Notes from the IGF session "Taking Stock and Looking Forward"

These are partial, informal notes I took in the "Taking Stock" session in the closing day of the Internet Governance Forum, in Baku, Azerbaijan. They do not substitute for official transcript, may contain unfinished content and rough references to third parties with no intent to offend, and may skip large parts of the session's content for no particular reason. And the no particular reasons may be different in each case. Meant for progress in parallel and in advance to official transcripts.


IGF2012TakingStock_WayForward

Notes by Alejandro Pisanty
Chair
Constance Bommelaer introduces session format.
Peter Major introduces facilitators.
Bertrand de la Chapelle. Asks rapporteurs to present reports.
Calls Jeanette Hofmann. Report from Main Session on Emerging Issues
1. Disaster recovery
a. Understand digital media for spreading information. Need to create local infrastructure to communicate vital information. Govts should prepare by digitizing information, providing it, and providing training. Emphasis on flow of information.
2. Intellectual property rights and free speech
a. Discussion around common principles. Regulation should be technologically neutral; this principle faces problems, like: each medium inherits different regulations, countries are different, regulation of hate speech is an example. Against convergence. There was no common view in panel.
Rohan Samarajiva, IG4D session:
3 clusters: gTLDs, enabling environment, infrastructure
gTLDs, expansion of domain name space: concerns are expansion of markets
On the other clusters there was agreement for multistakeholder processes. Differences refer to people who see infrastructure as more important (in developing countries.) Emphasis also on innovation.

Karen Rose, on Access and Diversity

Infrastructure, mobile and innovation.
Meta-level takeaways:
Go beyond rolling out connectivity. It is a key prerequisite, but to be meaningful we need to talk of Internet as value proposition. Turn users into creators and innovators to fuel development.
Driving demand for the Internet by being more relevant and developing content. All stakeholders have mutually reinforcing roles.
Look at these issues as how to fuel the Internet economy.
REPORT FOR PLENARY ON SECURITY, OPENNESS AND PRIVACY:
Alejandro Pisanty, UNAM and ISOC, Mexico
The 7th meeting of the Internet Governance Forum held numerous discussions on the intertwined subjects of Security, Openness and Privacy. The subject was the theme of a Main Session and Workshops, and was also of interest in Dynamic Coalition, Open Forum, and other discussions.
The brunt of the attention was dedicated to the relationship between Security and Privacy, or more broadly this year, between Security and Rights among which privacy is present with its own weight, for its impact on other rights, and as a symbol or even shorthand for these.
As the 7th IGF included many more rights-related sessions than any previous year, statements about rights threatened by surveillance permeated a large part of the discussions. Continuing from previous years, the balance between opposing trends as well as views of cybersecurity serving instead of opposing privacy and liberties went on being the focus of many debates.
In some of these debates, clear-cut cases and figures for state-driven surveillance were shown. Some of these are staggering, especially in view of the accelerated application of analytics and correlation that allow the deanonymization of data captured as anonymous. In many cases shown in the Forum, the justification for the scale of data capture and retention cannot be readily found. The impact of surveillance as a chilling effect on the rights of free expression and free association was underlined as well.
Identity management, a key element of online security and privacy, was discussed. Among the most forward-looking contributions is the view of evolution from top-down, owned identity, authentication and authorization frameworks towards identity management based on multiple sources which only require a low level of trust in each.
Openness was not intensely discussed in this intertwining. However, it was the subject of many discussions in which libraries and librarians play an increasing role in the Internet Governance Forum, and of the Dynamic Coalition on Internet Core Values.
The communities concerned with rights and with security have not been communicating enough. A call is made for further multistakeholder dialog open to many diverse needs and points of view.

Bill Drake. Report on session on Critical Internet Resources.
gTLDs process; emphasis on broadly generic terms, role of the GAC which generated robust disagreement among some parties.
Secondary markets for IPv4 addresses. Using markets to reallocate scarce resource could serve some purposes, or could be inconsistent with global public interest.
WCIT and ITRs were discussed for potential impact on Internet, esp. proposals from some parties for interconnection and “sender pays” kind of approach. Boundaries between telecommunications and Internet are of interest as they shift. Consensus that the regulations should not extend deeply into the Internet realm and stay closer to the traditional realm of telecommunications.
Vladimir Radunovic. Report from remote participation, “the cloud”. 3,000 tweets previous to meeting, 1,500 more during the last 24 hours reaching 2.8 million followers; almost a parallel IGF.
Concerns on rights.
Heated discussions on enhanced cooperation, of which IGF is considered a model.
Debates on “right to Internet”
Intense interest in WCIT and ITU SecGen’s speech.
Other topics included questions about women and children rights, and disaster relief.

Qusai al-Shatti facilitator now. Open to participants.

