the questions that we received from the participants, or I think helped address some of those questions, and that goes to really highlighting the importance of encryption and continued support for use of encryption, because a lot of the questions that I heard about, for instance, data localization, or the physical infrastructure, or restrictions on interconnecting physical infrastructure, a lot of those challenges you can kind of resolve by allowing data to be encrypted, because it takes the locality or the importance of locality out of the equation. So for instance, I’m sitting in Switzerland, if my data is here in Switzerland unencrypted, then it’s much safer on the other part of the world other side of the world if it’s encrypted on that other side of the world so locality and and sort of safety is not one to one when it comes to data but it’s rather making sure that you have the technical means to secure the data like encryption that is so important and that also allows us to have this global network if we can actually secure the cross border data flows. The other thing I wanted to address was the question around which for to talk about this. And I think to Nina’s point, the to ensuring kind of inclusiveness in these discussions are really important I think in that regard, it’s important to consider that all of the four that we can think of have some form of barriers to participation. And I think it’s important to actually allow these discussions to happen in multiple for us. And I’m not too worried about duplication of discussions, as long as there is a path to a shared discussion and I think the IGF system is actually quite good in that regard. When you look at it in terms of national and regional IGFs that then is met with a crescendo of the global IGF every year so I could, I could see the IGF structure coupled with other for us being actually very useful vehicles for for facilitating participation. Then finally we had a question around sort of principles in in thinking about this globally and I think there’s, there is a principle that I know been used in both the environmental space and I know it’s used security, which is that you And I think that’s a really good model for us as we’re thinking about addressing these challenges that you should always be a global perspective in what you’re doing because the thing that you’re working with is a global infrastructure is a global society that we’re trying to interact with. So to think globally while you’re doing these things locally is extremely important. Thank you.

Timea Suto:
Thank you, Carl. Dave.

David Pendle:
Thank you. I’ll try to be brief. I know addressing at least the one question that was addressed to me, how does a provider kind of operate and comply in this like web of conflicts of laws I think is a really important question and one of our kind of like fundamental principles is that we should not be forced to violate one country’s laws in order to comply with another’s. That’s just a really critical point and there’s obviously a lot of concern about U.S. laws in our world and I understand that. One thing that’s fortunate about U.S. law is that it does account for the ability to challenge a demand where it conflicts, where there’s a true conflict within another country’s laws. It’s called a comedy challenge, not the kind that makes you laugh, but ends in I-T-Y. And we do report every six months on all of the cross-border requests that we get. That’s something we include in our transparency reports and I think that transparency generally is kind of the path toward accountability across the board and ensuring that users are notified when their data is requested, ensuring that everyone understands what authorities can and cannot do, and ultimately either the government or provider community putting up statistics every six months or more often to kind of show what is actually happening can dispel a lot of concerns and myths. Really quickly on the appropriate forum, certainly we need broader participation. The OECD did get some things right and then they brought a lot of people to the table that haven’t sat at that table before together, including privacy voices and data regulators, DPAs, and law enforcement, national security folks, with some input from civil society and business. I think we need more input. We also need more multilateral agreements generally because if you start counting up how long these bilateral agreements take, it will take years to cover all of the countries in the world unless we start going more multilaterally. So that’s one of the, I think it’s time for the governments to kind of start rolling up their sleeves and get to work on that.

Timea Suto:
Thanks, Dave. Mai?

Maarit Palovirta:
Yes, so maybe I’ll comment on the question on the geopolitics. I mean, it appears that geopolitics is the flavor of the day a bit everywhere, not only the telecommunications sector. We may talk about electronic vehicles or other things. There is a little bit of this at the moment in the world. What I would like to emphasize, though, is that from our perspective as a private sector, well, association representing the private sector, it is a very thin line between promoting the competitiveness of a certain region and being outright protectionists. So I think that it’s a very fine line to walk. And for like any industry or any private sector organization in this, well, in this globe today, most of us do need a global market for some purpose. And I was in the beginning making comments about the increasing third-party engagement for cross-border data traffic, for example, with the new developments in the telecom industry. So I think that that’s good to keep in mind. Maybe just quickly on the institutional framing, it’s good to have discussions. It’s good to see how we can develop these common principles. And here I’m not trying to push for any European model, but there are then regions such as Europe who already have regulations in place on many of these things, who are first movers, whether it’s good or bad. So it’s also then very important from our perspective not to duplicate or create something that’s bad. will be then another layer on top of it. But if it’s principles, if it’s things like that, we, I think, can fully endorse that. Thank you.

Timea Suto:
Thank you, Marit. Jakob.

Jakob Greiner:
Yeah, I very much like what Karl said, think globally, but act locally. I think that that is the vision for, you know, for every local company in all our nations. But if you want to incentivize these local companies to place their data, for example, in a cloud, as I said before, share it, let it flow globally, then you need to give these companies also assurances that data cannot be accessed. And David highlighted it. I think there are conflicts between different laws at the moment that make it very difficult for cloud providers to really adhere to one or the other, but in the end, they need to. And so the solution at the moment that some nations are going is to say, well, let’s find frameworks that, for highest sensitive data, prevent data access. And if that means that only a local cloud provider should be the main company dealing with the data, then that is the solution that at the moment is working. I think coming back to Raul’s point, of course, me, I’m very much looking at the EU-US focus, but you’re fully right. And that goes in the question of global fora. These rules should, if possible, be harmonized as much as possible. And there should be fora where governments get together and really outline what they are doing. Because rules on foreign ownership, data localization, I talked a lot about Europe. These rules exist in the US as well, and I’m sure they exist also in other nations. So I think coming together, making kind of a mapping and best practices of what is happening on the legislative side across nations, not only in the EU-US, should be the way ahead. Because in the end, ultimately, both consumers and enterprises and companies like such as myself want legal certainty. I think that’s the most important. And if we get that by harmonizing these rules globally, then we can also enable global data flows

Timea Suto:
and not only local data flows. Thank you so much. And thanks really for being here. We finished almost on time. All that’s left for me is to summarize, which I won’t do because we ran out of time. No, really. Just to note on the account of last words, some of the things, we were talking about how we operationalize this concept of data-free flows with trust. And I think we drew out quite a few good lessons here that are worth mentioning, even if it’s just telegraphically and without really any effort here to be comprehensive. The value of partnerships you’ve highlighted, the value of having all stakeholders at the table, which includes making sure that forums are open for stakeholder participation and for that global inclusiveness that we all talk about when we talk about data. It also needs to happen at the policymaking level. When we are talking about technology and how technology can actually help in some of these issues, thinking about encryption and thinking about transparency, thinking about interoperability, both at the technological level, but also the levels of policies. When we think about what are good regulations, what are good policy principles upon which we start acting, you’ve all mentioned, again, thinking interoperably, having a risk-based approach, creating safe spaces for dialogue and for sharing best practices. And then when we talk about the role of business, I think it was very clear not to put business at the middle around some of these ping-pong of jurisdictional, legal policies. policy conversations, but really make sure that business is at the table, that all stakeholders are at the table, and we think holistically and in a multi-stakeholder fashion about the normative principle-based conversations, but then make sure that those trickle down at the local level into clear implementation, into clear capacity building. So that’s what I really captured, and it’s really a telegraphic summary. There’s a lot more that we can say about this. There’s a lot of resources that we put onto the website of this session, including some of the ICC papers, but also a number of the papers and reference material that speakers have mentioned today. I do encourage you to take a look. We’re still here until the end of the forum, so come to the ICC basis booth and find us, and we can share some of that with you as well. So I wish you all a good rest of your debates, and a huge thanks to my panelists, both online and here on the panel. Thank you, and have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Thank you. Yes? Well, are you around still? Yes. Pretending I can and nothing? Not ICANN, not yet. Not IJF only, but all the rest of things, yes. I will see you around. Yes, sure. How about at least in person? I do, I do. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Well, I guess yes, in person. Have we not? Are you not a IGF student? It’s been like years, yeah, but I think we’ve met. I will, since you’re here, I just wanted to see if you wanted to find time to grab a coffee or something. Yeah. Do you use WhatsApp or Signal? Both. Oh, that’s great. Yeah. Do you know what it is? 650, sorry, just my phone number? Yes. Yes, US is one, yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, okay. 650-441-0365. You just message me. I don’t know if that’s. I’ll give you a call. No, it definitely turns into a call. I know. Hopefully I’ve got that right. I have to update it for things that came up today that are going on tomorrow, so that’s why I’m hesitant to say the exact time. I wanted to make sure that I connected and that way we can message each other. I thought it was an awesome panel. Oh, thank you. Yeah, it was good to have this. Yeah. and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and

Audience

The analysis delves into various aspects of cross-border data, open data, and data protection. Shilpa, a researcher at the University of Melbourne, sheds light on the complexities and challenges associated with cross-border data and open data. She highlights the importance of understanding India’s experience with data privacy and protection laws. Specifically, Shilpa mentions the establishment of India’s Data Protection Act as a result of a judgment on privacy standards. She also discusses the concerns surrounding India’s Aadhaar identification system and its impact on data privacy.

One recurring concern throughout the analysis is the invasion of privacy and the potential negative impacts of data collection, particularly in relation to predictive advertising. It is noted that corporations often collect as much data as possible to sell products and services, raising concerns about privacy invasion and manipulation of consumer behavior for targeted marketing.

There is also skepticism about who truly benefits from the creation and sharing of data sets. This skepticism raises questions about the need for open data and the beneficiaries of such datasets. Shilpa explores the need for clearer definitions and distinctions between open data and the concept of Data-Free Flow with Trust (DFFT), underscoring the importance of differentiation.

The analysis further acknowledges the varying approaches to data flow regulations in different regions. It highlights the need for emerging economies to adopt a different approach to data flow regulations to address their specific needs. Furthermore, it mentions different versions of data flow regulations, such as the Data-Free Flow with Trust and CPBR proposed by the US, as well as the Chinese version of closing all data. These differing approaches reflect the need for data governance models that align with specific circumstances and development goals.

The risks associated with adopting a deductive global approach to global frameworks are emphasized. The analysis recognizes the tensions that arise from balancing data protection against the free flow of data. It raises concerns about the potential negative impacts of a one-size-fits-all approach to data regulations, underscoring the importance of considering specific country-level needs and circumstances.

Building trust is highlighted as a fundamental requirement for data governance in multilateral environments. Trust can be established through adherence to norms, standards, and law enforcement. Additionally, transparency in data processing is identified as crucial for building trust between data processors and data subjects. Without transparency, concerns about how data is used and processed may undermine public trust.

The analysis also acknowledges some specific cases related to data leaks and accountability. It suggests that Google should face consequences for data leaks and might be required to pay fines if it leaks user information. It raises concerns about private certification, particularly with large companies like Google. Doubts are expressed about the ability of small private certification agencies to effectively handle issues with such large companies, especially when governmental bodies, like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), face difficulties in this regard.

In conclusion, the analysis emphasizes the complexities and challenges associated with cross-border data, open data, and data protection. It underscores the need for clear definitions and distinctions between different concepts, such as open data and DFFT, as well as varying approaches to data flow regulations. Building trust through transparency and accountability is seen as vital for effective data governance. The analysis also raises concerns about privacy invasion, the manipulation of consumer behavior through data collection, and the role of large companies in data certification and accountability. Overall, the analysis provides valuable insights into the complexities of the data landscape and highlights the importance of careful consideration of data-related policies and regulations.

Kathleen McGowan

The analysis highlights the importance of prioritising data sharing across borders to promote socio-economic development. Kathleen McGowan argues that data should be viewed as the ultimate stranded asset and emphasizes the need to harmonise data sharing within and across borders.

Trust is identified as a major challenge in leveraging the power of data. The analysis acknowledges that trust deficits around data can be obstructive and that trust divides are likely to persist due to current geopolitical realities.

Creating value from data poses similar challenges for both developed and developing economies. No country or economic bloc has found the perfect balance for extracting value from data. The absence of a federal data protection law in the United States exemplifies the challenges faced by even highly developed economies in this regard.

The analysis also addresses the issue of data exploitation, particularly concerning data produced by individuals in developing countries. It argues that external entities often exploit this data without benefiting the local economy. Data localization, driven not only by national security concerns but also by a sense of data exploitation, is seen as a response to this problem.

Investing in the right governance models is crucial for establishing confidence in cross-border data flows. Current models of data trust and stewardship are considered limited, and data sharing should be the rule rather than the exception, with all stakeholders involved in decision-making processes.

Digital public infrastructure (DPI) and digital public goods (DPG) play a key role in data flow. DPI has gained prominence during India’s G20 presidency, aiming to create highly inclusive tech stacks supporting public sector service delivery and private sector innovation. Digital public goods are open solutions designed for interoperability and privacy.

The generation of data from digital public infrastructure is viewed as instrumental in solving global problems. It offers the potential for more representative and inclusive data.

Strategic data management is seen as an area where emerging economies can benefit. The analysis suggests that these economies should consider data as a strategic asset and adopt an approach different from the laissez-faire model of the United States and the state-driven model.

Finally, the concept of the “fourth way” is proposed as an alternative approach to data governance, presenting an opportunity for countries to leverage data in a way that better serves their economy and society. Kathleen McGowan agrees with this approach, highlighting its potential advantages.

In conclusion, the analysis underscores the need to prioritize data sharing across borders for socio-economic development. It addresses challenges related to trust, creating value from data, and data exploitation. The importance of investment in governance models, as well as the role of digital public infrastructure and digital public goods, is highlighted. The concept of the “fourth way” offers an alternative to traditional data governance approaches. Overall, the analysis provides valuable insights into data management and its implications for global development.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA

The importance of data exchange and digital technologies in healthcare services in developing countries was highlighted by John Philbert and ATSUSHI YAMANAKA. They emphasized the crucial role that data exchange and digital technologies play in improving health services and outcomes in these countries. The need for secure and safe data exchange to ensure confidentiality and privacy of patient information was stressed by ATSUSHI YAMANAKA.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA also argued for the inclusion of the voice of developing countries in creating an international framework for data exchange. He believed that their unique experiences and perspectives can contribute to the development of inclusive and equitable policies that address the specific challenges faced by these countries.

The promotion of data ownership and a right-based approach to data transactions was emphasized. The Rwandan government was cited as an example, having established a data protection office under the National Cyber Security Authority to protect data while allowing flow and respecting privacy. This approach recognizes the importance of user-based control in data transactions.

The support of development partners was deemed crucial in creating a conducive environment for data transactions. ATSUSHI YAMANAKA highlighted the role that academia, private sectors, and civil societies can play in supporting the creation of such an environment. Learning from each other’s experiences was identified as a valuable process.

Creating conducive mechanisms for free data flow requires a multi-stakeholder approach. The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was cited as an example of a platform that encourages collaboration and dialogue among different actors to address challenges related to data flow.

Concerns were raised about data exploitation and data colonialism in developing countries. It was noted that developing countries often feel that their data is being exploited, and that information flow is skewed in favor of certain countries or organizations. This calls for addressing power imbalances and promoting a more equitable distribution of benefits from data transactions.

Bilateral organizations were urged to support the creation of an ecosystem that promotes trusted data flow. This emphasizes the need for cooperation and partnerships between countries and organizations to establish frameworks and mechanisms that ensure data is exchanged in a secure and trustworthy manner.

Government involvement was highlighted, emphasizing the importance of providing the right information and tools to government officials to ensure safe data transactions. Sharing of good practices and interactive dialogues with governments were also supported.

The transaction of data should not be solely driven by economic or social benefits, but should also consider global benefits. Certain types of data, such as climate and forest data, were highlighted as global public goods that can benefit society as a whole. A broader perspective beyond economic considerations is necessary for responsible and ethical data transactions.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA advocated for integrating the free flow of trusted data into discussions about digital public goods and infrastructure. Data, particularly data related to natural resources and threats to them, was considered a public good that promotes transparency and collective action to address environmental challenges.

In conclusion, the importance of data exchange and digital technologies in healthcare services and beyond was emphasized. The need for secure data exchange, the voice of developing countries, data ownership, and the involvement of development partners were highlighted. Conducive mechanisms for data flow require a multi-stakeholder approach. Concerns were raised about data exploitation and colonialism. Government involvement, sharing of good practices, and considering global benefits were stressed. The notion of data as a public good and responsible data transactions were emphasized.

Mayumi Miyata

Mayumi Miyata discusses the concept of Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT) in the context of development, aiming to facilitate the safe and transparent participation of developing countries in the international data market. She emphasizes the need to integrate DFFT into development programs and policies to anticipate future cross-border data exchanges and maximize data utilization.

Miyata highlights the importance of providing developing countries with the necessary infrastructure and environment to participate in the data market. By incorporating DFFT into development programs, countries can create an environment that encourages their active involvement in the international data market, leading to data-driven socioeconomic development.

Additionally, Miyata emphasizes the significance of multilateral stakeholder involvement in creating mechanisms to promote the free flow of trusted data. She argues that this involvement is crucial for addressing imbalances in data exploitation and rectifying the skewed flow of data, which often leaves developing countries feeling exploited. According to Miyata, it is essential to address these imbalances to ensure that developing countries can capitalize on the potential of their own data.

Miyata also advocates for the establishment of global standards for data transactions that extend beyond economic and social benefits. She provides examples of legal barriers encountered in data sharing, such as restrictions on data-sharing during a COVID-19 telemedicine project involving 12 countries. Some countries, like Indonesia, have limitations on exporting data from their hospitals, while national security concerns can restrict the sharing of environmental data, such as forestry data. Miyata believes that global standards would help overcome these obstacles.

In conclusion, Miyata supports the development of frameworks or global agreements that facilitate data sharing and transactions for global benefit. She suggests that disassociating personal information from data can make projects more feasible, and highlights the advantages that a framework would have provided in their COVID-19 telemedicine project. Overall, Miyata believes that integrating DFFT into development agendas, involving multiple stakeholders, and establishing global standards can enable developing countries to safely participate in the international data market.

Jean Philbert Nsengimana

The analysis highlights the importance of striking a balance between openness and data protection in relation to cross-border data flow and digital data governance. It recognises that data has become a valuable resource, often referred to as the “new oil,” which both state and non-state actors seek to exploit. Therefore, regulators and policymakers have a responsibility to safeguard the sovereignty, privacy, security, and digital rights of users while also promoting openness.

In the context of Africa, the analysis points out the potential benefits of cross-border data in bringing together the continent into a digital single market. Africa is currently in the process of creating the largest free trade area in the world, which could have significant economic and developmental implications. The report suggests that digital infrastructure, powered by wireless networks and satellites, can play a crucial role in connecting different parts of the continent. By transcending borders, this interconnectedness can foster collaboration and facilitate seamless data exchange.

Additionally, the analysis highlights the need to amplify and strengthen African voices in global digital data governance. It argues that although global platforms like the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) play a critical role in shaping digital data governance norms, it is important to adequately represent the perspectives and interests of African regulators and stakeholders. Strengthening African voices within the IGF can help ensure that decisions regarding digital data governance align with Africa’s unique social, economic, and political circumstances.

In summary, the analysis underscores the significance of considering both openness and data protection in cross-border data flow and digital data governance. It highlights the potential benefits of cross-border data for Africa, particularly in terms of economic integration and digital connectivity. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of including and empowering African voices in global digital data governance forums. By doing so, a more inclusive and representative approach to digital data governance can be achieved, leading to fairer outcomes for all stakeholders involved.

Chrissy Martin Meier

During the discussion, the audience raised several important questions related to data localisation and its potential impact on fragmentation. The primary concern was how to achieve data localisation without exacerbating the issue of fragmentation further.

One question that arose was regarding the role of the Institutional Arrangement for Partnership (IAP), spearheaded by Japan. Unfortunately, further details about the specific role of the IAP were not provided in the given context. However, it can be inferred that the IAP may have some relevance in addressing the challenges and complexities associated with data localisation and fragmentation.

Another question raised by the audience was related to the integration of the SWIFT system and the new financial transaction system spearheaded by the BRIC member nations. The specific details of how these two systems will fit into the broader framework of data localisation and fragmentation were not elaborated upon. However, it can be assumed that integrating these systems would require careful consideration and coordination to ensure that they align with the larger goals and objectives.

Additionally, the audience sought clarification on how country-led efforts to establish their own digital currencies, often referred to as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), will fit into the picture. Unfortunately, the discussion did not provide specific insights into how CBDCs would be incorporated and their potential impact on data localisation and fragmentation.

It is clear from the audience’s questions that there is a concern about balancing the need for data localisation with the potential risks of increasing fragmentation. Addressing this issue requires careful planning and collaboration among stakeholders to establish harmonised frameworks and standards. While the specific details and answers to the audience’s questions were not fully addressed, the significance of these concerns was acknowledged during the discussion.

Tojima Hitoshi

Both speakers emphasize the significance of data flow with trust in achieving digital transformation and development goals. JICA, or the Japan International Cooperation Agency, has recognized the value of digital technologies in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their cooperation program. This indicates their understanding of the potential benefits that can be derived from incorporating digital solutions into their operations. The Government of Japan, on the other hand, has been actively promoting the concept of data-free flow with trust (DFFT) since 2019. This demonstrates the government’s commitment to facilitating the secure and unrestricted movement of data.

The notion that data is referred to as the new gold is echoed by both speakers. Data is recognized as a valuable asset that contributes to the progress of nations. By viewing data in this way, it becomes evident that its free and secure flow is vital for unlocking the full potential of digital transformation. Furthermore, the speakers highlight the need for trust in data flow. Trust ensures that data is handled with integrity, confidentiality, and accountability. It establishes a foundation on which digital transformation and development can flourish.

The speakers’ positive sentiment towards data flow with trust reflects their belief in its transformative power. They argue that allowing data to flow freely, securely, and with trust will enable nations to fully leverage the benefits of digital transformation. With the overarching goal of helping partner countries achieve tangible development outcomes, JICA recognizes that data is instrumental in accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This reiterates the importance of data in driving socio-economic development and highlights its role as a catalyst for achieving the SDGs.

In conclusion, both speakers advocate for data flow with trust as a critical prerequisite for digital transformation and development. JICA’s adoption of digital technologies and the Government of Japan’s promotion of data-free flow with trust demonstrate their commitment to harnessing the power of data in their efforts. By recognizing data as a valuable asset and emphasizing the need for trust, they provide a compelling argument for the free and secure movement of data. The speakers’ positive sentiment underscores the significance of data in accelerating progress towards the SDGs and achieving tangible development outcomes. Overall, their insights shed light on the essential role that data flow with trust plays in unlocking the full potential of digital transformation and driving sustainable development.

Gordon Kalema

The importance of formulating a data ecosystem that prioritizes people’s understanding and comfortability is emphasized in this collection of arguments. It is argued that a data ecosystem should be designed with a focus on ensuring that individuals have a clear understanding of how their data is being used and feel comfortable with its handling. This sentiment is supported by the observation that there has been a grey space in discussions around data where uncertainty existed.

Policies play a crucial role in creating a conducive data ecosystem. Rwanda’s implementation of a data protection and privacy law two years ago is cited as an example of the importance of policies. It is noted that a grace period of two years was given for people to understand and adapt to the new regulations, and from October 15, a cut-off date will be implemented. This demonstrates the role of policies in shaping the data ecosystem and providing a framework for data protection.

Balancing regulations with people’s comfort and understanding is deemed necessary. The argument is made that while regulations are important for safeguarding data, they should not hinder people’s ability to comfortably navigate the data ecosystem. Transitioning from a regulatory focus to a people-centric approach is highlighted as a valuable lesson, with an emphasis on putting people first before policies.

The potential for developing countries to be part of and even lead the data economy is mentioned. It is noted that data understanding and the data ecosystem are still uncertain areas in which everyone is learning. This suggests that developing countries have the opportunity to actively participate in and shape the data economy, potentially taking on leadership roles.

The significance of creating granular procedures and policies that can be easily understood by consumers is underscored. The example of Gordon’s country, where data protection and privacy laws were enacted two years ago, highlights the need for policies that are accessible to the general public. It is implied that simply having a legal instrument is not enough, and that policies must be designed with consumers’ understanding in mind.

The intentional structuring of organizations and dedication of resources to drive data discussions are emphasized as important factors. The establishment of a data protection office under the National Cyber Security Authority is cited as an example of intentionally structuring an organization to train people and facilitate discussions on data protection and privacy. This highlights the importance of organizational commitment and resource allocation in advancing data-related initiatives.

The role of data protectors is presented in a new light. It is argued that their duty extends beyond protecting data to also facilitating the flow of data and ensuring privacy. The perspective that data protectors should be conservative and solely focused on data protection is challenged, and a broader understanding of their role is encouraged.

Driving the digital conversation is seen as dependent on patience, awareness, and people’s ownership of the process. It is suggested that creating a culture of understanding, where people realize the importance of data in powering AI tools and digital innovations, is crucial. This implies that active engagement and participation from individuals are key factors in driving meaningful discussions around data and its applications.

To build a strong and sustainable data ecosystem, leveraging support from countries and international organizations is deemed essential. The argument is made that common protocols, tools, processes, and frameworks or policies should be put in place through collaboration with external entities. This suggests the need for partnership and cooperation at a global level to establish cohesive and effective data management practices.

The private sector is portrayed as having an important role in supporting emerging economies in terms of tools, processes, and policies. The argument calls on the private sector to contribute to the development and advancement of data-related initiatives in emerging economies, potentially by providing resources and expertise.

Promoting more innovations and championing transformative digital tools that are paired with useful data is posited as a way to increase understanding and appreciation of data’s value. It is suggested that when people can see the practical applications of data through innovative tools, they are more likely to grasp its significance. Therefore, a deliberate focus on encouraging and promoting innovative solutions is advocated.

Rwanda is portrayed as open to being a data champion. The country’s willingness to embrace and advocate for data-related initiatives is highlighted, suggesting a commitment to playing an active role in shaping the data ecosystem on a global scale.

The significance of the youth in the digital industry is emphasized. With over 70% of the population in Rwanda being below the age of 35, it is argued that young people are not only users and consumers of digital technologies but also bring disruption to the industry. This highlights the potential of youth involvement in driving digital innovation and growth.

Transparency in data sharing may be hampered if institutions are not comfortable sharing low-quality data. It is suggested that lack of transparency might be due to institutions trying to hide something harmful. This observation highlights the potential challenges in achieving full transparency in data practices and the importance of ensuring data quality.

Emphasizing data quality is suggested as a means to promote transparency and openness. It is argued that by focusing on data quality, institutions may feel more comfortable in sharing data, resulting in increased transparency. This further underscores the interplay between data quality and transparency in the data ecosystem.

