Digital Emblems; Final GDC negotiations
This week the Internet Engineering Task Force held its 120th meeting in Vancouver. You can view sessions online:
- Internet governance and governance in the internet at the Human Rights Protocol Considerations session: https://youtu.be/MpAI4izqEEg
- Talk on Community-led Solutions in Connecting Indigenous Communities at the IAB Open: https://youtu.be/7It9pv4zfaw
- More community networks at Global Access to the Internet for All session: https://youtu.be/5XystxDvfzE
One session of note was on Digital emblems (DIEM), which is not yet forming a working group but looking at the scope of potential work to digitalize the emblem of the International Committee of the Red Cross. While there are many emblems, much of the work to globally standardize use of the red cross, crescent and crystal is intimately tied to the development of rules of war and humanitarian norms. That the IETF might help to digitalize the ICRC's emblem is a very promising contribution to this legacy of cooperation upon which every country is a signed participant.
You can watch the session here to see that it is far from settled as to how the IETF would approach this specific brief: https://youtu.be/E3taeEpUfAA
Links for the week
- Bangladesh is in the midst of a brutal crackdown on civic action, including internet shutdowns https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/bangladeshs-internet-shutdown-isolates-citizens-disrupts-business-2024-07-26/
- The latest instance of a Certificate Authority breaching the CA/Browser Forum's Baseline Requirements and how this gets handled: https://x.com/scott_helme/status/1813698590537294116?s=46
- Read the latest Tehran E-Commerce Association Report on Iran's Internet Censorship
https://ainita.net/tehran-e-commerce-association-report-on-irans-internet-censorship-jul-2024 - You can submit to the ITU Council Working Group consultations on universal access and multilingual internet https://www.itu.int/en/council/cwg-internet/Pages/consultation-feb2024.aspx
- Read this excellent series of reports on Queer Resistance to Digital Oppression https://www.article19.org/queer-resistance-to-digital-oppression/#reports
- The UK's privacy regulators are disappointed in Google's announcement to kill Privacy Sandbox following the investigation by the UK's competition authority https://www.thedrum.com/news/2024/07/22/uk-data-privacy-regulators-disappointed-google-s-decision-keep-third-party-cookies
- Global Partners Digital has published a handy guide for civil society organisations participating in the ITU https://www.gp-digital.org/publication/navigating-human-rights-in-the-digital-environment-the-wtsa/
- The report from Splintercon Brussels is out https://splintercon.net/brussels/
- There is an absolute parade of people coming out against the every-crime-is-a-Cybercrime Treaty:
- From CDT two years ago pointing out flaws that still haven't been addressed https://cdt.org/insights/the-three-top-issues-to-address-for-the-global-cybercrime-treaty/
- From the UN SR Countering Terrorism https://www.unodc.org/documents/Cybercrime/AdHocCommittee/Reconvened_concluding_session/Written_submissions/OP7/UN_SR_HR_Terrorism.pdf
- From Cory Doctorow https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2024-07-23-expanded-spying-powers-in-russia-crime-cybers-you-607f0ab61f8a
- From the Global Network Initiative https://globalnetworkinitiative.org/cybercrime-convention-statement
I gave an update on CDT.org on the Global Digital Compact, still in negotiations in New York this week
Internet governance and human rights are at the top of the UN’s agenda. Recently delegates met in New York to discuss the Global Digital Compact, a two-year process that will culminate in a globally negotiated text affirming the central role of governments in governing the internet. But the internet is a global public good, governed by many stakeholders gathered in many different bodies. Civil society –and groups like CDT in particular–have a key role to play in ensuring that human rights are protected, enabled and extended in the digital age.
Last week, CDT joined a letter with dozens of civil society organizations in which, “… we highlight the areas and aspects of greatest concern, including human rights and gender, support for the OHCHR, inclusive approaches to internet governance, consistency in terminology, and decentralization of power.”
These aren’t new issues for CDT. In the past we’ve pushed the UN to focus its efforts on the most critical ways in which the internet is changing the relationship between governments and people, namely encryption, censorship, meaningful access and weapons: “States have roles that are unique. They continue and enhance engagement in all the mentioned governance processes and ensuring the protection of human rights by helping to strengthen the existing multistakeholder ecosystem of internet governance. They are uniquely placed to solve issues of access, censorship, encryption and weapons of war. They are also the actors who can extend the multistakeholder model to reach within and evolve the multilateralism of the UN itself.”
When the first draft of the Global Digital Compact was released, CDT along with the Global Encryption Coalition steering committee officially delivered and submitted comments to the UN to suggest, “… three editorial changes to better articulate the ways that encryption provides protection and enablement of human rights.”
As CDT’s Chief Technology Officer I also signed a joint letter reminding the UN of the role of the technical community in internet governance. “… some proposals for the Global Digital Compact (GDC) can be read to mandate more centralized governance. If the final document contains such language, we believe it will be detrimental to not only the Internet and the Web, but also to the world’s economies and societies… Therefore, we ask that member states, the Secretary-General and the Tech Envoy seek to ensure that proposals for digital governance remain consistent with the enormously successful multistakeholder Internet governance practice that has brought us the Internet of today.”
As the negotiations around the GDC wrap up in the lead up to the UN’s Summit for the Future, we strongly encourage Member States to preserve the strong and engaged voices of the human rights community in delivering on issues of core importance in multistakeholder internet governance.
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