CoE Asked to Lead in Global Sharing of Internet Human Rights Best Practices for Big Data, Other Emerging Issues

The core issue for the Irish Department of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources is data protection, said department representative Richard Browne. And there are coming questions about media pluralism, he said. Media convergence means more than simply an IPTV product, it encompasses all forms of media converging on a platform, he said. Digital literacy is another major issue for the Irish government, as is how to engage at the national level with calls for blocking, filtering and online safety measures while continuing to protect fundamental rights, he said. For Estonia, one issue is that there are so many instruments governing human rights, but their implementation isn’t well-monitored, said Government Office of Estonia National ICT Policy Adviser Siim Sikkut. Internet users and national administrations need guidelines for safeguarding rights, and the CoE could help here, he said.

One important element is the multistakeholder model, said Frédéric Riehl, deputy director and head of international relations for the Swiss Federal Office of Communication. Governments and intergovernmental organizations can and do develop excellent conventions but that approach doesn’t work now, he said. He called for guidelines, such as for Internet users, developed through multistakeholder discussions. Internet governance principles are important, but how they're implemented and monitored is, too, he said. Asked what concrete provisions a possible CoE convention on big data might contain, Riehl said it would have to apply to the industry sector as well as governments. He said he envisaged guidelines developed jointly by all actors. There has been extensive discussion about self-regulation, but because that approach is voluntary, some players won’t abide by it, Riehl said. There’s no resolution yet to the question of whether self-regulation, co-regulation or regulation is the way to go, he said.

The CoE and other organizations shouldn’t deal with big data solely via existing infrastructures, said Bakhtiyar Mammadov, Azerbaijan Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies head of legal and human resources department. New ways of handling data flows are developing, and the traditional rules need more support, he said. One main issue in big data is its security, he said. CoE ideals should be reflected in this area as well, he said.

Restoring trust on the Internet requires addressing gaps in Web governance, said Brazilian Center for Technology and Society Digital Rights Researcher Joana Varon. Ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s surveillance revelations showed that many human rights, such as privacy, aren’t being respected, she said. Those disclosures also changed the position of the technical community and companies as countries enforced their national sovereignty by revising laws, which could lead to Balkanization of the Internet, she said. But there has been a significant and positive change in the political scenario, she said. Brazil will host an Internet governance summit in April that will consider a set of principles and road map for system evolution. The conference will include consideration of what an appropriate institutional arrangement might be for addressing human rights, and how to define “multistakeholder” and the rights and responsibilities of each stakeholder, she said.

Asked if the CoE could do more to ensure Internet accessibility for disabled people and others, Sikkut said Estonia believes accessibility is an emerging hot topic in human rights in the next 10 years. The question is how to move government services fully online without leaving people behind, he said. The CoE should lead the debate on a standard for public services provisions and best practices, he said. The organization should set minimum accessibility standards across its member countries, Browne said. One audience member said the World Wide Web Consortium has been trying to come up with accessibility standards for 15 years. He said technology changes very quickly, and the CoE should be very careful about setting standards in this area.

People have to learn how to use the Internet, Riehl said. The CoE should help governments exchange best practices and educational efforts on equal access issues, he said. The Center for Technology and Society is worried about access and net neutrality, Varon said. It fears the Internet will become fragmented like cable TV, she said. Net neutrality isn’t an emerging issue but although it’s been debated for some time, it hasn’t been adequately resolved, she said.