In conclusion, this collection of arguments highlights the importance of formulating a data ecosystem that prioritizes people’s understanding and comfortability. Policies, balancing regulations with people’s understanding, the role of developing countries, granular procedures and policies, intentional organizational structuring, data protectors, driving the digital conversation, leveraging support from countries and the private sector, promoting innovations, and youth involvement are all key considerations in shaping an effective and sustainable data ecosystem. Additionally, the challenges of transparency, data quality, and the role of Rwanda as a potential data champion are also addressed.

Jean-Jacques Sahel

The analysis explores various aspects of cross-border data flows, privacy, and security in the digital economy. It emphasises the need to balance data flows with trust and privacy. Data flows are integral to our daily activities, both economic and personal. However, it is crucial to address the trust deficit between users and companies. To achieve this, public policy frameworks must embrace the free flow of data and avoid threats related to data localisation.

Moreover, the analysis advocates for open, interoperable, and standards-based regulatory models for data management. Progressive data transfer solutions have emerged in countries like Singapore, Brazil, and Japan, including certifications, consent for adequacy agreements, and interoperable privacy laws. The global cross-border privacy rules (CBPR) system is highlighted as a trusted mechanism for facilitating data flows between jurisdictions.

The inclusion of voices from developing countries in ongoing discussions about global frameworks for cross-border data transfers is also emphasised. Interoperable standards and certification systems can be applied globally, and the right voices are essential to ensure the global applicability of these frameworks.

The analysis acknowledges the role of companies like Google in providing access to information, especially in developing countries. Google sees itself as an information company that enables people worldwide to access relevant information. The internet has revolutionised access to information, and Google’s tools and products have played a significant role in facilitating this accessibility.

The importance of businesses, particularly small and medium-sized ones, understanding and integrating privacy practices for trusted data flows is highlighted. Certification requirements and good practice standards for data privacy exist, and businesses can adhere to them. Google has invested in funding advisors to help businesses understand these requirements and implement them. Embedding privacy practices directly into products through privacy by design principles is also deemed possible.

Privacy and security are considered crucial in handling data. Google’s experience and understanding of good practices in privacy and security are cited to underscore the need to incorporate privacy and security in both product creation and transactions.

The analysis emphasises the need to raise awareness and understanding of privacy and security principles among users and the business community. It is argued that this awareness reinforces trust and ensures the adoption of good privacy and security practices.

Regarding data localisation, the analysis suggests that the decision should be based on the nature of the data and its potential use. Examples, such as health data during the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrate cases where data localisation may be necessary for the benefits it brings. However, the analysis does not explicitly endorse or reject data localisation in general.

A strategic approach to handling data, rather than a purely regulatory approach, is advocated. It is suggested that this approach should consider empowering regions, strengthening local economies, reinforcing local content creation, and other factors relevant to the specific goals and needs of each region.

Transparency is encouraged in terms of privacy and security. While acknowledging the existence of cultural differences, the analysis believes that a baseline level of good practices in privacy can be universally achieved. Reference is made to ISO-type security standards as a precedent for globally accepted standards.

Cooperation is deemed necessary for addressing the challenges related to cross-border data flows. The analysis highlights the difficulty of swiftly achieving a full global solution but suggests starting by creating connections between certain countries and gradually expanding from there.

Lastly, the analysis rejects the idea of having separate privacy and security standards for developed and developing countries. It argues that such separate standards would perpetuate disparities and hinder the goal of reducing inequalities.

In conclusion, the analysis emphasises the need for a balanced approach to cross-border data flows, incorporating trust, privacy, and security. It promotes open, interoperable, and standards-based regulatory models, the inclusion of voices from developing countries, and access to information. The significance of businesses understanding and integrating privacy practices, as well as raising awareness and understanding of privacy and security principles among users and the business community, is also highlighted. The analysis advocates for a strategic approach to data handling, transparency, and cooperation while rejecting separate standards for developed and developing countries.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
a minute or so. We’re still waiting for one more expert to join in person. So thank you so much for your patience and we shall actually start in a minute or so. We’re still waiting for one more expert to join in person. So thank you so much for your patience and we’re still waiting for one more expert to join in person. So thank you so much So maybe I think we shall start actually. We have one more expert actually who’s going to join in person but he’s trying to find his way here. He just informed me that he’s somewhere. Ah, here he is. Yes. Yay, yes. So good afternoon for all. Thank you for actually coming to this session called Opportunities of Cross-Border Data Flow. I’m a senior advisor on digital transformation at JICA, who is actually privileged to be a moderator for this particular session. We actually have a very distinct expert here from the government of developing countries and also the private sectors, international organisations, umbrella organisations for the development partners, so we could have a very interesting discussion and we urge you, actually, to think about the critical questions, so we can throw at them. The sequence of the event is going to be we’re going to have an opening remark from Mr. Hitoshi, he’s a CDO of Japan international co-operation agencies, JICA, which is actually Japanese co-operation agencies for helping the developing countries. And basically he’s my boss, basically. So he’s going to have an opening session, followed by a different speakers, who is going to give a lightening talk of the contextualising, what it means for DFFT for development or data transactions for development. And then we’re going to go into the Q&A sessions, moderated Q&A sessions that I’m going to actually throw them, a few questions, but after that we’re going to open the floor to you. And we also urge, basically, active participation from the online participants. So we actually have the online facilitator, Chrissy, she’s going to facilitate the process online, so please actually send questions to Chrissy in the chat box so that she could actually moderate the session online. So let’s start, and may I actually pass it to Mr. Hitoshi, chief digital officer of Japan international co-operations, for his opening remark. Mr. Hitoshi, chief digital officer of Japan international co-operations, for his opening remark.

Tojima Hitoshi :
Thank you, Atsushi. Good afternoon, konnichiwa, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this roundtable session on opportunities of cross-border data flow. I’m going to start with a brief introduction of DFFT. I’m going to start with a brief introduction of DFFT. As Atoshi introduced me, I’m Tojima Hitoshi, Chief Digital Officer of JICA, Japan International Cooperation Agency, a bilateral institution committed to advancing the socio-economic development of emerging nations through Japanese ODA, official development assistance. At JICA, we have embraced digital technologies to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of our cooperation program, always overarching goal of helping our partner countries achieve tangible development outcomes. In 2022, we introduced our DX vision and launched a practice known as Global Agenda for DX, as you can see at the entrance of this forum. Their primary objective is harnessing digital transformation to improve the well-being of all individuals and to build resilient societies that ensure safety and provide diverse opportunities. However, to fully unlock the potential of DX, we acknowledge that data, often referred to as the new gold, must flow freely, securely, and with trust. Since 2019, the government of Japan has been at the forefront of promoting the concept of data-free flow with trust, DFFT, emphasizing the transformative role of data in what late Prime Minister Abe aptly termed society 5.0. We firmly believe that data is a critical asset for the development of nations, a powerful tool that can accelerate progress toward DX. the SDGs, yet data alone is insufficient. It must flow and transact securely to realize its full potential. In this endeavor, we are also mindful of its challenges of data governance, sovereignty, cybersecurity, privacy, and personal information protection. In this session, we have gathered experts from government, public and private sectors, civil society, and importantly, all of you, both here in Kyoto and participating online. We encourage open and free discussions on the challenges and opportunities of data flow and transactions, particularly within the context of developing countries. Your inputs are invaluable as we collectively work towards creating models that maximize the benefit of DFFT. Lastly, I extend my sincere gratitude to our co-organizers, Daya and Google, for their invaluable support in facilitating this crucial discussion. I anticipate today’s conversation will be engaging and constructive, making a substantial contribution to the advancement of DFFT for development. Thank you very much. Arigatou gozaimashita.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you, Tojima-san, for your opening remark. So now we’re going to go into the lightning sessions. We’re going to have five distinct experts here. We’re going to have, first, Ms. Miyata Mayumi. She’s the chief representative of JICA Tunisia office, but she used to be a director of the STI DX office in JICA. She’s going to talk about the DFFT for development concept of DFFT. And then we’re going to pass it on. on to Mr. John Philbert and Sengimana. He’s the Chief Technical Advisor of Africa CDC. He’s going to be also online. And then we’re going to pass it to Gordon Karema to my left here. He’s Director General of the Ministry of ICT and Innovations in Rwanda. And then to Kay McGuinn. She’s a Senior Policy Advisor of Digital Impact Alliance. And the last but not the least, Mr. John Jack Sahel, Asia-Pacific Head of Content Policy and Global Head of Telecommunication Policies of Google. So, Miyata-san, can I pass the floor to you? Miyata-san, maybe your mic is muted. Sorry.

Mayumi Miyata:
Can you hear me? Yes? Yes, we can. And also, I’m showing one slide. Yes, it’s fine. OK. So thank you very much. This is Miyata from JICA. I’m very delighted to be joining this session as an ex-director in charge of the ex in all the JICA projects and programs. And one of the things that I did with my colleagues is to conceptualize a so-called DFFT in the development context. And here, I’d like to explain this slide, which is also made available to our session page on the IGF website as a background paper. So the concept of DFFT for development, as we propose, is summarized in this sheet. And so the background is that developed countries are positioning data utilization as a source of national power. And they’re promoting them to get more data. Promoting them. and then getting more data and circulating them more data and then getting more values at the end. On the other hand, there are still many areas in developing countries where the infrastructure and environments are still at fragile stage and not maybe at that level. So what is the DFFT for development? Is to realize data-driven socioeconomic development of developing countries through enabling them to participate into international data market in safe and trusted ways. So in order to push this agenda, how can we do that? So on the right-hand side, we have laid out some elements here. And so in the white space, this is a kind of typical system architecture diagram starting bottom from infrastructure, data layer, data integration platform and data space services and having overreaching regulations institution on the right side. And blue highlighted areas are the kind of entry points where we thought quite useful to kind of package DFFT together with our development programs, for example. So support for a system operation deals with the regulations institution. Some of the intervention in our programs deal with digital strategy for our entire country or region or entire sector or industry. So in those exercises, it’s good to think about the cross-border data flows in a trusted ways. And another, secondly, is the data utilization. So we have a number of projects where we did. dealing with specific applications in energy or mobility, or in health, for their specific purposes. And when we support this, when we implement those programs, we also anticipate future cross-border data exchanges, so that we don’t hinder their potential of data utilization. So here are the kind of framework for thinking that we like to propose. And some of the detailed explanations are given on the following slide. I’m not going to explain all of them. And in the session, I would be happy to share some of the concrete examples and the challenges I would like to hear from other panels and the participants. Thank you very much.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you, Miyata-san, for the concise, actually, concept of explanation, the concept of DFFT for development. As Miyata-san mentioned, the data without flow, data without transaction is data, no data, right? No gold, basically. So it’s very, very important for us to see what would be the safe and trusted ways of transacting data. So that is really the concept behind the DFFT for development. So now let me also pass it to Jean-Philippe Bernseng-Imana. He’s a Chief Digital Advisor for the CDC Africa. So she’s actually advising on a lot of health-related data, which is critical in terms of privacy and also safeguarding as well. So Jean-Philippe, can you actually have a lightning talk for you for five minutes? Absolutely. Thank you so much, Toshi-san.

Jean Philbert Nsengimana:
Good afternoon, everyone. So it’s half past 11 p.m. here, and I’m only here because Toshi-san is my good friend, and today he’s surrounded by two other… very good friends and colleagues, Kay McGowan and Gordon Kalema. Otherwise, I’m sure there is enough expertise in the room to dissect this topic. My name is Jean-Philippe Ntsengimana. I’m the Chief Digital Advisor at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and also work as serve as Senior Advisor at the Digital Impact Alliance. So the theme of cross-border data is extremely interesting and timely in the African context because of several reasons, but I will only talk about three reasons. Number one, Africa is uniting in the world’s largest free trade area. Previously fragmented into 54 markets, since 20… …a historic shift is… consumers. And while most of the other types of cross-border infrastructure such as roads and railways are lagging behind, digital infrastructure powered by wireless networks, satellite that are border agnostic constitute the only means to meaningfully interconnect the continent in the immediate term. So there is no question that cross-border free flow of data will benefit Africa’s vision to unite into a digital single market. Number two, I want to address the issue of openness and sovereignty and protection of data. Openness is good. It’s the only thing that would allow us to really harness the benefit of data, but we are extremely conscious also that there are many forces, state and non-state backed forces, as my previous predecessor speaker talked about, that seek to exploit the data as the new… new oil coming from Africa. So African regulators and policymakers must balance openness while protecting not just the sovereignty, but also the privacy, the security, and the digital rights of the users. And the only way to do that is through collaboration between different stakeholders who can enable appropriate data flows while safeguarding sensitive information. And this is particularly important when it comes to health data. People, as they move across borders, they need continuity of care. But at the same time, they can also transmit pathogens and propagate outbreaks leading to pandemics. So that control that balances protection and openness is very important. And it’s a challenge, not just an African challenge, but a global challenge to be able to handle. Number three, IGF is there to enable a global digital data governance. And I’m happy to see that this year the African voices are there. But this needs to be increased and be strengthened. Africans must lead in governing cross-border data to meet the continent’s needs, first and foremost, while enabling the global interconnected economy. By working together, we can build consensus on solutions such as localized health data storage, increased internet exchange points, and harmonized regional data regulations. So those are the three points I wanted to submit. And I’m really looking forward to a great conversation and a great IGF. Thanks so much. Over to you.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you, Joseph. Thank you, John Philbert. And he actually had a great, actually. insight into the balance between the openness and also protecting the privacies, but also about sovereignties of the countries as well. But you know, he also mentioned about how Africa is moving forward with one digital market. So if we are lagging behind other countries in the world, actually if we are lagging behind, I think Africa as in many of the innovations such as like M-Pesa or mobile monies, I think they may actually have the best example of it. So what do you think, Gordon, Mr. Gordon Kaleva, he’s a DG of Ministry of ICT.

Gordon Kalema:
All right, good afternoon everyone. Great to be here on this conference. I want to first of all thank the organizers of the session. I think it’s at the right timing, at a time where we are discussing the internet we want. I think it is equally critical that we start discussing the kind of data ecosystem we want. Greetings from Rwanda, and I want to give my remarks from the perspective of a policymaker. I come from the Ministry of ICT Innovation, we do policies, we put in place frameworks, and as my predecessor speakers mentioned, as the global economies attempt to move into data value, creating processes, creating frameworks, it all starts with the role of respective countries. What is it that you do as a country, and what is it that you do as an individual in contribution to this ideal data ecosystem? And definitely we can see that we are moving from a gray space, a kind of a phase where the discussion around data is quite uncertain. It’s something that people have been shy away from talking about and increasingly we are seeing now countries and organizations and individuals being more open. So how do we encourage that? As a policymaker, and I want to use some examples of our own experience back home, we put in place a data protection and privacy law two years ago and we realized that before we get into the actual implementation we needed to give an ample time for people to be comfortable and understand the topic. So we gave sort of a grace period of two years and I’m glad to mention that today on 15th, this month of October, we are celebrating the cyber security month and on 15th that’s when we are going to be having our cut-off date. So I wanted to highlight the role of having policies in place. So we need to be able to have policies, laws and institutions strengthened, but then importantly we need also to realize that we are working with people, we are working with humans before the balance between going with what the policy says, what the law says and also allowing people to be comfortable with the topic and take ownership is very key. So the transition we’ve had has taught us a lot of lessons that I’ll be able to share maybe in the next opportunity, but for us it was a highlight. People first before policies. Thank you. Thank you Gordon. So

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
it’s very very important actually to see the perspective of the people first. I think a lot of IGF is based on the human rights issues, so it’s really important that how can you actually ensure the people first policies in terms of the FFT for development. is also being entertained on that. So may I pass it to the DIO, Ms. Kay. She’s actually Senior Policy Advisors on Digital Impact Alliance. Basically, Digital Impact Alliance is an umbrella organization for the development partners in the area of digital technology or digital support. So, Kay, can you actually give us perspectives on the DFA?

Kathleen McGowan:
Yes, of course. Good afternoon, everyone. First off, I’d like to thank my friends at JICA for organizing this session and the partnership with DIO and framing this important conversation. As Atsushi-san just mentioned, the Digital Impact Alliance, or DIO, as we’re better known, is a platform for public and private development funders to work together to improve investments in digital technology in order to accelerate socioeconomic development and ensure that digital policies and systems are grounded in the rights and aspirations of people. So I, too, am really happy to hear the theme here. So it’s wonderful to have an excuse to visit this beautiful country, beautiful city, but this is also a hugely important topic. Data-free flows with trust are often associated in policy circles with international trade and commerce. In particular, among and between the world’s largest economies. And while this is, of course, true, it’s also an incomplete way to think about data-free flows with trust, right? This idea of establishing the rules and mechanisms to enable safe cross-border data sharing also has tremendous potential to advance socioeconomic development for everyone. And that includes all countries, but it’s, I think, especially relevant right now to countries and communities that are working to close gaps. such as access to formal financial services, quality education, universal health care. And then when you move beyond borders, the impacts of climate change and disease or pandemic are just a couple of examples that feel particularly tangible to all of us today. So all to say the opportunities for digital free flows with trust to solve global challenges, I would say are limited. And so I was asked to speak about the opportunities as well as the challenges. And I do truly believe that we can’t even quite fathom what the opportunities are, especially with the advent of AI as we’re seeing this. Fortunately, I think the challenges, while they are real and they’re formidable, they are not limitless, at least I hope not. I’m not naive, we’ve already heard people talk about the fact that there are going to be datasets that countries will not share, or at least they will not share broadly due to national security concerns or to protect economic interests. And yet we also know that there are vast amounts of digital data that could be safely shared for the benefit of humanity and people while respecting these security issues and sovereignty. So economists like to talk about stranded assets, right? Resources whose value are not fully realized. And I like this analogy because data, whether it’s locked up in a commercial platform or in a government server, I think as we move more and more into the digital era, data is the ultimate stranded asset. And I think that’s, you know, we’ve heard references to data being similar to oil or gold, but you know, in fact, it’s not, right? It’s a non-rivalrous resource. It’s not finite. There’s no scarcity. concern that should incentivize hoarding. In theory data is infinitely reusable and of course I don’t need to explain to anybody in this room or online the just exponential rate at which new data is being generated now which is only going to increase. So when you think about the unrealized power of stranded data assets to provide the insights and create solutions for both global and domestic challenges, I think harmonizing both data sharing within borders but data sharing across borders is a really urgent priority that doesn’t get the attention it deserves and I do applaud the government of Japan for keeping this on the global policy agenda. So I would argue that the real challenge to unleashing the power of data to advance human development, it’s not technical, although there’s a lot of technical work to be done, but it’s trust, right, which is why I think DFFT is so aptly named. We know that today’s geopolitical realities mean that some of these trust divides are not going to be closed, at least not in the foreseeable future, but I bet that most trust deficits around data can be addressed with serious investment in building and governing data sharing models and tools that give data holders the confidence they need. And these are data holders, they could be commercial actors or public institutions, but I think we can find the tools and the rules, so to speak, to unlock useful data safely, responsibly, and as you guys have put it, to let it flow. Thank you.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you, Kay, for that. Actually, exponential growth of the data is really something that we would like to explore. And then what Kay actually mentioned about tools for actually safeguarding and utilizing this. I think this is going to be a very, very pressing topic for the next speaker, Mr. Jean-Jacques Chahal. He’s from Google. So oftentimes Google has been criticized maybe from the circles, saying, okay, this is actually data oligopolies. But at the same time, I think tools and also some of the services and products that they can offer has also had tremendous, actually, potentials for developing countries as well. So can I pass it forward to you, sir?

Jean-Jacques Sahel:
Thank you very much. Yes, I think you can hear me. And thank you, Asushi and the Japanese government, for organizing this session. And it’s really good to see many of you in the room, including some faces that I’ve seen since very early IGFs. So thanks for being back. So I wanted to share our perspective and touch in particular on public policy framework, following on a little bit from what Gordon was saying. And hopefully we’ll have a good dialogue taking it a little bit further. And when I think about this topic, I think about information. You know, it’s a really timely discussion to have, because it’s about, on one hand, how we protect our users, how we reinforce their trust, but also how we can boost our economies and making the most of the global nature of the Internet and of information flows, something we haven’t always had, something that the global South hasn’t always had. And so we need to think about how we can capitalize on all the positives in this debate as well. It’s quite obvious, I think, to all of us that today data flows underpin a lot of our day-to-day activities, whether economic or personal. You know, the value and the convenience of the global Internet rely on the free flow of information, whether it’s because we can collaborate, like today, with a conference call that brings colleagues from Rwanda and other parts of the world to just talk to us, as if we were in the same room, pretty much, although it’s a very, very big screen, to see Jean Philbert. Or, you know, being able to buy or sell items online, to obtain information, etc., etc. The ability to work seamlessly, to transact, even when we have massive challenges like we’ve just had with the pandemic. We were able to maintain economic activities and also some semblance of social activities in ways that we just couldn’t have thought about just 10 or 20 years ago. And we need to think about how we preserve all that good whilst also having the right protections in place. And I think that’s what goes to the heart of this debate, because threats to data continue to grow. On one hand, you’ve got, you know, trust deficits between users and a company, or indeed between users and a country, or foreign countries and foreign organizations, people being worried about daytime issues, and we’re at an important inflection point in these debates. Now, if we think about it from a legal and policy framework, companies largely rely on contracts for transfers. And contracts have their place, but they’re not necessarily right for every transfer, and they don’t do much to ensure trust between governments or our users. And so we really need to think deep down, how can we avoid a world where we have information winners and information losers, privacy winners and privacy losers? We need to get into a situation where we don’t have countries that have access to new and innovative technologies and countries that don’t. And the only way to avoid that is to avoid artificial barriers to access information and to access technology at physical borders. Instead, we can think and we should think about ways that ensure that both ensure privacy and facilitate cross-border data flows. And I think we see that also when, you know, recently we’ve got the public consciousness focused on things like generative AI, and I think that’s thrown up considerations. about some products that have had privacy built in, you know, privacy by design, and the need for that to happen and to build it into this whole new wave of transformative products that we’re seeing it. And that approach of privacy for design has allowed a number of product companies to launch new products with privacy built in, thinking about local privacy laws and how to meet privacy expectations and how to reinforce user’s trust. And we really need now to think about that as we expand the system. We need to get to a better place because data transfer underlies so much of what we do today as a society and as an economy globally. And companies on their own cannot solve the trust deficit on data. We need, well, the sort of things we have today, we need governments, civil societies, citizens, and industry to come together to work towards a sustainable and global model for a trusted digital economy. And we’ve seen many governments active in this area. Well, Japan, for one, right, during both the G20 and then now this year with G7, with governments calling for frameworks that support the free flow of data with trust. And so how do we do that? So we think that governments and industry and other stakeholders can work together to accomplish this goal of marrying cross-border data flows with trust, with the respect of privacy, and users’ expectations. And we need to think about public policy frameworks that embrace the free flow of data, but avoid the most restrictive types of data localization, which actually could threaten resilience and cyber stability. We need to think about how to have interoperable privacy frameworks, privacy laws. We need to think about cybersecurity standards that are risk-based, that are practical, and to think about the mechanisms that underpin all that with cross-border enforcement of those mechanisms. And all of that will come through open, interoperable, and standards-based regulatory models. All this is feasible, and it’s in the process of happening. We’ve already seen progressive data transfer solutions in countries like Singapore, even Brazil, or Japan in the last few years, right, with each of those creating toolboxes for data transfer solutions. That includes things like certifications or consent for adequacy agreements. And those sorts of processes of toolboxes encourage or promote trust and offer a range of options that companies can use in order to offer privacy-compliant products and solutions, including a cross-border for the data flows. Now we need to think about a sort of multi-country, multilateral approach to all this. And so there’s a number of initiatives that we can consider. For instance, the global cross-border privacy rules, CBPR system that’s emerged recently, which is one of the important steps towards enabling a continued and trusted set of data flows between participating jurisdictions, where we have interoperable frameworks and protections that are valid across those borders. And if we do this right with these new initiatives, these new collaborations, we can end up with increased confidence from users, from customers, from business partners. That’s how we look at it as well. But if we also do it right, importantly, for all sorts of organizations, big and small, that work in this space, we can end up with reduced compliance costs, because you have interoperable frameworks across jurisdictions. We can have consistency of enforcement, which, again, is important for companies of all sizes. And again, if we do this right, we can have improved data security. And with all that, let me try and conclude with a focus – I mean, to me, it’s all obvious that it should serve for for development and the Global South, but we need to make sure that the Global South has the right voice. So we need, as we have those discussions at international level about creating or fostering and taking on interoperable regulatory and standards frameworks, we need to make sure we have voices from developing countries from the Global South present. We’re lucky here at the IGF, as Jean-Philippe was saying, that we have voices from across the world’s regions. We need to have more of that in some of those fora where the global frameworks for cross-border data transfers are being discussed. Countries from all over the world need to take that space. And that need to translate then into, well, small and medium-sized companies or companies of all sizes in all countries of the world. I think the beauty of having interoperable standards and certification systems is that if they’re done well, with the right voices involved in developing them, they can be applied in any company, potentially anywhere in the world, and those companies can then trade and exchange data with anywhere else in the world. That’s a real promise. I think we’ve already seen it in the past few years, but we need to reinforce it now in a system that’s trust-based and that various jurisdictions can be comfortable with. So, let me try and finish. I think there’s a bit of work to do, but we’ve made a lot of progress in the last few years in trying to figure out what might be the right regulatory frameworks, what might be the detail of those data protections and trust-building initiatives that we can bake into companies’ practices through things like certifications. And now we just need to really broaden that model, deepen it, raise awareness of it, and make sure that the right voices are involved in taking it forward. So, much, much more I’d love to discuss, and hopefully we can move into that in the dialogue. Thank you again for having us. No, thank you.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you, Jack. Actually, he mentioned a lot of, actually, points, but I want to point out, especially the compliance costs, I think, like interoperability frameworks, where everyone… actually can abide by it, that would actually reduce the compliance cost. And another thing I would like to actually point out is I think the importance of the voices from the developing countries to be part of the process. Because oftentimes when you think about data flow, digital technologies, their voice is not yet, I think, has been heard enough. But when you actually create that kind of framework, international framework, the best examples, they are really the next future, basically. So their voices and their inputs must be part of the process, as well as the frameworks that we’re going to create. So thank you so much for actually framing the discussions. Next I’m privileged, actually, since I’m a moderator, I could ask questions first. Since John Philibert, unfortunately he’s in Las Vegas right now, but not for gambling, but he has a very important conference on the health conference. But it’s already almost 12 o’clock, 12 something for him. So let me actually ask him questions first so he could actually go to sleep. So John Philibert, health sector is one of the key sectors where privacy, as he mentioned, is utmost concern, right? However, in order to expand the health services, especially in developing countries where the needs are the most, it is critical to have this secure and safe data exchange. And you mentioned about, you know, the health across the borders. You know, wherever you go, you should actually have a healthy environment. Do you think the developing countries who need these services the most, these establish in such regime? JP, can you hear me? Oh, maybe he went to sleep. John Philibert, are you there? I do not see him online any longer, so. Oh, he’s gone? Yes. That’s very unfortunate, because we wanted to actually hear the perspective of the health perspective, but okay. All right. So let’s actually move on. Maybe we can ask him questions later on online, as I can basically, you know, put it into the report when you actually compile the report. So maybe I can ask John Jack, maybe, with JJ and JP. How can we ensure free flow of trusted data without compromising privacy and national securities? You mentioned that a lot about it. What should the roles of private sector like Google, where they are the big data keeper? I wouldn’t say holder, but the keeper, and also the support of the transactions. What the role should be? It’s a tough question, by the way.

