10th Internet Governance Forum Opens In Joao Pessoa, Brazil

In opening the 10th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) of the United Nations in Joao Pessoa, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called for solutions to internet access, but also to address challenges in online human rights, especially privacy.

Lenni Montiel, UN assistant secretary-general for economic development, who delivered the speech for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, underlined that besides the contribution of information and communications technology (ICT) to implementation of the 2030 Agenda, “cyberattacks, cybercrime and issues related to privacy and surveillance” have to be addressed.

Brazil hosts the IGF for the second time after 2007, the title for the 10th edition is “Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development.” The 10th IGF runs from 11-13 November, and the host website is here.

The future of the forum which came into existence as a result of the fight over critical internet resources at the 2005 UN World Summit of Information Society (WSIS) is one topic on the Joao Pessoa agenda given that the UN General Assembly is expected to decide on the next mandate at a WSIS High Level Meeting on December 15-16 in New York.

The first plenary at the 10th IGF was in fact dedicated to the discussion of the “draft outcome document” which was http://unpan3.un.org/wsis10/ published just before the IGF meeting. It includes a potential extension by IGF of a 10-year mandate.

Participants in Joao Pessoa emphatically welcomed the strengthening of human rights in the new text. But there was also a long list of requests for additional changes. Civil society organisations and academics focused on recognition of the dangers big data mining and analysis represent for individuals or additional strengthening of access.

“Connecting the next billion is not just happening through mobile or private connections alone,” warned the representative of the International Federation of Libraries. Public access will play a big role and should be supported.

Government representatives from the United States and United Kingdom as well as representatives of the technical community were especially critical about a potential establishment of an intergovernmental UN working group on internet issues.

“On enhanced cooperation, this is going to be a challenging paragraph,” US Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda said. “Enhanced cooperation involves more than just enabling governments to exercise or enhance their power.”

Sepulveda also was highly critical of what a number of commenters saw as a lack of a clear commitment to the multi-stakeholder principle in favour of multilateralism, which centres on governments.

Rousseff in her speech defended multilateral processes alongside the multi-stakeholder processes. “An internet submitted to intergovernmental arrangements that exclude the other stakeholders, would not be democratic, nor are acceptable multi-stakeholder arrangements subject to the oversight of one or few states,” she said.

The transition of oversight of the IANA-function from the US administration to the global community would in fact be one of the results many countries had in mind when supporting the establishment of the IGF and the enhanced cooperation process.

With these points still contentious, participants in Joao Pessoa which expects up to 5000 people for the four day mega conference welcomed the opportunity to present their comments directly to the two co-facilitators of the UN WSIS review process, Amb. Jānis Mažeiks, permanent representative of Latvia, and Amb. Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, permanent representative of the United Arab Emirates.

They in turn will feed the comments into the process, they promised. While the IGF is not formally a part of the review process, Mažeiks assured participants: “We will of course bring this back to the negotiation table (in New York).”

The conference in Joao Pessoa will cover internet issues from ending the digital divide, access, privacy and human rights online and the protection of children online to more technical topics like free and open source software, security and the hot topic of encryption.

During the opening session, Joana Varon Ferraz, researcher at the Centre for Technology and Society Fundacao Getulio in Brazil, speaking for civil society, criticised the expulsion of a group of protesters who had intervened in the opening session holding posters against the “free basics” zero rating offer of Facebook.

Access to the meeting and documents can be found here:

http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/home-36966