Subi Chaturvedi. India. Professor and NGO from Delhi. Thanks people who facilitated her presence; it is a life-changing moment. IGF is one of the most transparent, accessible platforms.
Makes a submission: national IGFs are not fast enough. Need to have numerous events. We need an Internet Governance Movement; what is at stake is freedom, Internet and freedom.
Institutionalize best practices from national and regional experiences, sharing learning, creating bridges. Facilitate dissemination of information.

Parminder Jeet Singh. Recommendations from WG on IGF improvements. Complains. Extends the complaint. Insists on complaint. Asks why grounds for his complaint arose.

Jonas Makinnen. Progress in youth participation. More intense discussion and acknowledgement of youth’s contribution. IGF suffers from youth showcasing. Remarks on absence of local youth.
Youth want attribution and access. Young people need to be able to learn the positives and the negatives.

Peter Major. Response to Parminder on implementation of CSTD recommendations. They have not yet been accepted by the UN GA and the MAG was not mandated to follow them. Next year will be different.

Subi Chaturvedi. On youth: India IGF dedicated a day to related issues but still left out youth. We have to create events that engage youth, we must go to them.

Bertrand. Enhanced cooperation discussion more accepted. Transnational effect of laws, neutrality in Marco Civil. WCIT a big issue, discussion is in mission of IGF as monitor of whether processes comply with WSIS principles.
Qusai. In a nutshell eg disaster response, technical neutrality in regulation; IG4D importance to develop domain-name industry at ccTLD level and developing infrastructure (mostly IXPs), enabling environment.

Carblanc: will discuss statements of principles. There are at least 15 statements of principles which exist mostly in English. There are differences: in the mode of development (unilateral to multistakeholder); source (IGOs, govts, civil society, business, etc.); approach (economic, human rights, etc.); focus (constitution-type, sectoral, etc.)
Commonalities: reference to international founding instruments, similar rights, commonality in principles.
Kleinwächter. Over 25 sets of principles identified. There should be a single one that covers them all, counts with the agreement of all governements and all stakeholders, and be elaborated by the MAG.
Pisanty: attempt to find common principles upwards will only conclude on the commonalities in the lowest layers, i.e. openness, interoperability, end-do-end. Wolfgang’s proposal would also ask for the MAG to become the constitutional assembly of cyberspace; not equipped for that.

Elvana Thaci: one characteristic of the EU Principles are open; they don’t try to develop in isolation and try to express core values of the Internet in policy guidance. They see it as the CoE’s contribution to an ongoing global process in which all stakeholders must take their own responsibilities. See also CoE governance principles for 2012-2015.

Parminder Jeet Singh. Will not talk about DC on IRP. OECD and others are developing principles and they should not oppose UN-level development. Horrible people oppose these.
On Wolfgang: agree with Pisanty on MAG role, not right.

Jeremy Malcolm. Outcome from BestBits, civil society meeting of 50 experts. Only way to legitimacy is multistakeholder development of undisputed principles.

Franklin Netto (Brazil govt).
IGF would have important role in drafting principles.
Marco Civil has not been approved in Congress, it is an initiative of the Executive listening to society
Happy to hear that enhanced cooperation concept is not a taboo
Need a platform to operationalize the concept. Enhanced cooperation must be multistakeholder process, to result in public policies.
First time at IGF, likes very much to work in open space, BUT we need to find ways to systematize the results and take them to governmental realm and others.

Ayesha Hassan. The private sector welcomes the IGF and thinks there is room for further exploration of sets of principles.

Now Nermine El-Sadawy moderates. How could principles be compiled and how the IGF platform be used for that.
Carlos Affonso. Report from workshop.
Johan Hallenborg from same source. IGF should create a prize. Work more on intermediaries following Frank LaRue. Study interaction with technical design. Link to human rights fora, maybe through workshops next year. Continue to hold Human Rights Roundtable.

Nermine: do people agree with Wolfgang or Alejandro?

Peter Major: he understands that Wolfgang’s proposal is only to compile and find commonalities among sets of principles, sees no harm.
WG on IGF improvement.

Constance Bommelaer. Agrees with Anne Carblanc on compilation of principles; it needs to be done in a multistakeholder environment.

Anne Carblanc: surprised that no-one is taking the floor. If the IGF is not the platform, then what is? Human rights are not the only perspective; social wellbeing, economics, etc. also count, and the OECD would be glad to participate.

Bertrand. The issue of proliferation of principles was already present in the Nairobi IGF. There was general agreement on comparing these sets of principles. Need to decide how to do it. Compendium seems to represent at least the first step. There are milestones and natural timeframes to structure that discussion (like meetings in 2013.) Some compilations are already being made. One compilation could be done by February.

Parminder. Will make a suggestion for process. There should be a round table in the next IGF. Offers to help organize on behalf of CD on IRP.

Theresa Swinehart. Good dialog, good opportunity. As MAG member looks forward to continuing this in the MAG now.
Nermine: would agree with Theresa. Maturity point in time to take next steps.