Jean-Jacques Sahel:
I think it can go into a lot of directions. I would say the way I look at it as a starting point is one of the reasons I like to work for Google is that it sees itself as an information company. So for a lot of the products that we have, we allow people to access information, information that’s relevant to them. It’s the basic mission of the company to try and help people or make the information universally accessible and relevant to what users want. And deep down, that’s what I care about, is being able to allow people to access that information. As I said earlier, this is not something that we’ve always had. I grew up in a world that didn’t have the Internet. I think for some of us, that sounds weird. When we didn’t have the Internet, we had very limited access to information. And this was especially true in developing countries. The way that the Internet has enabled us anywhere in the world to have access to tremendous amounts of information, but also some of the underlying technological aspects, is just tremendous. And we should always keep that in mind. So then we get into… So, that’s a role of some of us in the industry where we can help through our various tools and products for people to access information, which I think is an important dimension of the topic. Then, what can we do in terms of trusted data flows? Of course, we can respect the privacy principles, okay, and that’s the gist of what I was saying. I think we’re in a situation where there’s a lot of understanding now of some of the key elements that should feature in good practice privacy, and I think there’s ways to encapsulate that in good practice standards and certification requirements, and that’s in process. But then there’s the next step. The next step is, I was trying to allude to this, is we need to mainstream those protections. We need to help companies be aware of those basic protections, and so we need to work with especially small and medium-sized businesses and everywhere in the world. So, we’ve put in a bit of money, for instance, as a company to help to fund some advisors that can help the companies in understanding better the certification requirements, for instance, and how they can put it in place, and generally speaking, we’re trying to use our various activities to engage with developers and sort of companies that are active online to share those practices with a wider community. Then as we look ahead, I think we can think about how some of the products that we build, which are privacy by design themselves, but could perhaps embed some of the good privacy practices and therefore be used by small and medium-sized businesses. It doesn’t have to be Google. I mean, there might be some specialist actors that develop tools that help companies to sort of integrate those good practices in their day-to-day. So I think there’s both a sort of technical, operational angle to how we can help. the wider industry to take up good practices and then there’s sort of evangelism, if you will, about making sure people are aware of what’s out there. Thank you. Thank you, John Jack. I think

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
that he’s alluding to a very important point about mainstreaming or some of the good practices. And I think, Gordon, I think government actually has a lot to actually work needs to be done in terms of advocacy, right? And, well, John Jack was mentioning about mainstreaming advocacies for private sectors, small and medium enterprises, but to the citizens as well. How would you actually, what do you think the government, like in Rwanda or elsewhere, especially in developing countries, how could you, the government, could actually advocate and also trying the citizens to understand the benefits of, you know, the free flow of the data and then what data-enabled economy can actually bring to them? And also, how can you actually ensure that the security and also the privacy and trust underpinning this DFFT is also being advocated and so they feel safe in this kind of environment?

Gordon Kalema:
All right. Thank you, Toshi. Such a great question and a tough one. I will start it off with maybe a scenario. There is something which was mentioned around how developing countries should be able to be part of the process. I would rather mention that the developing countries, or let me say economies, have the potential to actually lead, not just be part of the process, but also lead the process. Because the data understanding and ecosystem and the way it is turning out to be is a kind of space that is still uncertain for most people. And everyone is struggling, everyone is learning, that’s what I believe. And so this role goes in all directions, as you mentioned. There is a role for governments, there is a role for private sector, there is a role for organizations, academia, and so on. And I wanted to highlight a few lessons we’ve learned, again, coming from the government, wearing the government hat. I just wanted to share a few highlights of what we’ve been doing, just to try and drive the point home. Because we need to, again, shift away from just discussing the ideal environment to an actual environment we are living in. I mentioned earlier that we put in place a data protection and privacy law two years back, and we realized that actually just having a law was not enough. We had to do all the global benchmarks you can think of. And then we realized that actually having an instrument in place is not going just to be useful, we needed to also have more granular procedures and policies that are going to be easily understood by the consumers or by the people. And so we had to highlight the role of those who could be data contributors, data controllers, data disseminators, just to make sure that everyone knows their positioning. What is it that I can contribute to this topic? So that’s one. Number two, we also realized that actually we needed to have fully-fledged institutions. And when I say institutions, I don’t mean just the typical government institutions. You could be working in a private organization, you could be working in an international organization, regardless of the size of your company. you the reason it is very important to be intentional in the way you structure your organization work and try to make sure that there are people who are dedicated to drive this whole discussion. So what we did back home we put it in place a fully fledged institution called a data protection office that sits under National Cyber Security Authority and then we had to train people. Now we realized that actually the largest part of the training we relented was to be able to create a culture that tells people that your job is not to protect people. When we are hiring, when we started to train, everyone thought my job is to protect data, is to be conservative, is to stay on data, don’t touch the data and people felt like we need to have a group of army and police officers around the data office and it took to be intentional to tell people that actually their job is not to protect data, is rather to allow data to flow and protect privacy in the process and it’s different. So that’s pretty much what we did and then also that came along with awareness as I mentioned people first. You can have right policies in place, you can have institutions in place, you can have all these things, you can do awareness but it is very important to be patient for people to be aware of this. We realized that the only sustainable way to drive this whole conversation is when people are taking their own ownership. If you’re going to create single digital ID which something that we’re doing, we realized how do you make sure that people have data in their hands and they can allow authentication by themselves and in a process they become comfortable and start to realize that actually with digital innovation that are coming up with the generative AI tools, it’s all sitting on data. And our people, most people will not know, it’s not just obvious, that people are going to know that when I’m using an AI tool, when I’m using any intelligent solution, actually at the back it’s powered by data. So not until you’ve driven the point home and people are very comfortable to understand that actually whatever you’re doing is in the interest of the economy, in the interest of people, then it’s going to be sustainable. Thank you.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you Gordon for that. Actually, it’s very, very important that the data owners, I think a lot of people do not, you know, they don’t realize they are the data owner, you know, of their own data. And I think that was a very good example of how Rwandan government actually realized that and trying to advocate, yes, you are the data owners, yes, you are actually in control. We keep the privacies, but we also help you to transact these data so that your life, your livelihood is going to be much better than today. So I think that’s a very, very important concept that we should advocate. That’s also the rights-based approach, right? So that is very important. Now, what could, like, development partners could do to support that, okay? You know, because we’re here, really, to support that. The private sectors, civil societies, academia, we’re all here, right? But at the same time, we’re here so that we can, you know, we can actually support development partners in this, create these conducive mechanisms to take advantage of this. What do you think we could do to support them? Of course, we would learn from them as well, from the experiences, but essentially, what can we do to actually co-create this environment?

Kathleen McGowan:
Yeah, so, great question. And I think I’m going to start by pushing back a little bit on this idea that the challenges are so different between developed and developing economies. One of the things that I find most fascinating about this question of how do you create more value for more people from data is that no country, no economic bloc has really figured out the perfect balance. And so I think you’re right about global cooperation. I mean, if you look at my country, I work for a global organization, but I come from the U.S., and we still don’t have a federal data protection law, much less a coherent approach to ensure that the value of data is fairly shared, right? And as Jean-Jacques is well aware, if you look at the case that the U.S. government is making right now against Google, it is all about access to and control of data. So this fundamental question of how do you balance those rights is, I think, something that nobody’s figured out, and that is a collective challenge that requires a huge amount of collaboration, both within policymakers and multilateral institutions, but also bringing in all of the other data stakeholders, including civil society and, of course, the private sector. I will just add one caveat to this, that I do think there’s one issue that does play a little differently for people from developing economies, and that’s the sense that data that is produced by people in their country is being monetized elsewhere without benefiting the local economy fairly. And so, you know, where we think about this tendency towards locking down data and data localization, we like to kind of easily tag that as a poor choice to national security concerns, but I think there is a real sense of exploitation that’s fair and needs to be addressed. Right? You know, all the more reason to ensure that the benefits of data flow both ways. Right? But to your question, I do think there’s been very little investment in trying to find the right governance models and mechanism, those rules and tools that I referred to. to earlier that will give decision makers the confidence to enable cross-border data flows. Right? There’s been some good work to set up data trusts and data stewardship models, but they’re really limited. As Jean-Jacques said, you know, we’re either operating in a commercial contract area or in academia or research, you’re finding these bilateral kind of one-off agreements. And so I think the time has come for us to settle on a few different broadly accepted, well-governed mechanisms that make data sharing the rule rather than exception. Right? But to do that, you have to have all stakeholders at the table, which I think is the role of funders of multilateral organizations, and ensure that these conversations are not just multilateral between governments, but also multi-stakeholder, right? Because everybody has vested interests here. Thank you.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you, Kay. Yes, you’re completely right in the sense that I think it is really, you know, multi-stakeholders approach is necessary, because conducive mechanisms we cannot create, like one entity cannot create conducive mechanisms. And if you want to really have agreement or general consensus rather, not agreement, but consensus, in order to actually promote the free flow of data, I think it is very, very important to have multilateral stakeholders, multi-stakeholder approach that’s exemplified here in IGF. But also, going back to the data sort of colonialisms, or maybe data oligopolies, I think this is a, you know, I work mostly in developing countries, and then I also feel this, that they feel like their data is being exploited. And the flow of data, or flow of information, is skewed to one So they really feel like, you know, they are being exploited. They actually have a lot of data, but they cannot actually capitalize this. So I think that particular point, I think, has to be rectified if we are going to really promote the free flow of untrusted data. So, Miyata-san, you know, we are a bilateral organization, right? Bilateral organization. What should organizations like us, bilaterals, can actually support creating such regime or the ecosystem, maybe, to promote the trusted data to flow?

Mayumi Miyata:
Yes, thank you, Tsushi-san. As we are working with the government, and also we are kind of developing practitioners, you know, working through projects, so, I mean, the debate of the policy, like making the legal frameworks and all, I think this is done more at the, I mean, government-to-government level through the ministries and policymakers. But I think we are there to kind of pass those information, update it. And also, like what Ms. Kay has said, that the available tools that make people confident to pass the data to others, that’s also we can share. And the things like what we’ve just heard from the Rwanda case, I think that a lot of the government officials that I’m interacting with, they’re quite, yes, aware of the opportunities, that’s no question, but for the risk, it’s quite hard to narrow down their risk that they’re facing. So they kind of blindly block everything from outside. And they’re saying that, okay, all the data were concerning the government you know, it’s concerning with the national security. So, we’ll put everything physically in their territories or something like that. It’s not well, like, studied, like in Rwanda, because you have benchmarked everything. That’s not the case for many countries. So, I think these kind of good practices or sharing, yes, what you just said, the benchmarking are quite important for us as a development partner to pass this kind of information and knowledge. And then also really having a dialogue with the government, what could be, what is really the focus risks that they have to tackle in terms of national security, also in the personal information

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
sphere. Thank you, Miyata-san, about that. So, it’s really how can you actually ensure that we give them the right information and right tools, I think, for them to be comfortable on, you know, transacting data and so on. And for that, I think, John Jack, I think you mentioned about tools that Google has created, and many other, actually, companies are creating. But at the same time, a lot of government is concerned, because you hold a lot of data. You know, probably you, Google knows more about, you know, me than myself, right? In this, actually, devices that we all carry now. They know, you know, they know secrets, our secrets here. So, how can you ensure that the right tools, how can you ensure, like, a company like Google can give them the trust, so that, okay, yes, we could actually, are comfortable, actually, transacting data, or basically, you know, they don’t feel like they’re being exploited. What can you do to ensure that? Thanks, Asushi. How many hours have we got?

Jean-Jacques Sahel:
Look So I was mentioning before I think We have Over the years. I think we’ve got to a certain experience and understanding of what are some of the key Foundational elements if you will in terms of good practices in both privacy and security, so I think We need to embody that to reflect that in both how we build our products and then in the ensuing sort of exchanges and transactions so That’s an ongoing process Sorry, there’s just so many facets of the question. I’m trying to think what would be most helpful I Think in terms of You were thinking earlier I was listening to Gordon and then someone made a point about Doing things differently or not between a global South and a global North when I’m listening to Gordon He’s doing the things that any country should be doing doesn’t matter where in the world And so I think I wouldn’t particularly Distinguish between different regions in that sense. I think over there at some level privacy is a cultural Connotation so you might have some slight differences between certain cultures there are those foundational elements that I think we can share generally and I think we need to Reflect that in cross-border mechanisms. So things that companies can build In their products and in their transactions and that governments around the world are happy with because they’re mirrored or interoperable frameworks across jurisdictions, so you have a baseline of Protection and therefore of trust but net that needs to come with a set of other supporting policies and here again, I’m Gordon has mentioned some it’s about raising awareness. And again it that it’s not about Rwanda. It’s not I think it’s true in every jurisdictions Whether it’s the US or Europe, etc We need to build that understanding amongst users as well as in the business community about those principles and why they reinforce trust and how. So there’s quite a lot of work which is about policy initiatives beside the regulation. And then in terms of the sort of the ownership of data and economic potential, if you will, I think we need to be mindful of realities, like simple examples, but with a lot of difficulties behind. Remember during COVID, we’ve been talking about health data and there are certain health data that are very, very personal. So you might want to keep them localized. But then think about COVID, we had to be able to analyze data in order to come up with analysis of the trends of the pandemic and then come up with solutions to it. And that’s true in most areas of medical research. So I think that’s where the complexity goes. We need to not have, it’s not a Mannequin choice between, yes, you should localize data or no, you should not localize data. It’s about which kind of data, what can be helpful? How can you exchange it? What makes sense? And again, I think there’s a lot of evidence already about how you do that, but we need to have that conversation and build this understanding. And then you move on to the next step in terms of empowering certain regions. It’s not, again, just a choice of, yes, we should keep our data here or not. It’s about what you’re gonna do with that data. So Jean Philbert, for instance, mentioned IXPs, right? If you think about data flows, a lot of the internet traffic that is going in and out of Africa actually transit via other regions of the world. That doesn’t have to be the case, right? And it’s not because the Europeans are somehow dictating where that traffic goes. It’s just the way that it’s worked historically for the past 20 years. It doesn’t have to happen. You can build internet exchange points. You can have the data routed locally. That doesn’t cost a lot of money. And actually, then it saves a lot of money. And it can, if it goes well, and it needs to be- accompanied with public policy initiatives, it can reinforce local content creation, it can reinforce local economies, et cetera. So I think that’s where you need to think about it as a strategy, not as a regulatory approach, but as an overall public policy strategy within which there’s regulation and within which there’s cross-border cooperation. Sorry, that’s a lot of, I could go on for a while.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Well, I know that I’m actually giving a hardball question. So that’s the beauty of actually inviting a company like yours, Google, to actually be part of this discussions. But a lot of, actually, I won’t actually go into the discussions of infrastructures, but before I go into it, a lot of actually data discussions, data transaction discussions is actually, even today, I think it’s all about the economy. And then, let’s say Greece, like health and so on. But there are actually beyond that. Some of the data flows, I think, is beyond that, such as climate data, that we all need to share all this data. Or like some other, for example, forest data. Data is about waters and so on. That actually is a global public good, isn’t it? So that’s also some of the elements that we need to think about it. Not only the data transaction for the economy, but can you do actually data transaction for global goods? So, Miyata-san, you were actually mentioning before we did the discussions, briefing sessions. Do you think you can give us an example of such, the data transactions or sharing of data, which goes beyond just simple economies or simple social benefits, the global benefits?

Mayumi Miyata:
Yes. Maybe, as earlier speakers have mentioned, COVID was one good example. And with our experience, we had a telemedicine project during the COVID-19 with 12 countries. And maybe this could be one area that I can share. So this project connected medical staff working for ICUs in top hospitals in each country. And we had a number of ICU specialists to advise other ICU doctors and nurses on particular patients that hospitals were dealing. And in this project, we had a kind of a legal binders because like, for example, in Indonesia, the hospitals could not take any of their data outside their hospitals, not even their frontier. So we had to make a legal agreement that we don’t touch on their data. And then, so like as earlier speaker said, some of the information we actually, we had system to connect directly to their electrical medical record system, but we couldn’t because of this legal limitation. And then, so I think maybe there are certain ways of course, technically to tackle that we don’t draw the personal information and then just important elements that is needed in the doctor’s diagnosis or maybe have a statistical data for the global trend. But if I think that, yes, it’s if we could, yeah, I think if we had a kind of a framework or certain agreements globally that are some kind of standard that we could have made this project much more easily. So this was something that we learned. And I think for the environmental information as Atsushi-san mentioned, like forestry, these are kind of data also I heard in some countries that are very restrictive because of the national security reason. And so, yes, of course, it’s important when this disaster happens, for example, like the fire outbreak, but the countries are not really ready at this stage, I think, to share everything like that in one hand. So maybe this is what I can say from my side. Back to you.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you, Mineta-san. Actually, that’s actually a nice segue into the public goods discussions. I think some of these data should be public goods as well, I think. And also, John Jack mentions about infrastructures, you know, creating IXP in Africa, for example, of common friends like in ICANN, he’s really pushing for that. But should that discussion, should the data flow, would be also part of the discussions about the digital public goods or digital public infrastructure that we’ve been all talking about throughout this year, you know, with the G20, the presidency of India is really pushing for these public infrastructures, and also digital public goods. So Kay, should this concept of free flow of trusted data should be part of the DPI-DP discussions? I know you’re passionate about that, so. Yes.

Kathleen McGowan:
Well, I’ve been waiting for a few weeks for this question, so thank you. Wholehearted yes. You know, as Atsushi-san mentioned, digital public infrastructure as a policy priority has gotten a huge boost in the last year, thanks to India’s G20 presidency. And if you look online for this phrase, digital public infrastructure, if it’s not familiar to you, you’ll find that in a nutshell, it refers to an approach to using open protocols and open standards to building out highly inclusive foundational layers of national tech stacks, right? In the shorthand for DPI, it’s usually considered the kind of trifecta of digital identity systems, digital payment systems, and then secure data exchange. And the key, of course, is that they have to be designed, deployed, and governed to be highly inclusive. They have to serve both public sector service delivery, but also private sector innovation. And they have to be interoperable to do all of this. And so countries like Estonia kind of came up with this approach decades ago. And then in the last 10, 15 years, India has really brought it to scale. And some of the impact that we’ve seen there is quite extraordinary in terms of radically accelerating financial inclusion, right, and dramatically improving service delivery, something that they found very, very helpful during the pandemic when governments around the world were looking for mechanisms to be able to seamlessly get social protection or stimulus payments to folks to help them keep going. And so if you think about the goal of digital public infrastructure, it’s really to enable the production of data that is highly relevant to solving global problems, right, whether it’s around financial resilience or health data. You can, by creating these DPIs that reach more people, not only are you getting more data, you’re getting more representative data, right? And I think especially as we, you know, kind of speed into the generative AI era, having that highly representative data of the realities that people face is going to be really important. to be increasingly important to making sure AI tools work for everyone. And again, that then is linking interoperable, highly representative data within countries and ensuring that it can easily move across borders when needed and as appropriate. And so I think absolutely we should, you know, as this momentum is growing for digital public infrastructure scaling, we should absolutely be embedding the concept of cross-border data flows and how you harmonize them into that. And then did you want me to say a word about digital public goods? No, sure. Okay. We also want to give a floor, you know, the questions. Yeah, of course. So just very quickly, these two, DPI and DPG in my world are often kind of used together and sometimes conflated. And a digital public good is really an open solution that can be reused and improved by different countries. And it’s improving an increasingly popular way to build digital public infrastructure. And it’s interoperable and designed, you know, with privacy in mind. So it’s got some challenges, but a lot of upside.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you so much. I think the benefits of actually the DFFT and DPI and DPG, I think we all agree on that. But how can you, Gordon, how can you actually, you know, like developing countries could put together voices together so that they could really shape the discussions and have a meaningful input, which would, you know, which would benefit actually developing countries? How can you actually put these voices together? And then I promise you I’ll open up the floor after him.

Gordon Kalema:
Thank you, Ashish. And I feel like at this stage I would love to hear more from the audience. But just to shed light on two things, which crossed my mind with your question, you know. and again in a way to summarize, going continental, allowing data to flow across continents, across the globe, I think one of the ways is to leverage the support from countries, first of all, and then international organizations to put in place common protocols, tools, and processes, and frameworks, or policies. That’s very key. Every time you want to engage a country or an external organization that involves two countries, often the discussion around laws and policies comes on top. So as we think through how to build a strong data ecosystem that is going to be much more sustainable, we need to be intentional again in the way we create those policies that are going to make everyone comfortable countries. And thankful, we are here in a forum like this. We need more of these forums. We need more discussions. We need to see the role of private sector, which was my second point. In my earlier remarks, I dealt much on what the government is doing, but I would love to this time pass the challenge to private sector. What is it that you can do? How can you help emerging economies to be strong in terms of tools, in terms of processes, in terms of policies? And also, what we’ve learned as something that is important is to drive this conversation with useful tools. You know, every time again, one of the easiest ways to get people to understand the value of data is when you have a tool that is part of with data being used. So we need to have a deliberate focus on promoting more innovations as countries. We need to see private sector, academia, organizations, companies, come work with governments and specifically emerging economies to tap into those opportunities to create very transformative digital tools that are going to help people. And with that, then the discussion around allowing data to flow, releasing data from different ministries, could be health, could be agriculture, could be education. The discussion is going to be much more easier. So in a nutshell, I think for us we’ve had our own test as a country. This is an open invitation to everyone that is here. We have much more welcome to Rwanda. Come, let’s have this discussion. Let’s create champions on different platforms. Sometimes it works when you create champions. I’m not going to be shy to say that Rwanda is happy to be a champion. We are more than happy to be that. So anyone here in the room, you’re more than welcome to visit Rwanda, the land of a thousand hills. We are focused on data. Thank you.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Well, thank you for the promotions of Rwanda, by the way. But as I promised, I will open the floor for questions. Oh, yeah. Well, people are. So, please. Yes, yes, please. Actually, you have to stand over there to the mic. Otherwise, well, we have so many questions. I’m not sure if the organiser would allow us actually to entertain so many…

Audience:
questions, please go ahead. Hi everyone, my name is Shilpa, I am a researcher at University of Melbourne and my focus of my research is cross-border data and I also work on open government data and I come from India and I found really interesting your point that you know you were giving, you’re talking about DPI’s coming from India, especially India’s stack and Aadhaar problem. I mean Aadhaar, we started with like the UPI system, digital internet identity systems etc and after doing that you know in between we had the problem of privacy and problem of like what if the government is surveilling us, what if they’re misusing the data and then we had this one judgment which set up the privacy standards for us because as far as people know that you know India just came out with the Data Protection Act before that we didn’t have, we had like set total rules and policies but then now we have a completed, I mean like before that you know it was this judgment which basically laid down guidelines for us and it limited the access of this data, right. It did not talk about like sharing of data even among the government organization, forget about sharing with outside of India. So that’s one point that I wanted to clarify and the question is, sorry, it’s just a point I wanted to make. I find this panel really interesting because you know you’re talking about cross-border data and open data, like why do you need to talk about open data when we’re talking about cross-border data because data can flow but it doesn’t need to be in a data set. I mean like who are we helping if we’re creating data sets? Are we really helping governments? Are we really helping domestic industries? Are we helping giant corporates like Google? So I think the panel maybe got a little, I don’t know, I was seeking some clarity but but I never got it. So I thought like, I’ll just give you this opportunity.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
So the question is the clarity between the open data as well as to the free flow of data. I think we, who do you want to actually ask the questions to be fair to?

Audience:
I mean, anyone can reply. And then, you know, I just wanted to like give you this food for thought that, you know, I hope you know that, you know, we have this massive problem of privacy invasion and predictive advertising, which is about collecting as much as data as possible by corporates or that. They can sell us more products and services even when we don’t want it. So when we talk about like creating data sets and giving it outside the border, who are we really helping at this point?

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
No, thank you so much, actually. So maybe we can actually have a few questions because otherwise we will never finish and they’re going to kick us out. So please, actually. So the question number one is the difference between open data and the DFFT. And question number two.

Audience:
Hello, everyone. My name is Tevin Gitonga and I work actively on the topic you’re talking about. I work for a development agency. That’s the German Development Corporation. And I work on, I had a data governance team and I’m from Kenya where I was basically hired to figure out how does a development agency work with a data protection authority. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two years. And one of the things that I maybe I was curious about is a few, like two weeks ago, we had an interesting event where we brought about the East African data commissioners together. Unfortunately Rwanda wasn’t there, but we had Uganda, Tanzania, Uganda, and the discussion was on data flows and exactly what you’re discussing here. And perhaps what I’m trying to figure out and maybe you can help me figure out my assignment is what’s the best option? Because we had the data commissioners, we had private sector, both international and local, we had civil society, and we were trying to discuss what’s the best option? for an emerging economy, because what was clear was for the developed economies, there are different versions. There’s the Data-Free Flow with Trust, I think led by Japan and the EU. There’s the CPBR by the US. There’s also the Chinese version of closing all the data. And perhaps what I’m trying to figure out is do we need a new version for developing countries? Which version aligns best to economies that are at very different levels growing? There are laws that are very different levels from, I’m talking about ground lessons of what I do on a daily basis here. Things are very different. We have, for example, in Africa, the AFTA that’s coming up that has a whole clause on digital trade. And perhaps, so my question is what is the suggested solution? So the question is, so what, should it be actually a new set of rules for developing countries? Yes, that’s a good question. Okay, so please, actually, very concise. I will give you like 30 seconds for the questions. What do you think are the risks of taking a deductive global approach to global frameworks, global rules, global protocols? I see a tension between the way the abstract question is being framed about balancing protection against free flow with the kind of very specific needs and examples we’re hearing from people like this gentleman. What that balance looks like will be different in every case infinitely depending on which countries, what type of data, what the incentives are in the market for private companies, what the culture is, social trust, digital literacy, media access, all of this. And if we want, as you said in Rwanda, the solutions to be economically sustainable and driven by need, is it a mistake? Are there risks, either practical or normative in pursuing global frameworks?

