OECD Ministerial On Internet: Trust, But Whom?

Beware “digital protectionism.” That was one of the key messages of United States Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, speaking at the official opening of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Ministerial on the digital economy in Cancun, Mexico.

The high-level conference is the third OECD ministerial on the internet after 1999 and 2009, and overdue, OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria said on 22 June. He called for more rapid steps of governments to adapt to the digital world.

In opening speeches and the discussion with the stakeholder groups represented at the OECD for business, civil society, unions and the technical community, differences over the core agenda point of “trust” were visible.

Pritzker warned in her speech, “too often, well-intentioned efforts to address legitimate concerns over issues like privacy and security lead to unintended consequences.” In recent years there has been a “rush to throw up digital walls,” she said, listing “data localization laws,” “content controls,” and “onerous technical standards” as barriers to competition, innovation, and free expression.

On challenges for governments, Pritzker said: “cybersecurity threats are on the rise. Notions of privacy are being upended.” Different approaches in privacy between the US and the European Union currently are resolved through the “privacy shield,” Pritzker noted.

Balancing privacy with ease of data flows was on the other hand rejected most clearly by Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center [corrected]. Rotenberg is a member of the Steering Committee of the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council (CSISAC), which spoke extensively on privacy, data protection and topics like “the secrets of surveillance capitalism” in their pre-ministerial meeting. Balancing rights was always tempting in politics, Rotenberg said, but fundamental rights cannot be traded.

Kathy Brown, speaking for the Internet Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC), put a new “trust framework” ISOC Trust Framework on the table to solve the trust issue by combining work in four dimensions: “user trust, trusted networks, technologies for trust and a trustworthy ecosystem.”

Earlier on the opening day, Ildefonso Guajardo Villareal, Mexico’s Minister of Economy and chair of the meeting, underlined that his government found most important the guarantee for healthy competition, strong protection of intellectual property and a commitment to free trade in services – for example by finalising the Trade in Services Agreement.

The OECD meeting will conclude on 23 June with the adoption of a joint declaration.