Peter Major. Next phase of the session: Way Forward. Facilitators Avri Doria and Vint Cerf.

Avri: The IGF is evolving. Way forward has two dimensions: the IGF itself and the substance, what we’ll be talking about.
CSTD was talking about IGF of two years ago.
Wants MAG to be more than program committee, dynamic coalitions to be dynamic along the year. Look at some statements made in this IGF in defense of freedoms, esp. freedom of speech and freedom after speech.

Vint Cerf. The MAG should belong to the IGF, not to the CSTD. WE should be in charge.
7th IGF UNDESA staff, secretariat, hosts have achieved a lot with little resources. These must become more reliably. Commits to get more engagement for the IGF.
IGF meetings are rich in content and diversity and thought provoking debate. A project to curate the archives is called for. Calls for participation, offers data mining. Some work is already being done so the point is providing platforms.
More can and should be done to draw attention to problems that surface. Task and staff the MAG or a MAG-like Working Party to analyze the issues and assess whether progress is being made. Do the issues deserve attention by other bodies?
Need to involve more participants from Latin Americ, Asia and Africa.
IGF should self-assess.
There is value to loose coupling and informality. We should keep it, avoiding overly rigid regulations.

From Vint textually:
“1. The UNDESA staff and IGF secretariat, with great assistance from the Azerbaijani hosts, have done wonders with little resource. We must find a way forward to increase reliably the resources available for future IGF meetings. I am committed to finding ways to increase private sector engagement and support.
2. The IGF meetings are rich in content and diversity, vigorous in thought-provoking debate. This one was no different. But we are not leveraging the accumulated wisdom of the observations of participants as well as we should. A project to catalog, archive and curate the cumulative documents (including transcripts) of all IGFs is called for. I am committed to working with like-minded participants to achieve a sustainable archive and data-mining capacity to inform future IGFs and to assess historical trends.
3. It seems clear that more can and should be done to draw attention to problems that are surfaced in the IGF discussions between IGF meetings. To this end, we should consider tasking and staffing the MAG or a MAG-like working party to analyze the issues raised and to assess whether progress is being made. This work could include specific observations derived from the IGF deliberations and speculative suggestions for their further consideration in appropriate fora. At the beginning of each IGF, one could look forward to a report on progress made in areas identified as ripe for resolution.
4. It seems important to test the idea of dynamic coalition efforts that continue between annual IGF meetings. Perhaps some of the Dynamic Coalitions formed during this IGF can attempt to engage during 2013 in remote or even face/face interaction making use of online tools to further their work.
5. This IGF, as have its predecessors, has reaffirmed the vital utility of multi-stakeholder exchanges that benefit from candor without forced attempts to reach consensus. The IGF process should draw upon a broader range of participants from all stakeholder sectors, especially from Latin and Central America, Africa and Asia/Pac. Incentives and facilitating steps are needed to achieve this objective.”.


Avri. Calls on facilitators of last two sections then will call for open participation, focused on progress, not evaluation.

Bertrand.
Organizational matters. Some lead to drafting of texts and declaration.
There are too many workshops.

Qusai on ways forward.
The Internet is user-centric. Innovation doesn’t have borders. Future IGFs should discuss more Internet as tool for change.
Would like to see more interaction with regional and national IGFs.

Nermine El-Saadawy.
Need to aggregate and study principles.
Need intersessional meetings and other forms of continuity.
Create a think-tank group on Internet Governance policy issues.

Pisanty. Caveat re declarations or even types of summaries that need negotiated text.
Malcolm. On permissions needed to distribute materials.
Carl (N) how to contribute
Vint Cerf: we can and might use computer based tools already proven.
Carolina Aguerre. Agrees with Vint, Avri, Bertrand re legitimacy of IGF. Place for discussions, need to develop a very good website, tool with archives (very difficult to find out what has been discussed before)

Netto. Coincides with need to ensure sustainability of the IGF.
On how to compile the knowledge that has been generated in the IGF.

Heather Dryden.
Compilation of principles would be useful. Must be multistakeholder effort.

Ian Fish, UK, chartered institute for IT.
Besides geography there are sectoral and language considerations. (referring to Vint’s proposals.)

Andrea Beccali from IFLA. Many events till 2015.
UNESCO and UNDP progressively more absent. Failure of multistakeholder commitment of them.

Cedric from UNESCO: not true, tells of UNESCO presence.

Farghan Abdullayeva from Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences IT Institute. Interesting as host nation, multiple and diverse points of view. Thanks to organizers and participants.
Participant from Indonesia (el que intervino en una mesa de seguridad), will be host country.

Wout de Natris. Reports from workshop on international cybersecurity cooperations. Almost no regulatory body or law enforcement attended this conference. Summarizes conclusions: too many laws and treaties. Reach out and communicate. Capacity building. Set priorities through national security