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you, so the question is the risk of deductive approach protections versus free flow information. All right, go ahead.

Audience:
Thank you very much, my name is Taichiro Fujino, I’m a fellow here over at JPNIC. address in Japan. My question is about a mechanism for building trust in multilateral environment. In general, trust in security and safety will be achieved by a norm, standard, and importantly a law enforcement. For instance, when Google leak my information, then I can accuse Google or maybe Google will pay fine to my government, so that’s really easy. But on the other hand, in multilateral environment, we need to trust that the counterpart will delete or do something for me. So my question is, again, what is the mechanism for building trust in DFFT or multilateral environment? That’s all. So the question is mechanism of creating trust in the DFT. Okay, perfect. And then? Okay, thank you very much. I’m Ibrahim Mohamed Mohamed from Nigeria, a digital asset officer from Office of National Information and Technology Development Agency as a scholar, as well. We have had, it is crucial, important when it comes to data, privacy, security, but my concern is I have not had like transparency when it comes to processing the data. Because for you to end trust, there is need for you to explain to us how you utilize our data, how it’s being processed. So that’s my concern.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Okay, the question is, how can you ensure transparency in the data to end trust? Yes. Okay. Please.

Audience:
Hello, I’m very interesting panel. Thank you so much. My name is Minako Morita-Yaga, University of Sussex in the UK. My question is, what kind of data governance is suitable to achieve DFFT, especially for development? The reason I said that is I observe that ignoring the different type of data governance existing in the world is DFFT is not achievable. Let’s say there are three types of data governance in the world now, the market-driven type. type, which the US is promoting, and then on the other hand, human rights-centric approach, which the EU is promoting, and then state-driven data governance, which China is promoting. And I observe so many developing countries are following China, that state-driven approach, where so many of them are strictly measurement of the local requirement, or the open source code requirement, and so on. And without discussing it, I think DFFT is impossible. Thank you. So the question is, what kind of data governance models that should be available, based on these three. So, 30, 10 seconds. Hello, my name is Hassan Habib. I’m from Djibouti. I’m also a JICA scholar. So my question is about the use, like how you want them be more included in such kind of process, how the opportunities that you perceive are like you saw for this kind of in the DPI and the data public, so thank you so much. Sorry, how are the opportunities of using DPI? Yeah, like include… Oh, for the use. Yes. So what are the, okay. Sorry, please. Yeah, hello. I’m Javier Ruiz from Consumers International. I have very brief comment, which is that I hope that the next time we have a panel talking about consumers, we have more consumer organizations there, because I’d be like a panel on gender, not having any women would feel a bit weird, you know, so hopefully for the next one, we’ll get more representation from a broader constituency. My question is actually mainly for Jean-Jacques and Google, because Google is supporting CVPR quite publicly. Your previous council last year came out, but one question is like, are you certified and with the previous APEC regime? And it’s not like particularly the question is, we’ve been, I was looking at the… reasons why companies sometimes don’t certify and there are costs, but also the fear of the audit, you know, that you actually have to open up your systems, you know, and that’s, it would be interesting, you know, from a very large company, how do you see private certification working, you know, as a scalable global thing, you know? If, as I understand, you haven’t actually certified in the system that you’re proposing, and then the, but more importantly, do you think that actually the FTC and other governments in the world are actually struggling to deal with Google, that a private certification agency in a small country will be able to actually handle any issues? The issue is basically, how can you actually see the private certifications, especially in the European countries? Well, how can you deal with private certifications when the FTC is struggling to deal with Google? How can a small private certification agency, I mean, I think it’s a very interesting, it’s important because not in every country you have a state, a good state infrastructure to make companies accountable, but for a small private companies, you know, it may be hard to actually deal with a company like Google. Thank you. So, yes, so Chrissy,

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
I think I also give like a few, can you actually summarize some of the questions so that we can throw out the panels here?

Chrissy Martin Meier:
Absolutely. We had a few questions on data localization, which I think were perhaps answered in the discussion, but I will say in between, how do we, but, you know, have data localization without making fragmentation more serious? What is the role of the organization spearheaded by Japan called the Institutional Arrangement for Partnership, the IAP? Another question on how does the SWIFT system and the new financial transaction system spearheaded by the BRIC member nations going to fit in to all of this? Same with the country-led efforts to have their own digital currencies, CBDC, how will that fit? Those are the main questions from the audience. Thank you, Chrissy. So I will stop the questions here.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
So can I actually answer, I think there’s questions about the governance models. Anyone would like to actually take the questions on that?

Kathleen McGowan:
Okay, so I completely agree with that paradigm, the global sort of landscape that the professor laid out, and I would say that’s exactly why there’s a need and an opportunity for countries to take a fourth way, right, especially emerging economies that have a lot to benefit from thinking about data as a strategic asset. They don’t need to follow the full-on laissez-faire model of the U.S., but I would certainly hope that there are options that are better for the economy and better for society than following a state-driven approach.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Transparency for data, and the rule of law for new rule of law, would you like to take it? Okay, so, Jean-Jacques?

Jean-Jacques Sahel:
Yes, so yes to transparency, obviously with a lot of detail underneath that could be discussed. I think just linking it to a couple of the points that were made by other people in the room, we do, even though there are certain different systems, there are some basic elements that I think most people would agree with in terms of what does good look like in terms of both privacy and security, and I think transparency is part of that. And we shouldn’t shy away from, there was a question about global versus local, right? It’s very difficult to get to a full global solution very quickly, but you can start by building bridges between certain countries and hopefully grow. If you look at the, it’s not a perfect comparison, but still, in the security world, we’ve seen some good standards emerge over the years, ISO type standards for cybersecurity that are now pretty well accepted. frankly, worldwide. I don’t think there’s any reason, apart from there are cultural differences here and there, as I’ve mentioned before, but I still think that we can get to a situation where you have at least a pretty good baseline of good practices in privacy, as well, in a similar way as what we’ve seen happen with security. So it’s going to take some more work, but I do think it’s feasible, and I don’t think it has to be a different system for developing countries versus developed countries, because actually, that’s a big risk of having disparities in perpetuating disparities.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
I think that answers the questions about laws and the governance models, right? And also the transparencies, and then also certifications, as well, I think. I’m sure there’s more people who want to talk about it, but I think that’s also part of the answers. Would you like to actually add on that?

Gordon Kalema:
Yeah, just two things. One, there is a question which caught my attention around the role of the youth. I think it came from you. There is something we are doing back home, and realize that actually, every time you have the kind of population where over 70% are the people that are below 35 years, there is a very strong role they can play in terms of leading the way into this industry, I would say. One, because they’re users, they are consumers, they are troublemakers, let me say that. And so, everything you’re doing, could be policies or laws, it is very important to get these people at the center stage. So yes, there is a very strong role of the youth into this discussion. The other one, which I wanted to contribute to, is around the transparency. Again, one thing we’ve learned is that often, people share away, one of the reasons why people are not transparent is because they’re hiding something that is harmful, or they’re just intentionally planning something against you. One thing we’ve learned is that every time could be institutions or organization or a department is you see they’re not comfortable to share data or they’re processing data and the process is not a little bit clear is because of the quality. So every time you’re dealing with low quality data and people are not comfortable to put in limelight the results, then the easiest thing to do is share away and hide. So as we discuss this, I think which is an element we had not talked about, as we attempt to put in place policies, as we attempt to push data to flow, it is very important to build quality data as well because with quality data that’s one of the ways that is going to make people more comfortable to open, even be more transparent. Thank you.

ATSUSHI YAMANAKA:
Thank you so much. They’re going to kick us out. So I wanted to actually get the final words from them but I think they’re going to kick us out because there’s going to be next session. So thank you so much for participating in this very important discussions. Please give a round of applause for the rest of the team and the discussion should continue. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, okay, guys, I’d really like to take a picture of you guys. Okay, of course. Okay, I’ll take a picture of you guys. Okay, see you. Okay, I’ll take a picture of you guys. Okay, I’ll take a picture of you guys. Okay, I’ll take a picture of you guys. Okay, I’ll take a picture of you guys.

Moderator

The Digital Trust and Safety Partnership brings together technology companies, including Microsoft and Google, to develop industry best practices for trust and safety. This collaboration aims to create a safer online environment for users by addressing potential risks and harms associated with digital technology.

One key focus area for the partnership is the work stream on digital safety risk assessment. This involves conducting human rights risk assessments, data protection impact assessments, and AI or algorithmic impact assessments. By comprehensively addressing these risks, the partnership aims to identify and mitigate potential harms.

The partnership advocates for the adoption of a risk assessment framework in online safety. This involves identifying risks, reducing them, mitigating harm, and repairing any damage caused. Reporting incidents is also emphasized to ensure accountability and learning from past experiences.

In addition to risk assessment, the partnership recognizes the importance of understanding risk factors and measuring their impact. This helps in developing effective strategies to address online safety issues.

The World Economic Forum’s coalition is commended for its ability to bring together experts from different fields to determine best practices for digital safety. This collaborative effort ensures a holistic approach and cross-sector knowledge sharing.

The Global Coalition for Digital Safety actively counters digital harms through media literacy initiatives. By promoting media literacy, the coalition aims to combat disinformation and educate users about safe online practices.

Involving different stakeholders, organizations, and companies is emphasized throughout the discussions. This inclusive approach promotes innovation and fosters fruitful discussions in tackling online safety challenges.

The issue of technology-facilitated abuse is highlighted, emphasizing the need for comprehensive safety measures that protect all individuals, not just those traditionally considered “vulnerable.”

Furthermore, the importance of gendered safety by design is stressed. Companies need to understand how online abuse affects women differently and incorporate measures to address these challenges. It’s also important to recognize and adjust when gendered safety measures fail.

Support for small and medium-sized companies in achieving online safety is recognized. These companies often face resource constraints, and tools such as the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership and eSafety risk assessment tool can assist them.

The discussion also emphasizes the need to incorporate online safety considerations into privacy design. Ensuring transparency about data collection and its use for safety purposes is crucial.

Finally, the challenges of creating global solutions for online safety that are locally sensitive are acknowledged. Localized and culturally sensitive approaches are crucial to address the unique challenges faced in different regions.

In conclusion, the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum’s coalition and the Global Coalition for Digital Safety, aims to develop industry best practices for trust and safety in the digital realm. Through risk assessment, stakeholder involvement, gendered safety considerations, and support for small and medium-sized companies, the partnership strives to create a safer online environment for all users.

Audience

The Global Coalition for Digital Safety, initiated by the World Economic Forum, is a multi-stakeholder platform aimed at addressing harmful online content. It includes members from tech platforms, safety tech players, government regulators, civil society, international organizations, and academia. The coalition’s work is divided into four work streams: developing global principles for digital safety, digital safety design and innovation, digital safety risk framework, and media information literacy for tackling disinformation. The principles aim to address specific harms such as child exploitation, terrorism, violent extremism, and hate speech. The coalition emphasizes the importance of diverse collaboration, transparency, evidence-based solutions, and understanding the interconnectedness of online issues. It also highlights the need for comprehensive assessment of risks, tackling the challenges posed by immersive and invasive technologies, and sharing best practices. The Digital Trust and Safety Partnership, consisting of companies like Microsoft and Google, is working on industry best practices. The coalition focuses on gendered safety, involvement of non-Western corporations, and engaging diverse voices. It also recognizes the challenges faced by underserved communities and emphasizes the importance of privacy impact assessments. Leveraging data with transparency, developing scalable and culturally sensitive solutions, and involving youth and community participation are key aspects of the coalition’s work. Overall, the coalition aims to create a safe and inclusive online environment through collaboration and best practices.

Connie Man Hei Siu

During the discussion, the speakers explored the differentiation between cybersecurity and online safety, highlighting their distinct focuses and roles. The Web was mentioned as a platform that specifically centres its efforts on cybersecurity aspects.

Cybersecurity is primarily concerned with protecting infrastructure and data. It emphasises preparedness for potential cyber attacks, including safeguarding critical systems, networks, and data centres from unauthorised access, intrusion, and theft. By prioritising the security of essential infrastructure and sensitive information, cybersecurity aims to prevent and mitigate potential damage and disruptions caused by cyber threats.

On the other hand, online safety primarily revolves around ensuring safe and secure user experiences. Its objectives include addressing and combating harmful content present on the internet, such as cyberbullying, explicit or inappropriate materials, and scams. Online safety initiatives aim to create a safer online environment, especially for vulnerable groups like children and teenagers. This involves educating users about potential risks, raising awareness of safe practices, and implementing content management strategies to filter out harmful content.

The speakers agreed on the importance of establishing a clear distinction between these two areas. Differentiating between cybersecurity and online safety allows for appropriate allocation of resources and attention to address the specific challenges and objectives related to each domain. It also enables effective collaboration and coordination among policymakers, industry professionals, and users.

Throughout the discussion, it became evident that cybersecurity and online safety are interrelated but require separate strategies and approaches. While cybersecurity focuses on protecting critical infrastructure and data, online safety centres on safeguarding users’ well-being and ensuring positive digital experiences. Recognising the distinctive roles of cybersecurity and online safety is essential for the development of comprehensive strategies that enhance digital security and foster safer internet environments.

In conclusion, the discussion emphasised the importance of differentiating between cybersecurity and online safety. The Web’s attention to cybersecurity aspects, along with its focus on protecting infrastructure, data, and preparing for cyber attacks, was highlighted. Online safety, on the other hand, centres around combating harmful content and building a safer online environment for users. Recognising these distinctions enables the implementation of targeted measures and collaborations that promote both cybersecurity and online safety, ultimately contributing to a more secure and user-friendly digital landscape.

Audience:
of the Global Coalition for Digital Safety, and then I will hand the floor over to our co-chairs to share part of the work that we’ve been doing since we started the coalition last year. While our time is limited, we also value your input, so towards the end we will open the floor for questions, comments, and your insights regarding the upcoming challenges in online safety. I know there are too many, but at least we want to hear what you think are the main issues that we should be addressing and how we can tackle from the coalition. So, that said, the Global Coalition for Digital Safety is a multi-stakeholder platform launched by the World Economic Forum, and its goal is to promote global cooperation in addressing harmful content online, which includes both illegal content, but also legal content that is also harmful. Our members represent various sectors, including tech platforms, safety tech players, government regulators, civil society, international organizations, and academia. You can find the list of our members on our website, that I can share it later, but the work of the coalition began last year in response to growing challenges related to content moderation, child protection online, and it evolves as we see a generative AI basically everywhere, as you can see here at the forum today. To tackle these issues effectively, we have divided our work into four work streams. The first one is the work stream on global principles for digital safety, and this work stream addresses how international human rights principles apply in the digital context. Early this year, in January, these principles were published and were developed in a multi-stakeholder way, and Kearney, one of the co-chairs, together with Ian Redman from the We Protect Global Alliance, will share more details soon. Secondly, we have the work stream on digital safety design and innovation, and this group identified technology, policy, and processes and design interventions that are needed to advance digital safety. This group is led by Julie here, and also by Adam Hildreth from CRIBS, and the group has already made significant progress, including the recently launch of the typology of online harms, aiming at creating foundational language for online harms. So, thirdly, we have the digital safety risk framework, focusing on the new regulatory requirements that are currently in the scene, and this work stream has developed a risk assessment framework, and is currently working on measures to evaluate the effectiveness of digital safety systems and interventions. So, this group is led by David here, and is also co-chaired by Hill Whithead from the online safety group director of the Ofcom. So, lastly, and before I give the floor to our co-chairs to share more of the nitty-gritty of the work we have done, this year we have launched a work stream on media information literacy for tackling disinformation. This is our most recent work stream, and it aims to emphasize the importance of media information literacy for enhancing digital safety with a focus on disinformation, and Angela here is one of our co-chairs, together with Sasha Havilik, chief executive officer of the Institute of Strategic Dialogue. Well, without taking more time, I will now pass the mic to Courtney first, to provide more insight into the global principles on digital safety. Courtney?

Moderator:
Well, thank you very much, and thanks to the World Economic Forum for

Audience:
bringing us together for all of this work, to be perfectly honest. I wanted to provide just a little bit of background on the principles that was articulated, and just be clear, the question we sought to tackle was how can we meaningfully apply fundamental human rights principles to a digital world in an actionable manner for key stakeholders, government, technology companies, and civil society, and the principles actually came about after the result of some intensive discussions, expert interviews, and consultations among a diverse group of global experts, policymakers, social media, and tech platforms, safety tech companies, and civil society, and academics. You can access the full principles on the World Economic Forum website, and although it may not sound like the most interesting part, I encourage you to start at the appendix, and the over 25 resources that we cited, talking about how many times we’ve been adopting digital safety principles to address specific harms, and that was critically important, whether it was child exploitation, or terrorism, and violent extremism, or hate speech, and the purpose here was to take it up a level, and understand what are the fundamental principles behind all of that, but those resources are still important. So at the outset of the principles, we make a really fundamental point, and that is to articulate the important role civil society plays, help bridging the gulf between public and private institutions, including amplifying the voices of the underrepresented, and most vulnerable, and keeping that in mind, I just wanted to give the high-level notion across the ecosystem, meaning for all of the stakeholders, we said that supporters of the principles should collaborate with diverse stakeholders to build a safe, trusted, and inclusive online environment, enabling every person to enjoy their rights in the digital environment. Second was to seek insights and diverse perspectives from civil society to inform policymaking, understanding emerging harms, and support inclusive and informed decision-making. Third was clearly the need to support evidence-based solutions to assess, address, and advance digital safety, and prevent harm. Fourth is the critical role that transparency must play in approaches to, and outcomes to advance digital safety for a collective response, and lastly, we said that important to recognize the particular importance of helping vulnerable and marginalized groups to realize their rights in the digital world, including the importance of defending children’s safety and privacy online. These were the collective principles across the ecosystem, but following the model that has been so effective in other multi-stakeholder collaborations, we then go on to articulate what this means in practice by sector, for government, for tech companies, and for civil society, and I encourage you to take a look at that. Now we’re in that next phase of the principles, and what did we all commit to? At the core, we committed to fundamentally make decisions and take actions aligned with these principles, and a core responsibility was to raise awareness of these principles across the online ecosystem, including through active promotion, targeted outreach, and the encouragement of multi-stakeholder adoption. In the past year, this has been at the heart of oftentimes how we have conversations with global regulators. It is at the heart of how we have conversations across multi-stakeholder coalitions looking at a specific harm, and one of the most important pieces here is the goal of having all stakeholders hold others to account, that at the end of the day, we’re here for fundamental principles. We know when it comes to a safety perspective, you can have some heated debates among stakeholders, and aligning to these principles helps find the right collective response across the ecosystem. So we hope that these become a living document. They’re intended to be both content agnostic, technology agnostic, and really hold us account as technology evolves, and to be perfectly honest, the landscape of harm evolves. And they are to be that kind of guiding light that brings us back to have healthy discussions about how we shape that work. I got to give big thanks to many in this room for helping build this collective action, and if I don’t put it crisply enough, one of the most important points remained how we continued throughout the process to ensure there was enough external engagement and consultation to be truly inclusive about the development. So I look forward to further of our discussion, but I think I’m supposed to pass the baton to Julie.

Moderator:
Thank you for all that foundational work, and what I love about this project is that it is truly multi-stakeholder, but the different pieces connect really nicely together like a piece

Audience:
of the puzzle. And so I think there is general consensus that principles-based frameworks are going to be the most successful. I can say that as a regulator and as someone who spent 22 years in the tech sector, but I’m going to go back to what Albert Einstein once said, and that is you cannot solve a problem with the same thinking we used when we created them. So by the same token, we cannot hope to effectively address online harms if we don’t identify them, call them out, understand their interrelatedness, and their impacts. And so while there always be differences in interpretation and gravity, it’s really important that we’re speaking from the same lexicon. And I can tell you as a regulator how many times I’ve heard, particularly from startups or companies that aren’t quite startups, I’m thinking about Zoom. In late 2019, they had 10 million active daily users. By April, once we were fully into lockdowns around the world, they reached something like 300 million daily active users. And then the Zoom bombing started happening. And of course, it was named for them. They had to go offline. They had to fix their systems. They lost trust. As a government agency, I’m still not technically allowed to use Zoom. So how do you kind of quantify that loss of trust and what that might translate into loss for a particular online safety product? So understanding the harms and calling them out is important because if we don’t know what the problems are, then we can’t come up with effective solutions. So we all take different approaches to this. And we did some work through our safety by design principles and risk assessment tools of trying to assess online harms as we saw them played out. But we realized we had a perfect opportunity with the Digital Content Safety Working Group to really broaden and expand this. And my partner, our co-chair in this, was Crisp Thinking, a risk intelligence group based out of the UK that was just acquired by Kroll, Adam Hildreth. Brilliant thinkers. They’re doing risk intelligence. So they brought a very different perspective, but you get to a better place when you have those perspectives. So when you’re thinking about online harms, effectively everything that goes wrong in the real world and in humanity can also be playing out online. So we could have created a 300-page tome that was extremely exhaustive. We decided not to do that. And there are lots of different ways you can slice and dice and cut these issues. So a common taxonomy is around content, conduct, and contact. So we use that as one set of framing. But then what we decided to do was to actually group the harms. And we also wanted to differentiate illegal content, which is clearer, and which the companies have different sorts of systems for addressing. There are different technologies to address those issues versus the legal but harmful, what is often referred to as lawful but awful, content as well. But we wanted to find a way to bucket them. And this is where, once we broadened this out, there was a whole lot of discussion about where things belong and where they interplayed. But we ended up ultimately with six categories. Again, I think really well aligning to the principles as well as to a range of human rights that need to be balanced. And so those are threats to personal and community safety, harms to health and well-being, hate and discrimination. The fourth is violence of dignity. Things like image-based abuse, sexual extortion is a manifestation of that, that we’re all dealing with at the moment. I’m looking at Boris. Invasion of privacy, and then deception and manipulation. And you could think of that as any form of social engineering, whether it’s scamming, whether it’s grooming of children, whether it’s misinformation. So you can see that these are broad categories. What we tried to do was then list them. So these are the kind of the current typology of harms. The next step of the project, and this is going to be really interesting, is will the harms of the future simply be supercharged? You know, when we think about immersive technologies and the, you know, when you have full sensory and hyper-realistic worlds where things are happening in real time and private spaces, are things just going to be more visceral extreme? Or are we going to have different kinds of harms? I mean, there are companies right now working on haptics that will simulate the feeling of a bullet wound. There’s a whole new industry around teledildonics. Do I need to explain to you what teledildonics are? Okay. Well, any sort of connected vibrators and sexual tools and haptic suits that will help you feel sexual pleasure, which could be great for someone who is, you know, a quadriplegic or a paraplegic, but if you’re experiencing sexual assault in the metaverse, it will feel like a real sexual assault. But then when we get into beyond immersive technologies into invasive technologies, neurotechnology, nanotechnology, chips implanted in your brain, thinking about what is the last bastion of freedom of expression and freedom of thought when, you know, employers can, you know, read your mind. Already companies like Amazon and Walmart are using these types of tools that go into your ears to manage productivity on warehouse floors. Great applications for truck drivers who might be falling asleep once they start going into the REMs. It will wake them up. But what if, you know, Elon Musk sticks a chip in and it, you know, I don’t know, it fizzes out, it defaults. You know, I don’t know what you do then. Anyway, so it’ll be a creative way to think about can we anticipate what future harms, again, will it be supercharged or will there be a whole new set of harms that we’ll have to engineer out misuse around. And then finally, this is the positive part of the work that we’ll do in conjunction with the risk assessment tools is looking at best practice and safety by design interventions that work, innovations that work. All these companies are dealing with the same wicked problems that, but their platforms are different. But what can we learn from each other in terms of what is working? You know, every platform wants to have a safe, more positive, less toxic platform. We have to remember that it’s when we’ve got humans in the frame, they’ll always find creative ways to misuse that technology. So what do we learn from that? So hopefully the suite of materials will end up being quite successful and used and, you know, help us on that pathway

Moderator:
to a safer online world. Thank you, Julie. David, do you want to continue?

Audience:
Great. So I’m David Sullivan.. You may have heard of the organizations that my other co-chairs work for. You may not have heard of the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership. So we bring together technology companies with different types of products and services to develop industry best practices for trust and safety. And our members include my colleagues from Microsoft and Google, among other companies I see in the room. So it’s been my pleasure to co-chair the third work stream on digital safety risk assessment. I’ve been doing that together with my co-chair, Jill Whitehead, from the UK Ofcom regulator. And so the question that we were asked to respond to is how not just digital companies, but all of us in the sort of multi-stakeholder world can assess risks to digital safety and also try to measure the impact of interventions to address those risks. And risk assessment, you know, I think has become a very hot topic in the world of online safety. You have many different regulatory regimes that require some sort of risk assessment that are taking place. And our role in this work stream was not to develop, you know, how one should comply with online safety regulations in Australia or in the UK or in Europe or in Singapore, but instead to try to distill higher level guidance that whether you are a company or you are in government or regulator, civil society, that you can use across all of the different jurisdictions and around the world where these types of risks are manifesting. So I think in addition to the outputs, and I’ll talk a little bit more about what we have done and what we’ve planned, I want to emphasize, I think, the really valuable process that the World Economic Forum has brought to bear in this coalition. So in our work stream, we recognized that companies and others have been doing all kinds of risk assessments related to the digital space for years, whether it’s human rights risk assessments, data protection impact assessments, artificial intelligence or algorithmic impact assessments. And so we wanted to gather as much expertise as we could to learn what is already being done in order to help figure out what is the right contribution that we can make. So we gathered that input and then we spent, you know, sort of in conversations with Julie or her colleagues joining from very late in the middle of the night or sometimes very early in the morning for me in the western U.S., virtual discussions where we were able to kind of distill a risk assessment framework with a few steps to it, really about identifying risks, reducing those risks, mitigating harms that have occurred, repairing harm, and then reporting. And we coupled that framework with a bank of case studies based on existing practices. So we had a case study about the work of the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership. We had a case study about the safety by design approach from eSafety in Australia. We had a case study about AI and Microsoft, among several others. And we published those case studies in the risk assessment framework earlier this year. Moving forward, as has been mentioned, our next deliverable is going to be a report about risk factors and ultimately about metrics and measurement where, again, we are not trying to do the work of the regulators or do the work of the regulated, but I think try to bring together all of these actors and figure out what are some approaches that work, what are best practices that can be used by everyone to underpin all of these emerging, whether it’s regulatory or voluntary efforts that are happening around the world, so that we have a more informed approach to this critically important aspect of assessing and addressing risks to safety online.

