G20 Called On To Put People At Centre Of Digital Economy

Some three dozen global civil society groups have called on the G20 countries to set a digital agenda that puts the interests of people and their rights front and centre, in particular on privacy.

The collective letter is available here.

Signatories took the opportunity of the G20 Global Solutions Summit, taking place in Berlin on 28-29 May, to voice concerns to G20 leaders, Constance Bommelaer de Leusse , senior director, chief of staff, Global Partnerships at the Internet Society, told Intellectual Property Watch.

According to Bommelaer de Leusse, the summit is a milestone in the ramp-up to the G20 Digital Economy Ministerial meeting, which will take place on 23-24 August in Argentina. The recent Facebook crisis brought a lot of focus on privacy issues, she said.

Access Now, Internet Society, Mozilla, Privacy International, the World Wide Web Foundation, and Wikimedia are among the signatories. The letter says the internet is estimated to contribute nearly US$7 trillion every year to the G20 economies.

With an estimated 30-50 billion additional connected devices across the world by 2020, the digital economy is an opportunity, but policy commitments have not kept the pace with this reality, they said.

The letter urges all G20 countries “to work collaboratively with leaders from all stakeholder groups to adopt commitments that live up to not just the promise, but also their responsibility to ensure the evolving digital society supports a healthy web ecosystem and puts people first.”

The signatories suggest five areas for the G20 countries to focus on: meaningful access, privacy and data protection rights, freedom of expression, cybersecurity, and increased competition so that the market encourages new entrants and the interoperability of new services.

“Citizens and consumers have a right to be placed at the centre of decisions around the digital society,” they said.

The G20 groups 19 major economies (plus the European Union): Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.

 

Image Credits: G20