Moderator:
Thank you, David. I will leave the floor to Angela now to share more about it.

Audience:
I think you heard the thank you. So what is interesting and different about the fourth work stream here is we haven’t actually really started yet. We have our first meeting coming up in December. And so what I’m happy to do here today is share a little bit of context about the media literacy to counter disinformation work stream, but also really want to solicit your ideas and inputs into we’re really scoping out how we’re going to approach this problem. So first maybe just a little context on why does this work stream exist? I think we all know if you’ve been in any of the kind of harms conversations, you’re hearing about mis and disinformation, we’re constantly talking about how do people know how to interact with the information that is online? How do they know that it is, you know, good information, authentic information from someone they can trust? Well, that’s really, really difficult in this age. And there’s a ton of different initiatives in both the public and private sectors really thinking about media literacy. But one of the things that WEF wanted to do, and we think is a really interesting contribution, is really understand the topology of those different initiatives. Which communities are these initiatives focused on? We know historically, for example, that a lot of effort has been given to media literacy and information literacy for the youth. But at the same time, all of you are also interacting online and not necessarily always having the skills that we need to be able to do that. So the first effort that we thought would be a really useful contribution was assessing the landscape and understanding a topology of the initiatives that have been around for media literacy. Which community are they targeting? Are there underserved communities, for example, consistent with the principles that Courtney was talking about? How are we thinking about vulnerable populations in this space? The second thing that we were then thinking about is making sure that everyone understands also the importance of this issue, maybe a call to action that really helps bring forward focus on this. And then finally, the last thing that my co-chair, Sasha, and I just talked about, I think a week ago, Augustina could tell me if I’m wrong, is really thinking about the spaces of intervention, almost like a kill chain. There’s a lot of focus on intervention at the individual user, at the point of interaction with harmful content. And there’s a lot of space upstream of that where we could be talking about what’s going on in the platform environment. What are we doing in safety by design? But also off platform, what’s going on in the education environment? How are we thinking about integrating media literacy into the day-to-day operations of businesses, not just the tech companies, but businesses on an ongoing basis? So those are a couple of the different things that we are thinking about as we approach media literacy to help counter mis- and disinformation. Really again, making sure there’s a call to action to understand the importance, a topology of the environment, and then really highlighting some different interventions that could exist along the user experience. So again, just a couple of thoughts on what we are considering in terms of our approach, and would welcome any thoughts or solicitations from folks who are attending. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thank you, Angela. And thank you to all my co-chairs for sharing all the work that the Global Coalition for Digital Safety has been doing. And I have to say that I joined a couple of months ago, six months ago, and I’ve been impressed by the amount of work and the level of engagement that we have from our members. So I invite you all to read the reports and stay tuned about the upcoming work on the coalition. You can, if you Google Global Coalition for Online Safety Web, you will find everything. Thank you, Google. But also, if you want to chat more about this work, you can find me at the ICF this week. And now I think that we have time for questions, comments from the audience. So we would love to hear your views as well. Yes.

Audience:
Thank you very much. I’m Ken Katayama. I’ll speak in my academic role. I have a role at Keio. Speaking from Japan, I had a conversation earlier with Julie, but the difference between digital safety, cybersecurity, freedom of speech, this is very blurry in Japan, at least as a Japanese, I feel. And Angela also knows I work very deeply in cybersecurity. Some of the stuff that you were mentioning today, we in Japan deal within the cybersecurity framework, so to speak. So how do you respond to that? I agree with what all of you are saying, but I guess as a Japanese, how do we bucket what you’re saying into what we’re doing in Japan? Thank you.

Moderator:
Maybe Courtney wants to answer that.

Connie Man Hei Siu:
Okay. Well, at Web, for example, the way that we’ve differentiated cybersecurity from online safety is that we have a center on cybersecurity that is focusing on understanding how we protect infrastructure, how we protect the data, how we prepare for cyber attacks. And then from the online safety piece, we are framing it as how we tackle harmful content online, so we are focusing on the content layer here and what are the user experience and how we can build a safer internet from the user’s perspective as well. So that would be the first point to your question. I don’t know if my colleagues want to add anything. I was going to point to Julie. I’m laughing. A little bit in the work on the typology of harms that I think is pretty critical to help. I mean, I’ll put a frame as we think about it. It truly is, if you’re thinking about the digital safety space, my definition, how we think about it from a governance at Microsoft is a online content and conduct intersecting with personal harms. That is distinct from platform harms.

Audience:
That is distinct from economic harms. But I think the typology work that the working group really hits home here. The interesting space that starts blending, as we all know, is what may have been in a cybercrime space in a fraud or manipulation. Now when those are targeting at a more vulnerable populations, you start seeing an intersection here. I think we need to do it from a typology of harms because then the interventions, although some may be similar from a cybercrime perspective, they are very different as well. And you want them to be different because you want to be enabling productive, positive technology intervention, not halting interaction with technology. In a criminal context, that is probably the best outcome. So the intervention methodology also differs. In full disclosure, we were just saying all roads lead to Microsoft. I spent 17 years there. Ken and I know each other there. Of course, Courtney is there and Angela. And I were in Trustworthy Computing together. And more than 10 years ago, I was asked to develop the first trust and safety strategy and business plan. And then it was sent back to me because I had to explain to our executives, who were deep cybersecurity experts or privacy experts, well, what do you mean by trust and safety? And what we eventually landed at is any kind of personal harm that results with technology facilitating some form of interaction. It’s when people are interacting online, whether it’s via chat, social media, DM. It’s covered here, dating, gaming platforms, and all those things. And we’re often asked because we’re having debates. And Maria mentioned this in our session with Jacinda Ardern and Maria Reza. I think of security, privacy, and safety as three legs of the stool. And if one of them is out of balance, then the stool falls over. But right now, we kind of have a bit of a false binary on you have to have, if you have absolute privacy, there’s absolute privacy or absolute safety where there’s probably the truth that there has to be a balance that exists. And when I think about cybersecurity, I think of the systems, processes, and technologies. Again, safety regulation is tending to move more from just content regulation to more systems and processes. We’ve got powers to do both. And I would actually argue that while I do think systems and processes over time will hopefully help to lift online safety standards broadly, one of the most important things we do is remediate harm in real time. And I’m not sure that that will happen purely through systems and processes. The way that targeted online harassment now happens is by targeting individuals who may be part of vulnerable groups, but that has an impact on democracy and society, individuals. So I think we still need a combination of both, because if we’re not bolstering the humans and helping the humans and serving as that power balancer, then we’re going to have a lot of damaged individuals walking around. Thank you.

Moderator:
There’s another question there. Please go ahead.

Audience:
Hi. My name is Chang Ho. I’m a lawyer coming from Japan. And just my question is, is there any kind of non-Western companies, like corporations involved in the engagement of the stakeholder process? And do you have any plans to make it known for, let’s say, Asian companies in East Asia, for example, here in Japan or South Korea? There are many other non-Western platforms, like Line or the Kakao and so on. I mean, just wants to know if you have any plan. I mean, WEF has an office in Tokyo, for example. I mean, not sure. I mean, maybe you can just build some partnership with the local office here. So, yeah. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thank you. Well, one of the reasons of being here at the IGF is to talk to different companies, different stakeholders, because we want to continue bringing different perspectives into the coalition work. So any ideas of organizations we should be involving that are relevant for the discussion that we are having, please reach out, and we will be happy to have a conversation. Yeah, I would just add to that quickly, just that, yeah, I think there is concerted outreach right now, that both for this coalition, as well as for our own digital trust and safety partnership, involving companies from other parts of the world is critically important. And so that’s something that, yeah, I’m here to talk. We have a booth in the exhibition hall with as many folks as possible. And I know that companies like Line and Kakao have really been leaders in different areas of this space and have worked with Line and other coalitions. And so I think it’s really, the time is now for companies like that to get involved.

Audience:
Hi, I’m Sherry Cram Talabani. I am a human rights lawyer, and my organization, Seed Foundation, is a protection actor in Kurdistan, Iraq. Their online violence results in honor killings, sexual exploitation, abduction, financial exploitation, human trafficking. So my question was similar. How do you intend to engage the developing countries to ensure that the risks that individuals face in these environments, with high levels of gender inequality, with high levels of violence generally, how do you intend to engage those communities? I think it’s relevant to the typology of harm, which I think in our part of the world across the Middle East is quite different than maybe other places. So that’s my question. Thank you. I can start that. Well, I’m myself, I’m from the Global South. So since I joined the initiative, I’ve been reaching out to organizations in Latin America and Africa to try to get them involved in the work that we are doing, because we believe that, as I said before, the more voices we have, the better prepared we can be for tackling the harms that you just mentioned. So at the coalition level, we are doing a lot of work in terms of outreach, connecting with organizations, not only private companies, but also civil society, governments. And we are open for conversations with any organization you think should be relevant. So happy to chat about your work as well after this. But again, it’s very important that we bring as many voices as we can to this conversation. And as I said before, the coalition is very solid in terms of the level of engagement and the commitment that we have. So the foundations are really strong, and bringing in more voices will make it even more stronger. I might just add, again, Workstream 4 is just scoping out how we’re going to move forward. But my co-chair, Sasha and I, and Augustina will remember this, we talked specifically about how we wanted to make sure in that topology of understanding what’s out in the environment, making sure that we were reaching out to countries of different status, right? Whether it’s the global north or the majority world, really making sure that we were having a broad understanding of that environment. And then we started to talk a little bit, again, this is anticipating maybe some of what could happen in the future. Maybe there might be things where there are different model countries to be able to help move up and do some capacity building and media information literacy. Again, not promising that that’s the direction that we’re going, but one of the things that we were thinking about in scoping out our work is making sure that it is representing a diversity of the community. Just to, I think I’m expanding on that comment for a second. If I go back to one of the fundamental principles, you’ve got representatives here in co-chairs, so I don’t mean to speak for everybody, but that are investing additional resources and time outside of their day jobs because we are from some of the larger organizations who can handle global trust and safety teams. The goal of this work then was to build a scalable model for small, mid-sized companies to understand the landscape and resources that would help them scale their trust and safety capabilities. Now, even as a global company, what you just articulated to me is one of those gaps that we genuinely know would be so valuable to scale knowledge and capacity building across the trust and safety. What are the kind of, I’ll call it regional threat assessment landscapes that would be meaningful for us to think about? That might be a space that can be the growth projector, but I am acknowledging what we are hoping to do is really bring those resources to bear for all tech companies and platforms to understand the risk and the tools that they need. Hi, Hélène Molinier from UN Women. I would be very interested to hear how do you bring a gender lens in everything that you do because I think we’ve heard a lot about safety in neutral terms during your presentation and just want to bring the attention that when we talk about violence online and all the crimes I think that you just brought up, these are crimes that are in majority affecting women. So, I think it’s important when we look at safety and that we don’t talk about women as a vulnerable group because women are half of the population. They are not a vulnerable group. It’s really something that should be front and center of everything that we do when we design safety and I look at our principles. I look at the typology. I think it’s great, but I think it would be even greater if we could have a chapeau, especially if you’re building a model that helps build the capacity of smaller firms or people that don’t have as much as information of view of this typology, that we really make that something front and center in the work that we do. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thank you for that comment. The UNFPA put on a really important meeting on Saturday that had me get up at 4 o’clock in the morning and write a 20-page paper where I was trying to draw the strings together of what is technology-facilitated abuse, how does it manifest differently against women. Often we’re thinking about targeted online abuse, but one of the programs that we deal with are women who are in family and domestic violence situations in 99% of cases, technology-facilitated abuse through harassing texts, through microaggressions in banking transactions, through drones over safe houses and other manipulations of technology is used to further isolate, stalk, harass, intimidate their former partners, a form of coercive control. And then I started thinking about gendered safety by design, and I was really trying to rack my brain and think about is there an example that I can come up with of a company that designed, understood how online abuse manifests differently against women, you know, rape threats, death threats, about appearance, fertility, supposed virtue. I can’t actually think of one. I can only think of fails. Like the air tag, I remember when that came out in April 2021, I was like, oh, that’s great for me because I always lose my keys in the bottom of my bag. But gosh, this could be such a potent tool for those who want to surveil their former partners, and we, you know, we wrote to the company and just said what kind of safety by design assessments did you use? Well, we looked at privacy by design, and I’m like, well, two years later, and kudos to Google and Apple, but they’ve now just announced that you will get notifications when there’s a Bluetooth tracker or AirPods that are detected on your device that might be following you. But in that intervening period, we had so many cases where women experiencing technology facilitated abuse had eventually, they couldn’t find out why their partners knew where they

Audience:
were. One of them, we found the air tag was in the wheel of their car wheel bank. But these are small devices that can follow people anywhere. So I would love to think about what gendered safety by design looks like and work with one of these great companies here to see if we can, you know, find a use case and apply it.

Moderator:
Thank you, Julie. Any further questions or comments? There is one there. If you can stand up and come to the mic here. Thank you.

Audience:
Thank you for the panel. That’s been very impressive. My name is Kohei. I’m working on privacy by design. So I’m very interested in your session due to some of the risk assessment purpose. I talked with some of the smaller, medium-sized companies so far in terms of the privacy impact assessment. But for them, it’s very challenging because it’s a lack of resources, lack of the budget or many, many kind of the burdens for them to achieve this goal. So you mentioned some of the great initiative to make an assessment, right? But in this case, how to support any kind of the, any sectors who is in lack of the resources, who is in the help, even they want to protect the safety for all the citizens. Do you have any advice for them? So I think the, it’s a terrific question. And I do think that one of the highlights of this coalition is that its outputs are very digestible, sort of scalable entry points into more detailed and resources that can sort of build a ladder for companies that are wherever they are in their sort of journey towards maturity when it comes to online safety. And so starting with the coalition outputs and things like the appendix to the principles that Courtney mentioned, the taxonomy, the case studies that we’ve put out on risk assessment. From there, there are a number of things that I would also point to that I think can be valuable. Our framework at the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership, it really is scalable in that the practices we’ve set out for trust and safety are things that can be used by companies at different stages and where the level of intensity of assessment of a company’s practices depends on the size and scale of the company, but also on the risks that it faces. And I think we need to look at both of those things, not just look at the biggest companies in the world because small companies can sometimes have products that have very specific outsized risks. I would also highlight some resources that Julie’s team, the Safety by Design Assessments, have an assessment for startups, I believe. Yeah, I’d just say that these are free. Just look up eSafety, Safety by Design, Risk Assessment Tools. We have one for startups. We’ve just developed a free MOOC with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 12 hours of coursework in your spare time. But just to walk through the principles. I’m just gonna pick up on one thread you said, which is that you focus on privacy by design. So my encouragement would be all the resources we just referenced are critical to be built in when people are thinking about privacy by design. It’s time at the very beginning of privacy by design when you were thinking about what data you’re gonna collect and how you’re gonna utilize that data to be completely transparent that safety is a legitimate means and need to be leveraging the data for that purpose. And so these resources help you understand the harms in the world that will happen because of technology facilitated and that must be stated as to why data is leveraged for these safety purposes. The speaking from someone who has helped, I’ll call it retrofit that, for many of our privacy experts across a specific company, that is at its core helping people understand, yes, to be perfectly honest, there is some minimized data collection that needs to happen to help advance your safety online when interacting with these tech platforms. And we are gonna be transparent as heck about that, but that’s important to be building in by privacy by design. Thank you. One final question, right? Yeah, please go ahead. Of course I have to be the final question. Hello everybody. First of all, I just wanna say it’s beautiful to see the regulator next to the regulator. I hope there’s, with one in between, yeah. It’s beautiful. Thank you. Boris from SWGFL and full disclosure, David Wright, the CEO of SWGFL is also the lovely member. And it might be a million dollar question. Global cooperation and multi-stakeholder approach, I think it’s almost evident, is a way forward. But the question is on the scalability of issues which Julie mentioned on the harms of the future being supercharged. And with your lessons and learnings from developing global tools that have to have local sensitive solution. My question is how do we ensure that the solutions scale with the size and the impact of the issues and the challenges that we see, especially as we are seeing global issues that require local sensitive solutions. And most often those solutions are not developed from the global South, but the global developed West. And those solutions then have a completely different impact. Thank you very much.

Moderator:
Very interesting question.

Audience:
And you deserve the million dollar question. I am an optimist about this inflection moment of generative AI to build more linguistic and cultural sensitivity to how we do this. If we do this right from the outset, we should have learned the lessons of the last 15 years. And it’s time to take those lessons into practice as we look at data training sets for generative AI at the outset. That is how to build in to your point. We know safety has localized, it needs a local lens. We need to understand the linguistic and cultural implications, but guess what? The promise, the capability of generative AI can turn that at scale if we build it from the foundational building blocks upright. I wanna believe that we have learned those lessons. We’re gonna have to put them in practice, but there is some already very, very promising concepts about how you start being much more nuanced and appropriate in your intervention methodologies from a safety perspective when you turn generative AI for the promise for good. So hold us all throughout the ecosystem account to do just that, but then we really need some innovators to think about how to build that scalable across the ecosystem from a safety lens. I guess I’m using Australia as a microcosm for the global world, but we found that the only way that you can develop authentic tools and prevention methods, and this probably goes to a technology, is through co-design. So we have a youth advisory committee that helps us develop our scroll campaign, which is for young people. It’s language and concerns developed by young people for young people. We did the same with our Learning Lounge LGBTQI plus materials, all of the consultation, all of the vendors that we use come from the community, and it was very courageous for a government agency to use eggplant emojis, I have to say, and we even used some peaches. But anyway, co-design is the way to go where you can scale that. Final word, David? I would just say, I do think that meaningful involvement, I’m not saying anything anyone hasn’t already said, that we need to all be in this together and hash it out, and I think that that is how we figure out something that is much more deliberate and better from the outset. Thank you, David.

Moderator:
Well, I think we have time to wrap up the session. Thank you very much for joining us today. You can find the reports that were just presented on the Global Coalition for Digital Safety website, and I know we could spend more and more hours discussing these issues, but we still have three days more at the ICF, so feel free to reach out and connect with any of us, with me, if you want to know more about the work of the coalition, or if you want to get engaged, or if you have ideas of organizations we should be engaging, please reach out. Well, see you around, and thank you very much again. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Audience

In Kuwait, the importance of open data governance and sustainability is highlighted through the efforts of an Automated Systems Company. This company focuses on governing and sustaining open data to government entities. The emphasis is on ensuring that open data is effectively managed and utilized by government bodies in Kuwait, promoting transparency and accountability.

Similarly, in Sri Lanka, the government is actively working on various personal data collection initiatives. It recognizes the need for data governance models to ensure that personal data is collected and managed in a responsible and secure manner. The aim is to strike a balance between utilizing personal data for development and innovation while protecting individual privacy rights.

Advocacy for open data is taking place in the Maldives, where Women in Tech Maldives is playing a significant role. This advocacy seeks to enhance transparency and public access to government data. By promoting open data, the Maldives aims to foster innovation, drive economic growth, and encourage evidence-based decision-making.

In terms of research, a researcher from the University of Melbourne is studying the political implications of open government data. This research aims to understand how data governance practices can influence political processes and decision-making. By investigating the relationship between open government data and politics, insights can be gained on how to effectively utilize data for democratic governance.

Data management is a crucial aspect of government operations, and the National Centre for Information Technology in the Maldives is responsible for managing government data. Proper organization, storage, and sharing of government data are necessary to ensure effective decision-making and efficient public service delivery. However, it is noted that within the same entity, government departments often do not share data, highlighting the need for improved coordination and collaboration.

The COVID-19 pandemic has showcased the importance of open data in crisis response. Indian and South Korean models of open data were successful in the pandemic as they allowed governments to track people and manage emergencies effectively. However, it is argued that open data initiatives should be tailored to align with each country’s specific goals and agenda, rather than imitating models from elsewhere. Contextual factors such as security concerns need to be carefully considered.

The issue of data quality is raised in India, where a research case highlighted the problem of inadequate data details despite data being open and machine-readable. This led to wastage of public resources. The research emphasizes that quality standards and ethics must precede open data initiatives to ensure the accuracy and usefulness of the data being made available.

At the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the balance between different themes such as freedom of expression, freedom of information, security, and privacy is discussed. It is recognized that different countries may have varying definitions and understanding of personally identifiable information. The need to find a balance between these themes to foster a supportive and inclusive digital environment is emphasized.

It is important to note that open data initiatives should be adaptable to changing governments. What may be acceptable and appropriate in one government may change with a change in leadership. Governments should be cautious and considerate of potential shifts in data access and use as political circumstances change.

Efficient government data management and transparency are key to effective governance. Top management must have access to timely and accurate data to make informed decisions. However, it is acknowledged that there may be challenges in accessing data within middle and lower levels of government, highlighting the need for improved transparency and data sharing within government structures.

Opening up data brings both opportunities and risks. It may lead to increased transparency, community engagement, and proactive governance. However, organizations may also be reluctant to share data due to concerns about damaging their reputation. Finding the right balance between openness and risk management is crucial.

A top-down approach to instigate open data is advocated. Bureaucrats may be occupied with daily work and not prioritize publishing information. The onus is on top leadership to recognize the importance of data and foster a culture of openness within government agencies.

Lastly, a noteworthy observation is that more open data can reduce the need for individual information requests. In Sri Lanka, the Right to Information Act permits individuals to request information, but opening up data sets can provide access to information without the need for individual requests. This can streamline the process and enhance government transparency.

In conclusion, the importance of open data governance and sustainability is underscored by various initiatives and research efforts across different countries. Proper data governance models, data quality standards, and ethical considerations are essential for effective utilization of open data. The balance between different themes such as freedom of expression, security, and privacy must be carefully managed. Governments, researchers, and advocacy groups all play a vital role in promoting open data and driving transparent and accountable governance.

Kait Holm

The development of the Open Data Portal ‘Bayanet’ in the UAE was a collaborative effort between the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA). The project involved various essential steps, including identifying and exploring data, cleaning and converting it, ensuring its quality, and sustaining it in the long term.

One of the significant challenges faced during the project was the inconsistency in how data was documented, making it difficult to consolidate and analyze effectively. Moreover, there was a disparity in the units used across data from different Emirates, further complicating the process of integrating and comparing data.

Another notable challenge was the need to convert data between Arabic and English. This language barrier required meticulous translation and interpretation to ensure accurate and consistent data. To address these challenges, the project enlisted the support of two data auditors, a language editor, and Kait, who examined each dataset meticulously to ensure its quality.

Furthermore, a Hackathon for Happiness was conducted, demonstrating the significance of the data and its potential applications. This event served as a platform to encourage engagement and collaboration, highlighting the importance of open data in driving innovation and societal well-being.

To sustain the value and relevance of the data, continual updates and maintenance were emphasized. Trainings were conducted to educate ministries on how to consistently update their data, ensuring its accuracy and timeliness. This effort led to the creation of Bayanet AI, an artificial intelligence system trained using the initial data published. This innovation facilitates efficient data analysis and enables users to benefit from the insights gained through the Open Data Portal.

In conclusion, the development of the Open Data Portal ‘Bayanet’ in the UAE involved a comprehensive process of finding, exploring, cleaning, converting, and ensuring the quality of the data. Overcoming challenges such as inconsistent documentation, unit disparity, and language barriers was vital to achieving the project’s goals. The emphasis on continual updates and the creation of Bayanet AI reflect the importance of sustaining open data to maintain its value and relevance. The successful implementation of this project highlights the UAE’s commitment to fostering innovation, promoting transparency, and harnessing the potential of open data for societal development.

Winnie Kamau

During the Zoom meeting, Kat requests that all participants introduce themselves in the chat to facilitate communication and acquaintanceship. This act of self-introduction is meant to encourage interaction and connection among attendees. Additionally, Kat wants to personally introduce the individuals present in the room.

By encouraging participants to introduce themselves in the chat, Kat provides an opportunity for them to share their background, expertise, or other important information with the group. This helps create a sense of community and camaraderie among the participants.

Kat’s intention to introduce those present in the room emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and including everyone, regardless of their location. This inclusive approach fosters a welcoming environment and ensures that every participant feels valued.

Overall, Kat’s request for introductions in the chat and the intention to introduce individuals in the room reflects a commitment to promoting open communication, collaboration, and unity within the Zoom meeting. By creating opportunities for participants to connect and get to know one another, Kat cultivates an atmosphere that encourages productive discussions and meaningful interactions.

Kat Townsend

The analysis highlights the importance of open data governance and transparency, with a focus on various key points. Firstly, Katherine Townsend, who has eight years of experience in the US federal government, currently works with Open Data Collaboratives and advocates for open data and government transparency. Her expertise in governmental advisory roles makes her a valuable asset in promoting open data initiatives. Additionally, Katherine has advised governments in countries such as Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and the UAE, indicating her broad experience in the field.

Partnership between internal and external actors emerges as the most effective strategy for open data governance and sustainability. By working together, these actors can pool their resources, knowledge, and expertise to ensure the successful implementation and maintenance of open data initiatives.

Developing a culture of openness and providing training for both government officials and the public is crucial for fostering data governance. It is important to educate civil servants and individuals outside the government about the benefits of open data, as well as the social impact of their work. By doing so, a deeper understanding of data handling and the potential advantages of open data can be fostered.

To garner government support for open data policies, it is recommended to build a prototype that demonstrates the benefits of opening up a non-controversial dataset. This can help showcase the potential advantages and convince other government officials to get on board with open data initiatives.

Public announcement of open data initiatives plays a significant role in engaging public support and sustaining it. When open data is published, efforts should be made to rally public support through effective communication campaigns. This ensures that the public is aware of the initiatives and can actively participate in utilizing the data for various purposes.

Open data should be both technically and legally open, allowing for its reuse and redistribution. This means that the data should be easily accessible in a machine-readable format and should not be subject to restrictive usage or redistribution policies. The concept of open data encompasses the ability to use, reuse, and widely redistribute the data.

Efficient distribution and usage of open data are crucial for its economic and social benefits. It is necessary to convince governments and agencies to open up their data so that it can be effectively utilized. The analysis suggests that organizing events like hackathons can demonstrate the need for open data and its potential applications, further supporting the argument for its distribution.

Striking a balance between freedom of information and privacy and security is essential in open data policies. There are contextual differences in what is considered personally identifiable information, and a change in government can lead to a change in the perception of appropriate data. Therefore, policies must ensure that data openness does not compromise citizens’ privacy or security.

The quality and applicability of data are important aspects of open data initiatives. It is crucial to ensure that the data provided is reliable, accurate, and applicable to specific needs. The analysis highlights cases where insincere actors claim their data is open but fail to provide high-quality and applicable information. This emphasizes the importance of opening data with specific applications in mind.

The analysis suggests that every country should have its own open data policy tailored to its unique needs and goals. Since different countries and even subnational entities have differing needs, a one-size-fits-all global open data policy may not be feasible. Instead, individual countries can develop policies that align with their specific goals and circumstances.

Government entities may be hesitant to open up data due to the fear of criticism or damage to their reputation. However, engaging the community and framing data openness in a positive and proactive manner can help overcome resistance. By highlighting the benefits of open data and fostering a sense of community ownership, government entities can gain public support and overcome their fears.

Identifying a specific stakeholder who can champion data openness within a government entity is crucial for making incremental progress. This stakeholder can leverage their influence and advocate for open data initiatives, thereby creating a conducive environment for change and implementation.

Despite the challenges posed by bureaucratic systems, efforts to organize and share data can still be worthwhile. It is important to recognize that bureaucratic offices are often busy with administrative work and may not realize that making certain information public could actually facilitate their own processes. By raising awareness and demonstrating the benefits, bureaucratic entities can be encouraged to embrace open data initiatives.

Lastly, transparency and open data can help build reputation and facilitate civil activities. Certain countries already have laws in place that demand the publication of government data. By making data open and transparent, governments can build public trust and foster civil society initiatives.

Overall, the analysis provides valuable insights into different aspects of open data governance and transparency. It emphasizes the need for partnership, training, prototyping, public engagement, and careful consideration of privacy and security. By implementing these recommendations, governments can utilize open data to improve decision-making, foster innovation, and achieve sustainable development goals.

Winnie Kamau:
Yes, Kat, I can hear you. I can hear you. Yes, so if in Zoom you can just introduce yourself, that would be great, in the chat so that you all can get a chance to meet each other. And I’d love to do the same for the people who are in the room.

Kat Townsend:
So I’ll start. My name is Katherine Townsend. I spent eight years in the U.S. federal government and have been advising governments in Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, UAE, and local, domestic, and around the world on open data and open data policies. And I work with a group of others who we have various day jobs, but because we believe so strongly in government transparency, this collective is called Open Data Collaboratives. So if you would like to follow on with any of these slides or any of the people involved, that is the link there. I will say it’s case sensitive, so just follow it directly. And you’ll see I’m here by myself. Others did not get their visas, so unfortunately many are, it’s in the middle of the night. They may join, but I do have a colleague who is on and supporting, so thank you all for joining today. I think what I’d like to do is just take a moment to take you all through, but it would be helpful for me to understand what roles you’re in. This is a networking event, so the point is for us to really see and meet each other. So do you mind if we just go around a little bit and speak about, just to say, you know, either what role you’re in or why you chose to come to this session, what kind of you’re looking for, and then I can sort of tailor on what would be most useful. And I’d just ask those on Zoom to do the same, please. Thank you.

Audience:
Hello. Good morning, everyone. My name is Qusai Al-Shati. I’m from Kuwait. I’m the chairman of Automated Systems Company, and we are interested in how to sustain. I’m sorry. Make sure your face is filmed. Oh. Yeah. We are mostly interested in how to govern and sustain open data to government entities because they are our clients. Thank you. My name is Varuna Dhanapada. I am from the government of Sri Lanka. I’m a civil servant for 23 years. I have also served in New York as a diplomat where the Sustainable Development Goals were composed, and I was part of the open working group. So I found it quite interesting, this subject. The government of Sri Lanka has many personal data collection initiatives, and it finds it very essential for data governance models that applies to all stakeholders of this subject. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. My name is Nisha. I’m from the Maldives. So I’m one of the co-founders of Women in Tech Maldives, a nonprofit organization which was actually established in order to empower women. But currently, I think we are the only functioning IT nonprofit in the Maldives, and we do advocate a lot for open data, which is why I choose to be in this session because I’m looking forward to learning from you and maybe going back home and trying to get our government and our other offices to implement this. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Shilpa. I am a researcher at University of Melbourne. I am an academic. I used to work as an assistant professor at an Indian university, and my research is on data governance, and I am trying to look at data not from an economic perspective but from a political perspective, and hence, I really wanted to see the capacity of how open government data can protect or guarantee political values, I mean, specifically constitutional values. That’s what I’m here for. Hi, I’m Aishit Mahat from Maldives. I’m in government, National Centre for Information Technology. I’m working in IT service management. Hi, I’m Aisha. I am also working in the National Centre for Information Technology. It’s under the Ministry of Information Technology, so we kind of manage the government data. We have the data, and we are developing systems that are taking and using this data, so this session is really good for me to know more about it, so I feel it. Maldives.

Kat Townsend:
Yeah. Thank you. Australia, Kuwait. Beautiful. Okay, thank you all for taking that time, and I don’t know if I said it, but I’m from the U.S. That wasn’t very evident. Okay, and then just to know who is online. Okay, if you all want to introduce yourself a bit on the chat, I’m happy to read out so that others in the room know. Okay, so I just have three examples that I wanted to run you all through of different ways that the people I’ve worked with and the people on our team have approached government data. So, to know about our group, who we’re coming from, so we have, thank you so much, so we’ve worked, founding members worked in the U.S. State Department, USAID, White House on the U.S. Open Government Data Policy, and from that, we built out a platform that was shared around the world, and really took this to other countries, and what we have been working with is with youth and startups, academics, to try to build these coalitions and have about 4,000 people across our network that we engage in fairly regularly. If I could share anything about the strategy for how this works well and sustained, there’s a lot of people who try to change by shouting from the outside and saying you must open data, and then there’s people working really hard on the inside trying to convince their colleagues. The most effective is to have a partnership where you’re working together, so in any way that the government can find people on the outside that are championing the work that they’re doing and saying this is what we need and we’re so supportive, you can use that advocacy to make changes inside government and sort of vice versa. So that would be the, perhaps it feels very obvious, but finding that collaboration and finding your counterparts is what’s going to make it work and sustain. So just three countries, and I’m just checking my time here. So the first I’ll share, and it is about 3 o’clock in the morning for Florence, so I’m sharing her slide deck, but this is Florence Tofa, and she has an external organization, so she has a women in tech organization in her country, and built relationships with the government and learned from them that they wanted to build out an open data portal. So I think some of the basics about what is open government data, it seems like you all are working on this, you study it very well, but to just think about sort of the history of how this came together, a lot of this has been pushed and supported out of the north, but it’s presented as just a different kind of platform that can be used for government to be responsive to its citizens, to improve service delivery, and to have better partnerships and also better transparency and accountability. It will depend on your context of whether you want to share it as an accountability strategy or, as worked very well in the United States, as a way of supporting GDP growth and making a lot of funds, and that was very appealing to people within government to want to help others to open up data, if you were able to say that we would unlock what we said a trillion dollars worth of growth. Currently, there’s about 122 countries that have open data portals. There is a group called the Global Data Barometer that takes a measurement each year of the quality of data. If there is gray, that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing, that just means that they didn’t include them in the study, there’s not data there. Just to be clear, what open data means, it is both technically and legally open. There’s a lot of times that we’ll have data available and it’s just a PDF on a website, you can’t search for it, it’s very difficult to find, it’s buried in, but it’s called open. The quality of a machine being able to track and identify and pull in so that people can run their own analysis, this is a baseline requirement for open. I am sure I’m saying things that you all already know, but it’s sometimes helpful to just reset, are we all talking about the same thing? Legally open. We have also had many experiences where we have, legally it’s open. What that means is that you have to physically travel to an office and then you have to rent out a book with 1,600 pages of text and then you can only read it there and they say, well, it’s open. That is technically open or that is, to the letter of the law, legally open, but it’s described as being able to use, reuse and be able to redistribute widely. Here are some of the arguments that we’ve made. Improved social value, public services, more transparent and more efficient government. This is really something that we find is that open data really improves government efficiency because if you know what you should be public and what needs to be private, you really have to organize your own systems very well so that you can make that determination quite quickly. These are just some stats that have been used by the European Data Portal to make the case when they were developing their own portal. Again, it’s truly dependent on the context that you’re working in, whether it’s regional, national or subnational, understanding what are the cases and now there’s so many cases about open data. What is the story that you need to tell that’s going to say that’s the kind of growth that I want or that’s the kind of social change that I want? This is providing a legal context for open data. Role of open data policy. You can do all the work within your teams and the organizations that you’re working with to build up these platforms and to build up these relationships and to open information, but unless you really have either a law that says you must do this by default or at least a government policy, the second someone changes their job or that roles and responsibilities shift, all of that work goes away. In addition to training up how people are working and really getting them on board, you need to have a document in place that everybody can point to and say this is what we’re acquiring and this is what our values are. This is the portal that they built. This is now about 10 years old. It looks about the same. It is very hard to change. Once you do lock something in place, just know, as you all know, it’ll be there for a while. Anytime that you do this, it’s not just about, all right, we got the law in place and we’re requiring them to do this and then they have to. Well, that’s not going to sustain. People want to be useful and they want to help for the most part. How can you build their capacity so that they feel a sense of ownership themselves? Working to develop that culture of openness, really training people outside of government and also the civil servants so that they understand what they’re doing and how their jobs change day to day and also the social benefits of the work that they’re undertaking. Because anytime you implement a new policy, regardless of the topic, but for sure open data, you have to do a lot more work and it takes time. If you want a civil servant to add even more time to their work, being able to link it to the social impact that they will have is very vital. This is a methodology that we use. We use hackathons. Hackathons have been around for years. The benefit of hackathons, especially with policymakers and politicians, is that it is visceral. They can see people using the data. They show up. You can teach them something small about how to interact. I find maps are extraordinarily helpful. So if you have a mapathon, because then they can visually see what they’ve done. They see the data and they see it mapped out. And then they can feel connected and part of the community. So I think social events are really, really vital. It’s also a place where youth are very comfortable. Love that. So I recommend, and you’ll see throughout here, we have hackathons in each of these. There’s a reason for it. Okay. So that’s Ghana. And this, let’s see, this is about 350 students on a Saturday. Florence runs these about once a month. You do not have to have that frequency. She’s very impressive with the community that she crowds. But I do think that there is, you know, knowing that there’s that consistency, that there’s a space to go where people can show up and they can contribute and where governments can show up and they can meet members of the community is really helpful. All right. So this is the work that I did to come into this space. It’s the open data policy out of USAID. And we started with trying to open up agriculture data. And I will say, just to say why agriculture data. In, it is important when you’re trying to figure out what data set you could make open is to choose one that people will not find terribly controversial. So there’s many, any data set could be controversial for sure. Land use is very controversial. But at least in the context of crop yield and weather patterns, this was seen as much more neutral. So it was much easier to create a prototype about let’s open up this data set and just show how the process goes than if we had chosen a data about health or women and children or security, anything like this. So there was sort of an effort to just rebrand into something called a data palooza. So you might see case studies of this. I think we’ve sort of reverted the language. But there’s a lot of this sort of process of not just hosting a hackathon but actually going through the cycle of opening data, writing a policy on data, bringing the people together, engaging with the data, bringing out some prototypes. types and then using that to iterate on what the process can be continuing and going forward. So this is a hack from with about eight different countries joined, which might seem, you know, at the time it was sort of before we had a lot of, you know, this is all Skype, and it was sort of before we had a lot of awareness that this could happen, but this was the first hackathon at USA that the foreign arm of the U.S. government had ever run. And sort of from that, we built out a prototype, and we built out a prototype of how to open up data, and we built out the open data policy. So if I were to condense sort of what those learnings were, if you are within government or if you’re working outside and you find your champion, really important to find a catalyst. What you need is a prototype or a paradigm of what it could look like. And once you have a prototype and you have a story, then you can share that around and people will say, that’s what I want to do. How do I replicate that? So you find your colleague, you find your contributor, you find your person who is right there with you and saying, yes, how do we open this? If you don’t have a friend in this, it’s pretty hard to do this all on your own, and I don’t say that to discourage, but just it’s really important to find a friend to, you know, a lot of change, a lot of government change happens because you have a small group of really committed people. So as I mentioned, try to choose a topic that’s not controversial just to start. You can go controversial later, but try to find one that is easy to tell the story on. Figure out who you actually need to have on your side. It’s not going to be always the people who are first to raise their hand, but you often will need to figure out who approves from legal, who approves from privacy, if you have a privacy laws and requirements, who are the subject matter experts, the people who actually collected the data or who are in charge of it, that you need their approval. And so actually mapping out all of the steps that you would need to go through, really important to build that plan. When I did this, I realized that you would have to go through 47 different people’s approval, which is a lot, but even just the act of writing out those 47 steps, we could say, all right, well, this is too much, so how can we tighten this up smaller and smaller, but really building out what that workflow would be from collecting a data set to making it open meant that we could put a real process in place. I always recommend including media and communications people in the beginning because you need storytellers. And often, especially for those of us who’ve worked in government, you do so much work and then you try to share it with the world and hope that everybody’s excited, but they weren’t part of the process, and so they don’t own it in the same way. And so I would just bring in their storytellers as early as possible. And then making time for implementation and institutionalization. One of the big flaws that we have for policymakers in general is that we will write a policy and then we will think that it’s done. And if you don’t take time to actually change people’s jobs, change people’s work plans, then it won’t sustain and it won’t stick. So all of these things that I’ve said, there are guidelines, there are job descriptions, there are case studies at that website. It is a U.S. lens, but it has been forked and taken around the world. So I would definitely recommend, it’s all written on GitHub, so it’s easy to copy and share around, but if you’re looking at job descriptions or at any sort of guidance on running the hackathons or anything like this, that is a location. And so after that prototype, that development work, we have the development data library, data.usa.gov, cuts across all different sectors, and it does sustain. So this was under the Obama administration. We’ve had a president since then that was not very interested in transparency and collaboration. This stayed online. And it stayed online because there were groups of civil servants that sustained it, because it was already part of their work and it wasn’t just something that political groups sort of put in place and then left. So I think I’ve talked through this. Again, find the data set and write down each step of the process. I created a working group with the approvers. It was really important and beneficial within USAID to actually take notes and share those out around the world. Often work happens in silos or it only happens at headquarters and nobody knows what others are working on. So sort of demonstrating we’re working on open data and we’re also going to work in the open was really important. And then synthesizing and then, as I said, taking those 47 steps down to eight. And then when you publish, you try to get the public on your side. So for sure you have your external person, or if you’re working externally, you are the external person, and as soon as that data goes up, that’s when you hit your communications campaign. Isn’t this wonderful? We want more of this. Look at all these things we can do to change it. Because it’s not just about that one data set, it’s all the other ones that can follow. And then the last example, and just because you’ve heard my voice chatting for a while, I’m going to see if it’s possible for Kate to, is it possible to have a virtual speaker join? Might be a little complicated. All right. We have Togo, Ethiopia on the line, and there’s a few others who haven’t introduced themselves. Kaitlin Home. And Kate, I don’t know, you have the slides in front of you. It’s just about five, and then hopefully we can take the last ten minutes to just hear from people in the room. But it would be maybe if we have her face side by side. If it’s too hard, I can just run through them. She’s unmuted. Great. Kate, can we hear you? Yes. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Hello? Yes. We can hear you.

Kait Holm:
Oh, okay. Perfect. Okay. So I will talk to you guys a little bit about some of the work that we did in the UAE, opening up and building their open data portal called Bayonet. This was done originally in partnership with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority and was done as an initiative from the UAE, which is a conglomeration of seven emirates. It was done as an initiative to bring together some of that very decentralized data that they had in order to create a national platform. And as part of this, we hosted a hackathon for happiness, which really helped us to both show and establish the fact that there was a need for this data, as well as how people intended to use this. Because there’s always a little bit of a tricky dance with helping to convince governments to open their data and illustrating, one, that there’s a need, but two, specifically what types of data might be most useful or most valuable. So in this case, the UAE was really interested in innovation, as well as the possible economic benefits that might stem from that. So this hackathon for happiness that we created in partnership with universities took place across all seven emirates and really gave us a large swath of data on who might be interacting with these published data sets and how these interactions might produce applications that may have economic benefit, social benefit, or benefit for civil society. So like I’d mentioned, this hackathon took place with across, I think, about six weeks or so, all seven emirates with universities, but it also included people from industry. It included civil society members. So it gave us a pretty large data set to pull from. There were some challenges with building this open data portal. In particular, one of the challenges you can see here that we had was converting data between Arabic and English, making sure that both were represented. As you can see on this slide, these are some of the steps that we followed. First step was finding the data. This was quite a bit of a challenge because the data that had previously been published had mostly been for internal documents or kind of organizational metrics. So we had to go to each of these different ministries or agencies. Some data we got was from university libraries, really, really difficult to find pieces of information at certain points. Once we did this, though, we then had to look and explore how the metadata, so how that information had been gathered, how it had been cataloged, and this was all part of an initiative to, as I said, federate or nationalize the data. So we were combining data from one emirate that may have, for example, let’s say it’s on camel populations, may have taken this data and only looked at camel populations around watering sources, but there might have been another that only measured camel populations in rural regions or mountainous regions. So understanding that metadata was a real key in order to create more complex and comprehensive data sets that included information about the entirety of the UAE. Once we were able to understand that, the next step was to clean this data. Like I mentioned, sometimes these internal documents and metrics were not always clear or consistent about how they were documenting the data and what types of units, for example, they would use. And then we had to convert the data. This is that slide you see now, or the image you see now, and part of this was sometimes the data would come in Arabic, sometimes it would come in English, but it was really important that we made it accessible in both English and Arabic. And this could be a bit of a challenge because, especially with the Arabic font, a lot of programs won’t recognize that that is a font or a script. So there was quite a bit of a challenge in figuring out how to either scrape that data or how to input it in a way that would be machine-readable across multiple platforms. The next step then was to ensure the quality. And this was done, we had in each data set, we had over 2,300 data sets that were published in each one. We had a language editor, we had two data auditors, and then I personally looked through and viewed every single data set to make sure that this data set matched the initial source material and wasn’t duplicative of other information that we had published previously. Last step was sustaining the data, so working with ministries themselves and making sure that they knew how to publish and continue to publish that information. And this links us into the last point here, which was on training and visualization. So part of that was training the ministries on how to continually update their data, why it was important, and how to follow up. And then visualizations came in the form of trainings that are hackathons, how to help students produce visualizations based on the data and metrics they’re working. And excitingly, we can see that this project has gone on to be quite significant as the UAE has expanded upon this and now developed Bayonet AI, which was trained based on this data that we initially put up for work for Bayonet. So here’s an example of what it looks like when you look at the landing page for the Open Data Portal, and you can search here using any of the terms that are included in the datasets in both Arabic and English, as well as tags, which we added as part of the metadata and any of the text in the metadata. OK, then this next slide, this is actually a picture of us at the hackathon at the Sharjah Planetarium. In fact, you can see Cat in the corner. Hi, Cat. And this image shows one of the teams presenting their work to one of the shakes. So then we have, I think, Cat, I’m going to let you take it from here, is that if there is anything I missed, please feel free to add it.

Kat Townsend:
That was awesome. Thank you, Kate. OK, so just it’s a it’s not a terribly complex formula what we run through, and it just takes a bit of grit of work and some time. If the if we were able to start a little bit on time, this is the kind of breakouts that I would ask you for. I think probably the the third, you know, I am happy to help you all and we are happy to help you all run through any of these. And if you’re able to answer these three questions, then it will be we will be even more effective in helping you chase down. OK, how do we get that prototype together? So what data is possible to make open? Who can you work with to actually do the work to get that data open? And I think it’s really important to tell the story and answer the question. It’s sort of the if this, then that framework. If you open this data, then that impact will happen. So, you know, for example, if we knew about Internet quality and cost, we could build maps of companies that were supposed to deprive that service, and then we could allocate funds the way that they’re intended to, to improve people’s connectivity, something for IGF. But truly, any way that you can get it into this framing, it’s so much more impactful if you say here’s how I will apply that data. And here’s the here’s the impact that it will make. And then I don’t know if the last slide comes up for you. It might need a refresh. Maybe the deck does. But otherwise, I’ll just share it on the Zoom. It is just the context. And it’s just a slide that has the links. Yes, there we go. Great. So these are the links that were shared today and just context if you are interested and if you want to follow up with any of us, because I know we’re at about four minutes. OK, so with that, does anybody have any questions or want to share their experience? Yeah, please.

Audience:
Thanks. Yeah. Oh, thank you. It’s it’s really not I don’t think it’s a question or something, but you know, it’s it’s just I told you, like, I’m researching on data governance and one of the aspects that I’m doing is open data. And I was doing this particular research. not comparing the models but then you know just focusing on Indian and the Korean the South Korean model of open data because I found that you know they have been like doing a fantastic work especially during pandemic including I mean India and South Korea have been really promoting open data including data related to the pandemic lockdown and you know people who were inside and outside and all of that which is why it was easy for the government to track people that you know if people are hiding and how to reach them in case they in case emergency in in situations of emergency with of course that you know we realize in it that it it’s it’s a there’s a possibility of being used all these tools used as surveillance right and one of the things that I mean of course now that’s really to do like a personal data but then in South Korea there was also this particular problem that you know Google for many years very persistent to ask the location of certain kinds of buildings within the geography which South Korea did not want to reveal for the fact that because of North Korea and the potential damage that I mean the potential attack that they could create in the critical infrastructure so now that is non personal data so that maybe maybe the point I would like to raise to everyone who is thinking from the government’s perspective if they want to open data personal or non-personal you really need to see your country’s goals or agenda that you want to meet and not just follow the model that is going on in every other world because they may have different values they may have different targets to meet but what is that you want to do and the second point I really wanted to because because there was this one particular research which happened in India and they were just analyzing that you know what kind of data they have been released and the problem was that the quality of data and it’s not just in India but it’s pretty much everywhere yes it’s machine readable it looks fantastic how it is there but then you know if the data is the the the the juice is actually in the details of the data if it is not detailed it is pointless you were just wasting public resource then so just having to say that you know we have an open data initiative but it doesn’t do anything because it doesn’t give enough information to be used so which is why like you know before opening data I would say that quality standards like having standards and ethics is the first thing that a government should work on or anyone that wants to work on I mean that’s exactly what happened in India that you know they open data but then they did not have those values and now they are this problem that you know what do we do with all these things there’s so much wasted a public resource now so now but things are getting on track they are working on these things so I mean like that’s just a lesson I thought like I could share with everyone reaction to that I do think for sure all of this work is a

Kat Townsend:
balance between as many of the themes that we have at IGF it’s freedom of expression freedom of information and it’s security and privacy and what looks like personally identifiable information in one context is going to be different around the world which is why you know the UN doesn’t have a global open data policy that it pushes each country and some it’s even subnational needs to change and it’s also what seems fine in one government and then you change governments and it is a completely different situation so trying to start with again those more neutral data sets data sets that are a bit more about what the government does and less about people is sometimes can be helpful there and then for sure on the quality of the data yeah don’t you can definitely have insincere actors who check a box look we did all this work to make it open and now you’re still complaining as they will say to civil society all the time that’s where the application is really important so you don’t just have open data for open data sake we’re opening this data in order to apply it here and so you can see that as a full package of stories we just don’t have it as a resource but here’s where it’s it’s being used in service so if they are consistently seeing this is the kind of data that is useful this is the kind of data that’s just fluff then you can make it possible to have some sort of catalyst and better examples there

Audience:
the thing is that government data although it is a structure but it is not organized they have the format of a structure data but actually the data itself is not organized so oh sure in that case we are talking about government data so it is public data that’s what we are looking for of economic value of social value how to make government whether the slide that says how to improve public services transparent government efficient government how you would convince the decision maker and what controls comes under each line that tells him if this is achieved if we can format the government data in forms of sets again non-controversial neutral available to all what controls you would apply here or indicators that you will tell to the decision maker if this is met you will perform better taking consideration bureaucracy is heavy in the government you can you can find the departments within the same government entity and they don’t share data right and now you’re talking about open data to others so you’re talking about the top management who may not know the real data within the middle and lower levels and they need it and they know that they need it so how you would convince them that such approach is can be efficient we do have a law of freedom of information but to what extent it’s an into effect that’s a question so I think

Kat Townsend:
your question would benefit more from diagnosing let’s try to figure out what the topic is but I think what I hear is what are who are you trying to convince so actually identifying who the stakeholder is not just government in general but can you find one team one leader who has the power to say I can at least I maybe can’t open up every ministry but I can open up one section in my ministries information I hear that I hear that and it’s but it is hard and so and I will say that just one of the things that governments that companies anybody non-profit anybody gets concerned about is that they don’t want to look bad everything is their reputation so they get very scared of opening up data because they don’t want it to be messy and shows that they didn’t do well and they’re very Chris so now you give them an option where instead of being criticized heavily okay let us help you let us help you with a good story about how you’re being proactive you’re showing your information you’re being transparent you’re bringing in the youth with these hackathons you’re bringing in the community and then thank you so much and and I it is important to have top-down but you need to give them a story you a few examples of here’s how we’ve changed and look there’s stories in the in the newspaper about how great this is and I’ll just I’ll say I am sure your context is difficult and I’m sure Sri Lanka is difficult and I’m sure Maldives is difficult and I can only offer that in the US government that the offices don’t share data with each other the offices don’t organize the data very well themselves if you ask a Freedom of Information Act they say well we’d have to find that data it’ll cost you $20,000 do you want to pay $20,000 for us to answer your question so it’s there’s there’s not a perfect model there’s only all of us trying to build slightly better models for how we can have better government systems so just to say that it’s all of these resources that we’re sharing is is that attempt to try to bring that sort of information sharing into these different spaces that are reticent to do so so but are you saying that you don’t think it’s possible without a top-down approach how we would

Audience:
create the commitment governments are bureaucrats but they are too much in deep of their bureaucracy a daily work yes he has 20 individuals every day for a license for a permission he’s busy with that to finish their work yeah now we are asking him to publish information yeah I’ll tell you really let me finish who’s in front of me yes right yes he would not realize that publishing the would make his life easier yes or himself or his organization so bureaucrats are always busy with their daily work they are inside the box they are not out of the box yes now I’m not saying that this is the right approach but it is our perception that the the top leadership would always see the case because they need information to make the right decision so they would say yes we want certain information to be public and set information for us to know yeah in order to make the right decision rather than they say what’s the case here or what the case there and what the case here and wait for a week or ten days and he need to make the decision yesterday right right because the formation is not or suddenly there is a crisis or a political issue that just came up and suddenly he’s exposed yes right so you know that there is no there is no mindset for open data there are countries that has laws that force government entities to poor data yeah and to a specific format this format of time gets outdated or or that mechanism is at the time it was done it was good but then there is more data needed more information needed but it didn’t get updated for and so it become all that nobody is now using it and there is demand to modernize it you’re not wrong it’s I see I say the hand so I just want to make sure that other people can show because if the point is networking people can help each other it’s not just yeah in Sri Lanka there’s initiative we joined open government partnership in 2015 and 16 there’s a lot of civil society activities around it and the government also responded I think they we could submit the second hybrid report into for the 2019 to 2021 after that I am not sure of what is happening but Sri Lanka is a law of right to information so if if the data sets can be more open and open there’s no need for individuals to send requests before for search the paper documents and all other things so so it’s kind of a win-win situation so more open you are with with what government can show to the people who are the stakeholders request I think I think that’s very true I will say that usually and if you

Kat Townsend:
okay so we’re just gonna close out usually if you’re looking at the people who submit Freedom of Information Act requests they want a very specific data set that and often it’s from a journalist perspective it’s accountability which is vital it is hard to get civil servants to convince their bosses to get excited about accountability because it doesn’t feel good to get yelled at and if you want to get people to be excited about transparency you give them a positive story of why it will be in their interest to open it up and if that is you’re helping the youth you’re building businesses you know there’s a nice story in the newspaper in general everybody cares about their reputation and when you build those models you can shift perception and then yes as happened it took 15 years for the US to do it but now we finally have a FOIA website that is easy to use as before it was not at all it does take time and so it’s that nothing that you build today is going to be modern in five ten years and it is about those communities and consistency but it’s a global community there’s a lot of people working on this and we want to work together so we really appreciate your time you

Ren Xianliang

Digital technology is having a significant impact on traditional industries, with the process of digitisation, networking, and intelligence gaining momentum. This transformation is driven by the increasing adoption of digital platforms and the exponential growth of cross-border data flows. Traditional industries are undergoing a digital revolution as they strive to operate more efficiently and effectively.

The importance of digital governance as a global issue is also acknowledged. Digital governance refers to the set of rules, policies, and frameworks that guide the use and regulation of digital technologies. While the need for effective digital governance is recognised, there is currently uneven development of digital governance capabilities among countries. Some countries are better equipped than others to address the challenges and risks associated with the digital age. Additionally, there is growing competition in the digital governance model as countries vie to establish themselves as leaders in this field.

Universal connectivity is identified as a vital goal that needs to be achieved. Despite progress in expanding internet access, around 3 billion people worldwide remain unconnected. The argument is that every person should have safe and affordable access to the internet by 2030. This highlights the need to bridge the digital divide and ensure equal opportunities for individuals, regardless of their geographic location or socio-economic status.

Furthermore, there is a call for more global cooperation and unity in digital governance. The rapid pace of technological advancement and the associated risks and challenges necessitate collaboration between nations. Countries must work together and share responsibilities to effectively address the challenges of the digital age. The World Internet Conference (WIC) is committed to building bridges and promoting closer and pragmatic global cooperation in digital governance.

In conclusion, digital technology is transforming traditional industries through increased digitisation, networking, and intelligence. Digital governance is recognised as an important global issue, although there is a need for more consistent and inclusive development of digital governance capabilities worldwide. Achieving universal connectivity, ensuring internet access for all, is a crucial goal for achieving digital inclusivity. Finally, global cooperation and unity in digital governance are essential for effectively addressing the risks and challenges of the digital age.

Xuanxin Zhang

The analysis highlights the increasing importance of digital technology governors, data governors, and digital platform governors as crucial topics in today’s digital era. This recognition indicates the growing significance of effectively governing and managing these areas to harness their potential for digital productivity. The positive sentiment surrounding this argument suggests an optimistic view of the opportunities that the digital era presents.

One of the key recommendations derived from the analysis is the need to enhance mutual trust through dialogues and exchanges to mitigate digital security risks. The supporting facts emphasise that global security threats are becoming more permanent, posing significant challenges. Moreover, the rapid development of new technologies and applications has introduced new risks to digital security. To address this issue, it is proposed that think tanks should innovate and establish platforms to facilitate cross-disciplinary and cross-field cooperation. This collaborative approach is seen as essential to effectively prevent and manage digital security threats.

Another important aspect highlighted in the analysis is the significance of a sound digital governance ecosystem in promoting digital innovation and development. The supporting facts underline the basic guarantee that such an ecosystem provides in fostering an environment conducive to digital advancement. The positive sentiment associated with this argument suggests an acknowledgement of the critical role of digital governance in driving progress in the digital realm.

Furthermore, the analysis recommends guiding multiple parties to actively participate in building a sound digital governance ecosystem. By engaging and involving various stakeholders, a comprehensive and inclusive approach to digital governance can be achieved. This broad participation ensures that the system takes into account diverse perspectives and interests, leading to more effective and balanced governance practices.

Lastly, the analysis asserts the importance of promoting cooperation on digital governance to improve the global digital governance system. Openness and cooperation are cited as critical principles for building a community with a shared future in cyberspace. This recommendation recognises the interconnected nature of the digital world and the need for collaboration between nations and organisations to address global challenges in digital governance. By fostering a cooperative and inclusive environment, the global digital governance system can be strengthened and more effectively address the diverse needs and interests of all stakeholders.

To summarise, the analysis highlights the growing importance of digital technology governors, data governors, and digital platform governors as crucial topics in the digital era. The need for enhancing mutual trust to mitigate digital security risks, building a sound digital governance ecosystem to promote innovation and development, and promoting cooperation on digital governance to improve the global system are key takeaways from the analysis. By addressing these issues and implementing the recommended actions, it is possible to unlock the immense potential of digital technologies and strive towards a more secure and inclusive digital future.

Qi

The development of the information technology revolution and the digital economy is significantly changing the way production and life function across the globe. This transformation has had a far-reaching impact on societies and economies, as it leverages the power and potential of the internet. With a positive sentiment, this argument highlights how the internet has transformed production and life.

China, in particular, has demonstrated its commitment to promoting internet development and governance. This dedication has led to notable progress in relevant undertakings within the country. Furthermore, hundreds of millions of people in China have experienced a greater sense of gain by sharing in the achievements of internet development. The sentiment here is positive, showcasing the positive outcomes resulting from China’s approach to cyberspace.

However, it is important to recognize that global challenges persist in the digital landscape. Unbalanced development, unsound regulation, and unreasonable order are some of the problems that persist globally. Although this stance assumes a neutral sentiment, it emphasizes the need for enhanced digital governance as a global concern.

Unity and cooperation are highlighted as the effective approach towards addressing the risks and challenges present in cyberspace. With positive sentiment, it is emphasized that all parties must work together to keep pace with the evolving trends of the times, seize historical opportunities presented by the information revolution, and tackle the potential risks and challenges in the digital realm. The conclusion drawn here is that unity and cooperation are key to ensuring robust digital governance.

In conclusion, the development of the information technology revolution and the digital economy holds immense transformative power over production and life. China’s commitment to internet development and governance has yielded positive outcomes for its people. However, global challenges such as unbalanced development and unsound regulation persist, making enhanced digital governance a pressing global concern. Through unity and cooperation, the risks and challenges present in cyberspace can be effectively addressed.

Wolfgang Kleinwächter

The analysis delves into the topic of internet governance, exploring various perspectives and arguments related to the issue. The first viewpoint asserts that the internet is not merely a technical problem but rather a political problem with a technical component. This perspective suggests that the political implications of the internet cannot be ignored and should be taken into consideration when formulating policies and regulations.

The second viewpoint emphasises the importance of adopting the Mighty Stakeholder Approach to internet governance. This approach argues that the internet cannot be effectively managed by a single group alone. Instead, it advocates for collaboration and input from various stakeholders, including governments, businesses, civil society, and users. The argument is based on the idea that a diverse range of perspectives and expertise is necessary to address the complex challenges of internet governance. A concrete example of this approach is seen in the World Summit, where arguments were based on how policymaking can be innovated, leading to the development of the Mighty Stakeholder Approach.

The analysis also highlights the existence of different layers within the internet and their potential for different forms of governance. These layers include an evolution layer and a use layer, each with its respective governance strategies. Additionally, the analysis points out that there are 193 different national jurisdictions, further underscoring the need for different layers of governance to cater to the diverse legal frameworks and regulatory systems across different countries. This observation suggests that a one-size-fits-all approach to internet governance may not be effective.

Another concern raised in the analysis is the risk of internet fragmentation. It notes that some governments might seek to bring the 193 jurisdictions to the ground layer of the internet, which could result in the fragmentation of the internet. This potential fragmentation is seen as a negative consequence, as it could impede cross-border communication and the free flow of information.

The analysis expresses support for the Global Digital Compact as a means to foster global consensus on internet governance. The Global Digital Compact is seen as an opportunity to bring diverse groups together and find common ground to address the challenges of internet governance effectively.

Lastly, the analysis highlights the importance of maintaining an open, secure, and inclusive internet. It asserts that the internet is as essential as air, highlighting that no state has its own separate air. Efforts should be made to keep the internet open and accessible to all, while also ensuring security and inclusivity. The analogy of clean air and pollution-free environment further reinforces the need to protect the internet from harmful practices that could compromise its integrity.

In conclusion, this analysis offers a multifaceted exploration of internet governance, presenting different viewpoints and arguments. It underscores the political and technical nature of the internet, emphasizes the need for collaboration among stakeholders, considers the various layers of the internet and the potential risks of fragmentation, supports the Global Digital Compact as a means of achieving consensus, and underscores the importance of an open, secure, and inclusive internet.

Audience

The audience member, who has already visited the place twice, expresses a strong positive stance towards a location with water settings and canals. They are greatly impressed with the overall water setting and specifically mention their enjoyment in walking around the canals. They are so enamored with the place that they express a strong desire to return at the end of the month, indicating their intention to revisit. This positive sentiment is evident throughout their argument, reflecting their enthusiasm for the place.

The supporting facts provided further demonstrate the audience member’s positive impression. They mention their desire to come back, indicating a high level of satisfaction with their previous visits. Additionally, they express enjoyment in walking around the canals, suggesting that the ambiance and beauty of these water features greatly enhance their experience.

Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the audience member’s positive impression aligns with the theme of good health and well-being, as indicated by the related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of “3. Good Health and Well-being”. This suggests that the water setting and canals contribute positively to the audience member’s personal well-being and overall satisfaction during their visits.

In conclusion, the audience member’s enthusiasm and positive stance towards a place with water settings and canals are clearly evident. Their desire to revisit, expressed satisfaction with previous visits, and enjoyment of walking around the canals all contribute to their positive sentiment. This finding is consistent with the related SDG of good health and well-being, highlighting the beneficial impact that such features can have on individuals.

Juni Murai

Juni Murai highlights the importance of a user-centric perspective in internet governance. While the internet initially originated from the supply side, it has now reached every corner of the world, impacting numerous industries and people’s lives. As a result, it is crucial to prioritize the needs and preferences of users when formulating internet governance policies. This approach ensures that regulations and services align with users’ requirements and expectations. Incorporating the input and feedback of users, governance leaders, and commercial entities is necessary to address emerging issues effectively.

The second key point raised by Juni Murai focuses on the complex advancements in internet technology architecture. From IP to web, cloud computing, social networking, the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI), the internet has rapidly evolved. This progression has increased complexity, making it challenging for policymakers and industry leaders to comprehend these intricate technologies. Thus, continuous education and awareness among stakeholders are crucial in keeping up with the evolving landscape. This understanding enables the development of effective policies that support innovation and foster a secure and inclusive digital environment.

Cybersecurity takes center stage as the third key point in Juni Murai’s argument. The emergence of new technologies brings the potential for misuse and various cyber threats. Collaborative efforts among different entities are essential to combat cyber abuses and promote responsible and ethical technology use. Investment in robust cybersecurity measures, such as encryption and threat detection systems, is crucial. By prioritizing cybersecurity, stakeholders can protect sensitive data, prevent unauthorized access, and maintain trust in the digital realm.

Juni Murai’s emphasis on collaboration expands beyond understanding new technologies to discussing their implications. Recognizing the need for a platform that brings together stakeholders from various sectors, opportunities for dialogue and knowledge-sharing are essential. Global discussions enable participants to better comprehend the technological landscapes across different regions. These conversations facilitate the exchange of insights, ideas, and best practices among policymakers, industry representatives, academics, and users. This leads to a comprehensive understanding and effective governance of new technologies.

In conclusion, Juni Murai underscores the importance of a user-centric approach in internet governance. The rapid advancements in internet technology architecture present challenges for policymakers in comprehending and regulating these complex systems. Furthermore, the potential misuse of new technologies highlights the criticality of robust cybersecurity measures. Collaborative efforts, partnerships, and global discussions are key drivers in promoting a better understanding of technological advancements and their implications. Working together, stakeholders can navigate the evolving digital landscape to ensure a secure, inclusive, and beneficial internet for all.

Luca Belli

The BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, have been collaborating on shared challenges in digital policies and internal governance. Since 2014, they have established a working group on the security of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to exchange best practices. The group aims to enhance the security of digital infrastructure and ensure responsible data usage. Joint commitments to global norms of cybersecurity and data protection have also been defined by the BRICS nations. These commitments reflect their dedication to secure digital development and adherence to global standards.

The BRICS nations have launched an initiative to improve cooperation in the supply chain, specifically in the digital era. By pooling their resources and expertise, they aim to create a more efficient and secure supply chain system that can better adapt to the challenges of the digital economy.

The enhanced cooperation process within the BRICS framework can potentially serve as a model for global digital governance. Their successful collaboration on cybersecurity regulations and the development of a framework for consumer protection in e-commerce demonstrate their shared commitment to addressing cyber threats and creating a safe digital marketplace.

Additionally, the BRICS nations prioritize maintaining digital sovereignty while securely transferring data. Each member country has their own system to define the extent to which data can be exported or transferred, emphasizing their commitment to protect national interests and assert control over their digital domains.

In conclusion, the BRICS nations have made significant progress in fostering joint understanding and addressing shared challenges in digital policies and internal governance. Through their working group, joint commitments, and enhanced cooperation in the supply chain, they demonstrate a commitment to promoting secure and responsible digital practices. This collaboration can serve as a model for global digital governance, while their focus on maintaining digital sovereignty highlights the importance of national control in data transfer.

Dai Lina

The development of AI governance rules is becoming increasingly fragmented, leading to a widening digital divide. This fragmentation is primarily driven by the competition among major countries, which has resulted in a deficit in national mutual trust. Unilateralism, statism, and protectionism are also impacting the formulation of AI rules.

One significant issue is the absence of many developing countries in AI governance discussions and decision-making. This exclusion exacerbates the digital divide among nations since these countries have no say in shaping AI’s rules and regulations. The lack of representation from developing countries raises concerns about the fairness and inclusivity of AI governance.

To address these challenges, it is important to promote international cooperation and adopt a human-centered approach to AI governance. This can be achieved by establishing a specialized agency under the US framework to govern AI. Such an agency could serve as a platform for fostering dialogue and cooperation among all countries, including both developed and developing nations.

Additionally, ensuring the safety, reliability, and controllability of AI is crucial. Amidst rapid advancements in AI technologies, it is paramount to build trust in these systems and have the ability to control their actions. This can help mitigate potential risks and ensure AI is used for the greater good of humanity. A human-centered approach should be advocated to align AI with ethical principles and respect human rights.

In conclusion, there is a need for more collaboration and inclusivity in the governance of AI. By promoting international cooperation and adopting a human-centered approach, the global community can work together to address the challenges posed by fragmented AI governance. This will ultimately lead to a more equitable and sustainable development of AI technologies for the benefit of all.

Shi Peixi

Different initiatives and efforts are being taken by states and enterprises to address the issue of global commons in the digital domain. However, the heavy intervention of leading states in the digital domain is resulting in tensions and divisions, leading to digital fragmentation. This fragmentation is evident in various aspects of the digital landscape, including telecommunications service providers, applications, application stores, undersea cable constructions, cloud services, mobile phone operating systems, 5G technology, the supply chain of chips, and the listing of tech companies on the market and capital flow related to new technologies.

In response to this critical situation, it is crucial to find measures that can prevent further fragmentation and division. New and innovative approaches to global digital governance need to be developed. These approaches should aim to regulate and manage the digital domain while fostering cooperation and collaboration among different stakeholders.

One notable discussion on this topic took place between the Secretary General of WIC, Mr. Ren, and other relevant stakeholders. During this discussion, Mr. Ren highlighted the importance of implementing new measures for global digital governance. It is essential to explore alternative methods and approaches that can effectively address the current challenges and ensure a more inclusive and cooperative digital environment.

The analysis suggests that the issue of digital fragmentation and division requires immediate attention, as it has significant implications for various sectors and stakeholders. By implementing new measures and adopting innovative approaches to global digital governance, it is possible to navigate these challenges effectively.

Overall, the summary highlights the existence of tensions and divisions in the digital domain due to the heavy intervention of leading states. It emphasizes the need for urgent measures to prevent further fragmentation and division. The discussion involving the Secretary General of WIC, Mr. Ren, reflects the growing recognition of the importance of finding new approaches for global digital governance. Moving forward, it is essential to foster cooperation and collaboration to address these challenges and ensure a more harmonized and inclusive digital landscape.

Vanny

The development of the internet was driven by a multi-stakeholder approach, which fostered collaboration and consensus-based decision making. This approach, characterised by the involvement and participation of various stakeholders, has proved to be effective in addressing the myriad challenges associated with internet governance. The Internet Governance Forum, established after the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005, plays a crucial role in facilitating dialogue and cooperation among these stakeholders.

The success of the internet is evident in the multitude of applications and services that have flourished over time. Unlike in Western countries, where individuals had the financial means to afford high-speed internet at high prices, users in some regions faced affordability issues. Consequently, alternative methods of providing internet services were developed to ensure accessibility for all. These efforts have resulted in the widespread availability of the internet and have contributed to its overall success.

It is important to distinguish between digital governance and internet governance as separate issues. Digital governance encompasses strategies to mitigate the use and risks associated with various technologies, applications, and services, including artificial intelligence. On the other hand, internet governance addresses how the internet is governed and managed. While these topics may intersect, they should not be used interchangeably, as they pertain to distinct areas of concern.

The multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance has proven effective in resolving various issues that have arisen. Despite sometimes requiring more time, this collaborative approach has consistently delivered solutions and ensured the involvement of diverse perspectives. The multi-stakeholder process allows for the inclusion of various stakeholders, such as governments, civil society, the private sector, and technical experts, fostering transparency and accountability.

It is essential for individuals to be well-informed about the internet and its functioning to make informed decisions based on facts. People often make decisions based on their opinions or assumptions about how the internet should function. Therefore, promoting education and awareness about the internet is crucial to facilitate better decision-making processes.

In conclusion, the development of the internet has been driven by a multi-stakeholder approach, which has been effective in addressing challenges related to internet governance. The success of the internet can be attributed to the multitude of applications and services that have emerged over time. Digital governance should not be confused with internet governance, as they pertain to different aspects. The multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance has proven to be effective, despite occasional delays. Finally, promoting internet literacy and awareness is vital for making informed decisions based on factual understanding.

Moderator

The Digital Governance Forum, hosted by the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies, aims to promote digital governance and cooperation in the digital era. The forum invites participants from around the world, including governments, international organizations, enterprises, industry organizations, and think tanks. It will discuss topics such as the impact of internet innovations on digital governance, digital governance capacity building, and the need for a sound digital governance ecosystem involving multiple parties.

China is committed to promoting internet development and governance. They advocate for a people-centered approach to digital governance, with a focus on inclusiveness and shared benefits. China plans to apply the internet to areas such as education, healthcare, and poverty alleviation, and proposes to improve digitally-enabled services and enhance digital literacy and skills. They also uphold principles of open and cooperative cybersecurity, being ready to cooperate in combating cyberterrorism and crimes while respecting the rights of all countries to choose their own network development and governance model.

The forum emphasizes the importance of exploring ways to strengthen digital governance and international cooperation. China recognizes the historical development opportunities brought by the trend of digitalization in the digital era and emphasizes the need to seize these opportunities to unleash the potential of digital productivity. However, the rapid development of new technologies and applications also brings new risks in terms of digital security.

The forum also highlights the importance of promoting openness, cooperation, and gender equality in digital governance. It emphasizes the need to ensure safe and affordable internet access for all by 2030, as there are still 3 billion people in the world who are unconnected. The role of ICANN in maintaining the technical underpinnings of the internet is also recognized as important.

The distinction between internet governance and digital governance is discussed in the forum. Digital governance refers to the use and risks of specific technologies, applications, and services, while internet governance is concerned with the maintenance of the internet’s technical infrastructure. The forum emphasizes the need to differentiate between these two terms and raise awareness at various platforms.

The forum showcases successful enhanced cooperation in digital governance among BRICS countries, highlighting the CyberBRICS project conducted by the Center for Technology and Society at FGV Law School. This project focuses on mapping digital policies in these countries and will shift its focus to AI supply chain and interoperability frameworks in the next phase.

In conclusion, the Digital Governance Forum hosted by China aims to promote digital governance and cooperation in the digital era. It emphasizes inclusive and people-centered digital governance, the importance of a sound digital governance ecosystem involving multiple parties, and the challenges and opportunities brought by internet innovations and digital security risks. The forum also highlights the distinction between internet governance and digital governance, the need for policy innovations, and global discussions to address the complexities of digital governance. It showcases successful enhanced cooperation in digital governance among BRICS countries and the importance of mapping digital policies. The forum provides a platform for dialogue and collaboration to strengthen digital governance and foster international cooperation.

Moderator:
. This is the first forum hosted by the bureau of international cooperation of cyberspace administration of China and Chinese academy of cyberspace studies. The theme of this forum is jointly share the responsibilities in the digital era and promote digital governance and cooperation. Taking this as a starting point, I would like to invite the government, international organization, enterprise, industry organization and think tank worldwide to hold dialogues on the two topics. First, the impact of Internet innovations on digital governance. Second, the approach of digital governance capacity building. In this forum, we will explore the ways to promote the global digital governance cooperation and comprehensively strengthen the digital governance capacity building. More important, we would like to continue to build a sound digital governance ecosystem. Now, let’s start the forum. First, let us welcome the director of the bureau of international cooperation of cyberspace administration of China, organizer of this forum to deliver an opening speech. Thank you, Miss Qi.

Qi:
Minister Ren, distinguished guests, dear friends, good afternoon. I’m very pleased to meet all of you in Kyoto. On behalf of the bureau of international cooperation administration of China, I would like to extend a warm welcome and heartfelt appreciation to all guests, both present and online. Today, the development of information technology revolution and the digital economy is transforming the way of production and life, exerting far-reaching influence over social and economic development of states, global governance system and human rights, and the development of emerging technologies by artificial intelligence also poses a new problem of governance to all countries. Problems with the Internet such as unbalanced development, unsound regulation, unreasonable order still exist across the globe. And enhancing digital governance has increasingly become a matter of interest to all countries, as well as an important topic for discussion. Against this backdrop, it is necessary and relevant for us to have an in-depth discussion on this important topic. Since China gained full-featured access to the Internet, it has always been committed to promoting Internet development and governance. Historical progress in relevant undertakings has been made in China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people have a greater sense of gain from sharing the achievements of Internet development. Last year, China released the white paper entitled, Jointly Build a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace. This paper introduces China’s vision of Internet development and governance, shares its achievements in promoting the building of a community with a shared future in cyberspace, outlines the prospects for international cooperation, and expresses China’s sincere desire to strengthen Internet development and governance cooperation in cyberspace. We are ready to work with all parties to keep pace with the trends of the times, seize the historical opportunities of information revolution, and tackle the risks and challenges in cyberspace, making the Internet deliver more benefits to mankind. With this in mind, I wish to propose efforts in three areas. First, we need to follow a people-centered approach with a focus on inclusiveness and shared benefits. Focusing on people is the purpose of digital governance. We need to put people first, making positive efforts to apply Internet to education, healthcare, and poverty alleviation, improve digitally-enabled service, and enhance digital literacy and skills of different groups. We are willing to work with the international community to increase support and assistance to vulnerable groups, promote science and technology for good, bridge the digital divide, and facilitate the effective implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Second, we need to promote security and stability and maintain good order. Security and stability is the cornerstone for digital governance. We uphold the philosophy of open and cooperative cybersecurity, uphold respect for cyber sovereignty, and respect for the rights of all countries to choose their own path of network development and governance model, as well as to equally participate in international governance in cyberspace. We are ready to deepen exchange and cooperation with other countries in cyberspace, cooperating to combat cyber terrorism and crimes, and jointly safeguarding peace, security, and stability in cyberspace. Third, we need to stay united and work together for shared governance. Unity and cooperation is the effective way for digital governance. Practices have proved that anyone attempting to form exclusive blocs will only impede digital governance. To improve digital governance, we must uphold multilateral participation and multi-party participation so as to foster an enabling environment for digital economic development. We should liberate the role of the United Nations as the main channel in international cyberspace governance and give play to the role of governments, international organizations, internet companies, technical communities, social organizations, and individual citizens to jointly study and formulate norms for cyberspace governance that reflect the interests and concerns of all parties in a more balanced way, making the governance system more just and equitable. Ladies and gentlemen, IGF is the important platform under the United Nations. We are willing to join hands with all parties on the basis of mutual respect and trust to solve difficult issues, strengthen areas of weakness, and improve rules of governance concerning digital governance, constantly developing governance landscape featuring multilateral participation and multi-party participation, and jointly build a community with a shared future in cyberspace. Thank you for your attention, and I wish the forum a full success. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thank you very much, Ms. Qi, for the relevant and approach of China. Next, we have Mr. Xuanxin Zhang, Vice President of Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies to deliver the speech.

Xuanxin Zhang:
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, hello everyone. On behalf of Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies, I would like to extend warm congratulations on the holding of the Open Forum of Internet Governance Forum, and a sincere welcome to all the guests. At present, the innovation of the internet, big data, cloud computing, AI, and other digital technologies are accelerating. The intelligent industry and the digital economy are booming. All these have greatly changed the global allocation of the factors and resources. Industrial development models and people’s lifestyles. At the same time, the digital divide is becoming more and more pronounced. Cybersecurity and data security risks are increasingly penetrating. And the global digital government, governors, is still facing problems, such as unbalanced foundation, imperfect system, and fragmented roles. In this context, it is of great significance for us to explore ways to strengthen digital governance and international cooperation. It is a shared aspiration of all countries to build and maintain a peaceful, secure, open, cooperative, and orderly cyberspace. Building a community with a shared future in cyberspace has increasingly become the broader consensus of the international community. Now, from the perspective of Think Tank, I would like to share with you some observations and reflections on how to promote capacity building and international cooperation on digital governance. First of all, seize the opportunity. in the digital era to unleash the potential of digital productivity. Nowadays, the trend of digitalization has brought historical development opportunities, but it is also accompanied by risks and challenges. Digital technology governors, data governors, and digital platform governors have become important topics. I think TEC should actively carry out research to explore how to adapt to the development trend in the digital era, reserve space for technical innovation and development on the premise of ensuring security, optimize the digital development environment, so as to further tap the potential of digital technology in facilitating to achieve the sustainable development goals and enable people around the world to share the fruits of digital development. Second, enhance mutual trust through dialogues and exchanges to prevent digital security risks. At present, global security threats are becoming increasingly permanent, and the rapid development of new technologies and applications has brought new risks. The importance and urgency of building a solid bottom line and regulating development has become more permanent in the face of these new issues and challenges. I think TEC should play a bridging role in strengthening dialogues, exchange, research, and discussion, so as to enhance strategic mutual trust in cyberspace. I think TEC should innovate to build platforms for cross-disciplinary, cross-field cooperation. and the cross-national exchange and cooperation and actively offer advice and suggestion for preventing digital security risks and improving the system of digital governance rules. Third, guide multiple parties to actively participate in building a sound digital governance ecosystem. A sound digital governance ecosystem is the basic guarantee for promoting the digital innovation and development. Facing the rapid iteration of digital technologies and complex issues in digital governance, we need to adhere to mutual, natural and mutual party participation. The parties in digital governance include the government, international organizations, enterprises, social organizations, etc. All parties should play their respective roles, cooperate with each other and stress exchanges. Think tanks should be open-minded with a strong sense of responsibility and should, through dialogue, communication, general research and other means, build consensus, resolve misunderstandings and differences, and jointly contribute to the building of the global digital governance ecosystem. Last but not least, promote cooperation on digital governance to improve the global digital governance system. Promoting openness and cooperation is an important principle for building a community with a shared future in cyberspace. Think tanks should promote win-win cooperation and contribute wisdom to the development of the digital technology and the formulation of the governance role. We are much willing to cooperate with research institutions, universities, think tanks, enterprises, and international organizations from all countries in the field of the Internet, jointly study digital development and governance issues, and jointly contribute to the development of the Internet. Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the international community, faced with the opportunities and challenges brought by digitalization, to jointly build a cyberspace that is fairer and more equitable, more open and inclusive, safer and more stable, and more vibrant. Let us work together to find solutions to the challenges of digital governance, promote the building of a closer community with a shared future in cyberspace, and jointly create a better future for mankind. Finally, I wish this forum a complete success. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thank you, Mr. Chen, for your wonderful speech. Next, let’s have the second session of special guest speech. Mr. Ren Xianliang, the Secretary General of World Internet Conference and the President of China Federation of Internet Societies, to express his insights, please.

Ren Xianliang:
today. His undergoing major changes on scene in a century. The pace of digitization, networking and intelligence is accelerating. The way we produce live and go…. govern is also undergoing profound changes. Driven by digital technology, the digital transformation of traditional industries is accelerating. The cross-border data flows are growing exponentially, and the digital platforms are accelerating their global expansion. In the promotion of digital technology, the transformation of traditional industry digitalization is accelerating. The cross-border data flows are growing exponentially, and the digital platforms are accelerating their global expansion. The importance of digital governance is increasing. At the same time, unilateralism and protectivism continue to rise. The global digital governance pool is constantly increasing. The development of digital governance in various countries is uneven and increasing. The competition in the digital governance model is increasing. Digital governance has become an increasingly important global issue. At the same time, unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise. The global digital governance deficit is widening. The uneven development of digital governance capabilities among countries is becoming more evident. The World Internet Conference is committed to promoting the co-construction of the Internet space and common destiny. We are committed to the sharing of ideas, and actively explore the good digital governance ecology of government, enterprises, academia, and industry organizations. With the goal of jointly building a community with a shared future in cyberspace, the WIC will adhere to the concept of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, and actively explore ways to create a digital governance ecosystem with the participation of government departments, enterprises, academia, and industry organizations. In order to build a community of shared future, in order to build a community of shared responsibilities and common interests in the field of digital governance, and make digital technology deliver greater benefits to mankind, I would like to propose the following. Digital governance should be more precise and efficient. Digital technology provides new ideas, new methods, and new means to solve various governance problems. First, digital governance should be more precise and efficient. Digital technology provides new ideas, methods, and means to solve governance problems. Second, digital governance should be more precise and efficient. We should leverage the positive side of the digital technology while using technology to govern technology and constantly improve the ability of efficient governance based on digital For many years, the World Internet Conference has been organizing forums around cutting-edge technology, presenting leading technological achievements, demonstrating practical cases, holding forums, competitions, and other activities to provide a good platform for the transition of cutting-edge technology in the field of the Internet to national governance. Digital governance should be more inclusive and comprehensive. Second, digital governance should be more inclusive. There are still 3 billion people in the world who are unconnected, a large proportion of whom are women, elderly and rural population. Digital governance should avoid further widening the digital divide and prevent vulnerable groups from being further marginalized. The World Internet Assembly is willing to work together with the United Nations to ensure the safety of everyone by 2030. The WIC stands ready to make concerted efforts with all parties to achieve UN targets for the universal connectivity. Every person should have safe and affordable access to the Internet by 2030. Third, digital governance should adhere to women’s cooperation. Unity is strength, division is weakness. In the face of risks and challenges, we should stay in the same boat and share responsibilities in the digital age. We should engage in dialogues and exchanges to address issues such as cross-border data flows, platform governance, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. The WIC will do our best to build bridges to promote closer and pragmatic global cooperation on digital governance. Ladies and gentlemen, every year the WIC will host the WUZHEN Summit in Zhejiang, China. This year marks the 10th year of the WUZHEN Summit, which will take place from November 8th to 10th. I’d like to take this opportunity to invite you all to attend the WUZHEN Summit in the beautiful water town of WUZHEN to strengthen dialogues and exchanges. pragmatic cooperation and build a better digital future together. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thank you very much Mr. Ren for the important words. Now let’s start the third session of keynote speech. We have consulted different experts and scholars and various institutions in advance to determine these two topics. Please remind you that each speaker can have six minutes. Let’s move on to the first topic, the impacts of Internet innovation on digital governance. First of all, let me introduce the father of Internet in Japan, Professor Juni Murai of Keio University. Please. Okay, thank you very much for the introduction and

Juni Murai:
it’s an honor to be here to discuss with you about the subject and also I’d like to welcome to Kyoto, Japan on behalf of the Japanese side of the host and also you know I’d like to mention that I’m a frequent U-Chain Summit participant and I’ve been missing to visit there during the COVID-19 but unfortunately I have a conflict schedule so in that sense then it’s very nice to be here to talk with you. The subject of this one about the impact on the Internet innovation in the digital governance, then I’d like to mention the three points from my experience of the long-term participants of the development of the Internet. The first one is Ms. Chi was mentioned about the you know kind of user human being based governance type of thinking. Remember the when we started the developing the Internet then it’s always started from the supply side of the Internet services, right, so you know that’s been very successfully done. for the first two decades or something of the internet but now internet is outreaching to most of the people and the most of the region and the most of the industries therefore it’s always important to view from the user side and then they find out the issues and the sharing the issue with the governance leaders and then the users and the industries and the commercial entities so that’s a big change after the two or three decades of a development of the internet so the user point of view that’s the first point I’d like to mention the second point I’d like to mention is architectural advancement about the technology so the internet started of course with a you know kind of IP and the digital package switching network but then they know introducing the web and then in the cloud and the social network and the IOT with a sensory information to be exchanged over the internet and then AI with a lot of data generated from mainly from a social network but also from the sensors and digital image data and etc so there was advancement after that advancement actually of the technology is creating the very much a complex requirement to the government governance of the internet as well and the one of the issue I see these days is that the policy leaders to understand those technological architecture getting harder and harder so that’s a very natural thing right because the technology architecture getting very much a complex and advanced way so the what’s gonna be the solution then it’s a really the all the stakeholder working together and they’re listening to each other, and there should be the place to discuss about what is a new technology, what is the impact, and from the different standpoint to discuss. That’s probably one of the way to be described that the multi-stakeholder approach as well. And then the global discussion is gonna be also very important because of the technology is gonna be different in various part of the world. And so I see the photonic network type of a thing, quantum computations gonna be one, and also the non-terrestrial, the space infrastructure type of a discussion really happening in this year. And so those are the new area to discuss globally about the future of the internet governance as well. And so the third one, third point is about the cybersecurity thing. So the advancement of those leading technologies and the changing of technology, but the good technology can be used in a proper way or by use. But there’s always abusers of the new convenience technology, right? That’s very natural in a sense. And so the cybersecurity approach is jointly working toward the abuse of the new technology as well. So it’s also a very important point that the abuse, I mean, working together against the abusers, right? That’s the cybersecurity, very natural. But also the working together for the proper use and the ethical use of the technology together. It’s gonna be very important way about thinking about the governance for the innovation and the future together. So those are the three points I wanted to mention regarding this topics. Thank you very much.

Moderator:
Thank you very much, Professor Murai for your wonderful sharing. Now I give the floor to Vanny Valkovsky, Vice President for UN Engagement from ICANN, please.

Vanny:
Thank you, thank you very much. Thanks to the organizers for putting this session together. We are hearing a lot about what’s happening around the world in the field of internet innovations and digital governance. And of course, one of the fundamental principles of the internet since its inception was the way it was developed and the way the decisions have been taken to shape the internet trajectory have resulted from a multi-stakeholder approach of collaborative and bottom-up consensus-based decision making as opposed to other types of governance. We are at the Internet Governance Forum which was created after the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005. And those of us who have been there, I’m one of them. We remember that in the beginning of this whole process, people were thinking that the multi-stakeholder model or internet governance is only about ICANN. 20 years later, we see that almost no one is talking anymore about ICANN because there are so many different applications and services that are on the internet that people don’t even know that we exist. And I say that’s a good thing because that means we are doing a good job. Because if the internet is not working and it’s ICANN’s fault, everybody will know about us. But the reality is that all these innovations became possible because exactly of the open architecture, open standards, open way of developing the internet. We have seen, I can give an example, with one of the services that have been kind of developed in the testbed for the last 20 years, Enum, E-N-U-M. Nobody has heard about it, by the way, which is not a surprise because it’s been tested for the last 20 years and nothing happened. But everything else that relates to domain names, IP addresses, protocol parameters that actually is functioning and is being used widely has proven to be working. So this model that was built in the beginning has turned out to be actually a successful one even though people like Vint Cerf who is at the IGF and has been speaking and will continue to speak in the next couple of days never imagined that the internet will become what it is. And that’s why some of the architecture may not be necessarily reflecting the. the growth of the Internet. However, companies, innovators, people around the world have shown that there is always a way to create something that will use the infrastructure, that will use the TCP IP, and will make possible new services. I mean, I come originally from Bulgaria, so I can share the fact that it used to be a very poor country following the communism. And our Internet users didn’t have money to pay for high speed at high prices, unlike the people in the Western countries. So we created different ways of providing the Internet services, which were low price, high speed, and this was going against everything that you have read in the manuals of how to provide Internet services. But going back to the issue and the topic, you know, which is the impact of Internet innovation on digital governance, there is also another important point, which is there is a trend where digital governance is used interchangeably with Internet governance. And including at the UN, where I spent most of my time talking to diplomats and UN officials, there is a lack of understanding that these are two different issues. So Internet governance and digital governance are not the same, although sometimes you may see them confused by member states or people who are not familiar with that. And I think it’s important to know that there is a difference between those two, because that will reflect in the possible approaches of issues dealing with innovation. So digital governance is usually, this refers to approaches necessary to mitigate the use and risk of technologies, applications, services, things like artificial intelligence. And these are usually technologies that are distinct, typically distinct from the Internet. So because of the focus of, because of its focus on specific issues affecting everyday online users’ habits, for example, broader than the Internet or its technical layer alone, digital governance is comparable to public health challenges. So we are trying to make a difference between those and we are raising awareness at the UN level and other places where we speak because we believe that it’s important for the users and the policy makers and the technical community and also, you know, civil society, businesses, et cetera, all the stakeholders who are engaged in the IGF and in the development of the Internet to know that actually there is a big difference between Internet governance and digital governance and we shouldn’t confuse them. The Internet governance has shown that the multi-stakeholder approach is working. Whenever there is an issue that needs to be addressed, it has been addressed with, I mean, sometimes it takes more time than people would really want to, but there hasn’t been a problem that has been developed on the Internet that was not solved using the multi-stakeholder approach. And therefore, we are big proponents not only of the Internet governance forum, obviously ICANN is very supportive. We do participate wherever we are invited, which goes into our mission because we can’t really go and discuss issues that are not related to the technical underpinnings of the Internet. But when there are issues touching on those on ICANN’s mission, we are happy to participate and to provide technical neutral information about how the Internet functions and what we do. And we have found times and again through the last, I would say, 10 or so years after the WSIS plus 10 review, which was in 2015 at the United Nations, that the more we talk to every stakeholder, the better it becomes because there is more knowledge that we share and more facts. And then people take decisions based on those facts, not based on their opinions about how the Internet is functioning or should be functioning. So I would finish with that. I’m happy that we have also among us, and he will speak in a little bit, Wolfgang Kleinwachter, who is one of the pioneers of the Internet governance model. And if I’m not mistaken, you are also a member of the WGIC, Wolfgang? Yes, the working group on Internet governance, which actually defined what Internet governance is. So maybe at some point there will be a need for another working group to define what digital governance is, so that there is no confusion between those two. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thanks to Mr. Markowski for the interesting insights. Next, I would like to invite Mr. Shi Peixi, professor and director from Global Internet Studies Center in Communication University of China, to speak. Thank you.

Shi Peixi:
Thank you very much, and my topic is global digital governance, moving into the direction of global commons or to the direction of digital fragmentation. So there is a question mark here. So it is somehow beyond the internet governance, but it’s similar somehow to cyber security governance. So I treated cyber security governance and digital governance in a rather similar way. My idea is that after being blessed by the internet and the associated innovations for decades, two basic directions of global digital governance can be observed, identified. I treated it in a very similar way. So the first direction is rather, I treat it rather positively. It’s rather bright, and it can be called a direction or approach towards global commons. And the other direction is a rather negative one. It is a direction towards digital fragmentation or a kind of division of the global digital ecosystems. And this is rather a simplified way of making distinctions. And I introduced the first direction, the direction towards digital commons. So in spite of the fact, as I observed, that the international community, it’s very difficult for the international community. to replicate or repeat the successes in climate change and to repeat the success in nuclear weapons and the success in the governance also of the sea in spite of the failure, for example, to reach a Biden treaty in cyber governance and digital governance due to different reasons. That the digital issues can be so complicated, it can be so comprehensive, it can be so mighty dimensional and it can be so interwoven. In spite of the failures to have such a treaty or in Wolfgang’s words, to have a Q2 protocol perhaps in the cyber area if we consider where this conversation happens. So in spite of this, there have been many positive efforts, initiatives that are rather prominent. They are from states, they are from enterprises, they are also from the internet pioneers. For example, if we move beyond the ICANN model, ICANN model I think represented by the multi-stakeholder approach can be said to be something towards global commons, which is very successful and intriguing. In addition to that, in 2014 Brazil, where Luca is from, has this Net Mundial initiative and also 2017 Microsoft has this Digital Geneva Convention, though Microsoft now didn’t talk about this much after it was proposed in 2017, but it is a very brave attempt or effort. In 2018, I think the French President Macron proposed the Paris call for trust and security. In 2019, the Global Commission on Stability of Cyberspace put forward these eight norms. Same year, internet pioneer Tim Lee launched a contract for the web and in 2020 China put forward a global initiative on data security. And ongoing now at the United Nations, these discussions around the global digital compact. So these initiatives and efforts are designed both for the like-minded countries or stakeholders and the not like-minded stakeholders. So it is rather inclusive. It is meant for inclusion, not for exclusion. So it is intended for finding solutions. In this sense, I think these are the initiatives that are moving towards a direction of a global commons. However, there are some other negative trends that can be described as a direction towards digital fragmentation and division. And some leading states are intervening very heavily with the digital domain and creating tensions and divisions in terms of, for example, telecommunications service providers, in terms of applications, in terms of application stores, in terms of undersea cable constructions, and in terms of cloud services and mobile phone operation systems, and also in terms of 5G, supply chain of chips, and in terms of where tech companies can be listed on the market, and most recently, in terms of the capital flow about new technologies. So these are the rather negative trends, as I have observed. Therefore, I believe now is a very critical moment to find measures to avoid such digital fragmentation and to avoid the digital divisions by having new, innovative approaches of global digital governance. I think our Secretary General of WIC, Mr. Ren, talked about these new measures in this aspect. I’ll stop here. Thank you very much.

Moderator:
Thank you. Thank you, Professor Xu, for your relevant remarks. Let’s move on to the second topic, the approach of digital governance capacity building and the international. cooperation. First of all, let us welcome Professor Wolfgang Klamm-Wachter, professor from the University of Aarhus, for the speech.

Wolfgang Kleinwächter:
Thank you, thank you very much and indeed 25 years ago the internet was seen as a technical problem with some political implications, but today the internet is a political problem with a technical component. This is a big difference. 25 years ago when the World Summit started its deliberations, so I had the honor to work with Madame Hu, the president of the Internet Society of China, in the working group on internet governance, as many have said, and our task was to define what internet governance is, because a lot of people had different ideas what it is. And when we had the first meeting with Kofi Annan, who was the Secretary General of the United Nations in 2003, so he said, he argued that the internet is a technology innovation, a technical innovation, but what we need now are policy innovations. So that means you cannot handle, treat, govern the internet as any other thing. So that’s a technical innovation and we have to innovate policymaking. And all the debates in the working group on internet governance, which led to the Tunis agenda in 2005, were driven by how we can innovate policymaking. And the result is the mighty stakeholder approach, because the argument was the internet is too big, it cannot be managed by one group alone. That’s not a question of leadership, who leads it, but the internet needs collaboration from all sides. So, and I think this is really, was the starting point for what we see now, penetrates a lot of areas which are related. to the internet. So there is no definition exactly what the mighty stakeholder approach is. So different people have different ideas but the basic concept behind this is you have to involve the affected and concerned people in policy development. So the three elements of the definition was number one, mighty stakeholder. Number two, it has to be based on shared principles norms and decision-making procedures. What Madame Xi has said, you know, shared responsibility. So the concept of sharing was the second key element. And the third element is also important because we differentiated between the evolution of the internet and the use of the internet. So when many talked about the internet governance and digital governance, so I would disagree because this is really, you know, fighting with words or playing with words. So the understanding of the two terms, evolution and use of the internet, reflects that the internet is a layered system. And of different layers you can have different governments. More round layer, we have this one world, one internet concept. So we are using all the same protocols, you know, the DNS, the TCP, IP protocol, the IP address system, BGP, HTTPS, and this enables that everybody can communicate with everybody. So this is what Jan said, you know, the people-centered approach so that everybody can enjoy this right to communicate. So on the application layer, so that’s different. So this is the use of the internet. And here we have the reality that we have one world but 193 different national jurisdictions. So, and this, the two layers are interlinked. But, you know, the the visionaries of the internet in the 90s had probably the idea that the one world, one internet will go also to the application layer. So, but this is certainly unrealistic because we have 193 sovereign states. which they have their own national policy. The risk, what I see now, is that probably some governments say, we could bring the 193 jurisdictions also to the ground layer. And this would be the internet fragmentation. Because so far, the internet is not fragmented. The internet works, thanks to ICANN. And when Veni said, it’s good that nobody may have any more questions ICANN. So because they are doing the job, whether it was a pandemic or a war or other crisis, so people could send emails. They could go to websites. And this is like the air we need in our own environment. Internet is like air. There is no Chinese air. There is no American air. There is no Russian air or German air. So we have polluted air or clean air. And what we have to do in the community is to keep the internet air clean, to keep out, to avoid pollution. And so far, I think the Global Digital Compact, which is now, as Patrick has outlined, the most relevant political initiative on the table, would be a good opportunity to bring different groups together and to find a global consensus for the next 10 years. So there will never be a solution forever. So Bill Clinton, the former president of the United States, has once argued internet governance is like stumbling forward. We are moving from one step to the next step to the next step. But as long as it’s forward and as long everybody is included and it’s based on what you have said, your people-centered, human rights-centered, and based on a secure internet, and which is open for all, inclusive, then we are in the right direction. And so we have differences in the world. We live in a multipolar world. We know that others are different. But we have to learn to accept this. Thank you very much.

Moderator:
Thank you, Professor Kleinwachter for this wonderful sharing. Now, let’s welcome the speech of Mr. Luca Belli, director of CyberBRICS from Brazil. Please.

Luca Belli:
Thank you very much. And I first would like to start thanking the organizers for having put together this excellent session. Very interesting speeches so far. I would like to contribute a little bit with. some ideas that we have developed over the past years within the CyberBRICS project, which is a specific research project we have at the Center for Technology and Society at FGV Law School that I direct. And the ideas that we have been developed over the past five years of mapping are precisely trying to understand to what extent this grouping that in over the past weeks has gained, again, a lot of prominence due to the expansion. To what extent this grouping has been discussing, sharing good practices as information about digital policies and internal governance over the past years. So I’m bringing some of the elements here of the research that we have been conducting. First of all, for those who do not know, FGV is a very relevant academic institution in Brazil. It’s currently the third most relevant think tank in the world out of more than 11,000. The CyberBRICS project and all the information I’m going to share are all available in open access, including the recording of many interesting lectures and events on this website, cyberbrics.info. And this is the team. I think I’m particularly proud of this because it’s not only the only research project dedicated to mapping BRICS digital policies in the world. It’s also the only one that does it with people from the BRICS. So we have a very good project with 65% of the project members that are female. So it’s also quite a relevant gender balance dimension. It’s a very heterogeneous community. So although we are housing a law school, not everyone is a lawyer. We have also economists, data scientists, sociologists, et cetera. The three main pillars of the project are, first, analyzing the existing policies. Second, identifying good practices. And ideally, propose effective solutions so that this grouping could foster joint understanding of shared challenges. Some of the research products we elaborate look like this. This is a mapping of all data protection frameworks in the BRICS. We have this kind of tools. We also develop, of course, classic research outputs like this book, where we have mapped the cybersecurity regulations of the BRICS countries. An interesting part of this book, in the introduction of the book and also in other papers, we stress that, actually, when you start analyzing digital policies in the BRICS, you end up understanding that it’s a very telling example of enhanced cooperation. So Professor Wolfgang was mentioning that the IGF is a result of the WSIS. And another result of WSIS was the creation of this process of enhanced cooperation that, unfortunately, has never been put into practice by the UN for lack of consensus on what it is. But the BRICS offer a very good example of how this could look in practice. The fact that they have, since 2014, for instance, created a working group on the security of ICTs to share best practices and information on how they approach the cybersecurity. They even define joint commitments, for instance, to advocate for global norms on cybersecurity and data protection. There are other initiatives. These have an explicit commitment from the declaration of the ICT ministers, where they explicitly commit to enhance cooperation in digital governance. There are concrete initiatives, like the BRICS framework on consumer protection in e-commerce, the BRICS initiative on enhancing cooperation in the supply chain. So there are very good elements that we can assess as successful enhanced cooperation in the grouping. There’s also an interesting article we published last year that will also be the introduction of our upcoming book on data architectures in the BRICS, where we explicitly map the BRICS. the frameworks, the BRICS framework of data governance, and to what extent they are already quite compatible, actually. And so what we demonstrate is that there are already very, there is already a shared principle base of data protection principles in all the frameworks, very similar sets of rights and obligations, and also that each of the BRICS has created its own system to define to what extent data can be exported or transferred. They all want to transfer data, but they want to do it securely and to retain some sort of digital sovereignty on them. And that is also another work stream on which we have an upcoming book on digital sovereignty in the BRICS that demonstrate there are a lot of different nuances of this concept, and very different from what we could have in the Western countries usually in terms of thinking. To conclude, this is a preview of what will be the next phase of the project that will be dedicated to mapping AI supply chain and interoperability frameworks in the BRICS. This actually was published in the one, a very good book that was really prepared by the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies and launched this year, well, published first last year and launched this year. I actually, my colleagues told me that I’ve just received the hard copies in my office in Rio this morning. And the last, the final thought that I want to share, that I think, I believe that if we want to work together for a community with a shared future in cyberspace, the first step is to understand which kind of regulatory frameworks, approaches, governance mechanism we already have. And so our small contribution to this effort is precisely to start to map and understand how these enhanced cooperation processes already work and to what extent they could be replicated and even scaled. Thank you very much for your attention.

Moderator:
Thank you, Mr. Bailey, for the relevant story of CyberBRICS. Now, let’s welcome Ms. Dai Lina, Deputy Director of the Journalism Institute of Shanghai Academy of Social Science. Please.

Dai Lina:
Good afternoon, distinguished guests. It’s a great honor for me to have the opportunity to give a short speech in this panel. Since yesterday, there has been a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence. Today, I would like to talk about AI. AI is a new technology that has been developed in the United States and around the world. AI is a new technology that has been developed in the United States and around the world. like to say a little more about international cooperation on AI governance. In recent years, both nation states, non-nation state actors, and the international organizations have all paid great attention to the issue of AI governance and have competed to take action. Unified system of governance rules and a global level governance mechanism have yet to be found. It is important to be aware of two concerning trends in international AI governance. One is that there is a growing trend of fragmentation in the development of AI governance rules. The competition among big countries have led to a further deficit in national mutual trust. And the ideas of unilateralism, statism, and protectionism have led a profound impact on the formulation of AI rules. The other one is that the digital governance divide is widening. There are lots of developing countries being notably absent and voiceless in AI governance. At the same time, some developing countries are coalescing to shape the development ecosystem of AI and exercising dominance in rule setting. Based on the above, there are two critical passes to an effective breakthrough in the current international process of AI governance. Firstly, we should especially promote the establishment of a specialized agency for the governance of AI under the framework of the United States. Last but not least, since AI poses different stress to countries with different levels of technology, it is important to strengthen dialogue and cooperation among all countries. We would better to advocate for human-centered and AI-for-good approach and ensure the safety, reliability, controllability of AI so that we can empower the global sustainable development and enhancing the well-being of all humankind. That’s all. Thank you for your attention.

Moderator:
Thank you, Mr. Dai. Thank you very much for your kind contribution. Due to the time limitation, we have to conclude this forum, but we hope to have more in-depth exchanges and discussions also in the future. You are welcome to share your views and stories with us when convenient. Once again, we thank all guests and friends for your wisdom and efforts to contribute to this open forum. We also would like to thank the secretary of IGF for providing us with an important dialogue platform. The open forum is concluded here. Thank you.

Audience:
I was there already twice, so that means I know the place, I’m so impressed by the water setting, and so I have a chance to walk around the canals, and so I would love to come back by the end of the month. Okay. Thank you very much.