Session
Data governance and trust, globally and locally: What is needed to ensure that existing and future national and international data governance frameworks are effective in mandating the responsible and trustworthy use of data, with respect for privacy and other human rights?
Protecting consumer rights: What regulatory approaches are/could be effective in upholding consumer rights, offering adequate remedies for rights violations, and eliminating unfair and deceptive practices from the part of Internet companies?
Panel - Auditorium - 60 Min
Over the last two decades, internet platforms have become an important and integral part of everyday life of citizens across the world and a true enabler for human rights online. They are used for political engagement, education and research, entertainment, economic activities and interpersonal communication. At the same time, the business models of platform providers are often driven by ubiquitous surveillance of people's activities and intrusive profiling as a basis for targeted advertising. This is seen by many as a systemic threat to a series of human rights, especially the right to privacy. So far, regulatory approaches to restrain the potential negative impact of platform services on human rights have had only limited effect. This town hall event seeks to contribute to the emerging discussion on how platform providers should be regulated to ensure human rights are fully respected. This includes the rights that are at stake for users and consumers - the right to privacy, freedom of expression and opinion, freedom of thought and the right to equality and non-discrimination - as well as economic rights of providers, such as the freedom of occupation. The session will focus on the discussion of different governance approaches, including the legislative proposals currently being debated in the European Union, namely the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, which are expected to have a huge impact on how tech giants may conduct their platform business in the future. However, as platforms operate globally, not only the worldwide implications of upcoming national and supranational regulatory frameworks are of interest, but also the need for international instruments must be discussed. While speakers from different stakeholder groups will make initial statements, participants are strongly encouraged to actively engage in the debate.
1) Moderators will pay attention to the chat and Q&A section integrated in Zoom. Especially the online moderator will make sure that all questions will be passed to the speakers and all discussion contributions from the audience will be integrated. For this purpose, designated time slots will be included in the event schedule. 2) On the one hand, people in Katowice can also dial into the event via zoom to deliver speech contributions. On the other hand, if the event in Katowice is streamed in a separate room, we will use the functions of the "tweedback" tool, with the help of which questions can be asked anonymously live. The tool also offers options to provide quick feedback on organisational aspects of the event, e.g. the speed of the discussion or the stream quality or volume. Participants in Katowice can thus conveniently experience an interactive event with their smartphone while watching the livestream. 3) The Q&A tool integrated in Zoom will be used to incorporate questions of online participants. In addition, the tool "tweedback" will be used for extensive interaction with the participants on site in Katowice.
Please feel free to contribute any thoughts and questions you come up with at our tweedback site. We are trying to transfer them to the stage as good as we can, but as time is constraint, don't hesitate to discuss here as well: https://tweedback.de/5qzb/chatwall?l=en (the link will expire after 24h)
You can use these hashtags before, during and after the event to refer to our discussions:
#IGF2021 #TH59 #HumanRights and #PlatformRegulation
Amnesty International Germany
Sebastian Schweda, Amnesty International Germany, Civil Society, Western European and Others Regional Group (WEOG);
Jakob Scherer, Amnesty International Germany, Civil Society, Western European and Others Regional Group (WEOG)
Kristian Burghartz, Amnesty International Germany, Civil Society, Western European and Others Regional Group (WEOG);
Nighat Dad, Digital Rights Foundation, Civil Society, Asia Pacific
Kazuhiko Fuchikawa, Osaka City University, Academia/ Science, Asia Pacific
Greg Mroczkowski, IAB Europe, Business, Europe
-
Sebastian Schweda
Jakob Scherer
Targets: The ninth Sustainable Development Goal i.a. comprises the development of "quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, including regional and transborder infrastructure" and the support of "economic development and human well-being, with a focus on affordable and equitable access for all" (SDG 9.1) as well as significant increase of "access to information and communications technology" and "universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020" (SDG 9.c). Respective ambitions must not be limited to simply expanding access to the internet, but also include the human rights dimension of essential services based on the global network. Infrastructure nowadays can't be limited to hardware, but also has to include other levels. Here, internet platforms are especially relevant, as outlined in the description of the session. The observance of human rights in the legislation on internet platforms is therefore a highly relevant aspect for the attainment of the SDGs 9.1 and 9.c.
Report
Exchange e.g. in interactive formats as Sandboxing are important to elaborate creative and more transparent, human-rights based, effective and business-enabling legislation as well as to avoid untested solutions.
Current legislation approaches on platform regulation have to bear in mind the general global importance and influence regarding human rights observance and predictability of legal decisions. However, while legislation incorporating human rights as well as multi-stakeholder interests is important, currently there is an immediate need to strengthen enforcement of existing regulation in the face of pervasive and systemic breaches of law.
Governments must ensure the participation of all stakeholder groups, taking into account the possibility of different, human-rights based internet governance trajectories.
While current discussions on laws may be open and promising, governments must ensure the effective implementation and prosecution of adopted legisation on platform regulation.
Preliminary remark: Unfortunately, Nighat Dad could not attend the event at short notice, wherefore the initially envisaged balance of stakeholder groups civil society, academia and business was not realised. The organisers have to acknowledge that thereby, gender balance was not achieved either. The same applies to the representation of diverse geographical regions.
Participating panelists:
· Kazuhiko Fuchikawa, Osaka City University, Academia/ Science, Asia Pacific
· Greg Mroczkowski, IAB Europe, Business, Europe
Moderator:
· Sebastian Schweda (Amnesty International Germany)
The town hall session „A human rights-based approach to regulating platforms“ addressed the field of tension between economic interests of monetarisation of user’s data and the right to privacy guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of human rights. The goal was to discuss current global and regional approaches on platform regulation and how to guarantee the observance of human rights.
There was a disagreement on the appellation of targeted advertisements as surveillance. While one discussion participant appealed to reserve the term for measurements by security authorities and emphasised the will to provide services for the targeted costumers, the term was used by others to underline the ubiquitous data collection and profiling by the platforms.
Regarding lawmaking, everyone agreed on the necessity of clear legal guidelines and uniform enforcement. Similar challenges could be identified in different regions of the world: How to achieve successful legislation which takes into account the perspectives of stakeholders involved? While parliamentary consultations exist, to make all voices heard is hardly achieved. One aspect discussed is the use of sandboxes to test specific technical and legal circumstances, but also to include the perspectives of stakeholders. This proposal was welcomed by all participants at least on an abstract level.Beside the legislation processes on regional or national level, the global scale was also addressed. To share information and experiences made with internet platforms on a national or regional level must be strengthened via bi- and multilateral agreements and information flows. In addition to this, current legislation approaches on platform regulation have to bear in mind the general global importance and influence regarding human rights observance and predictability of legal decisions. However, while legislation incorporating human rights as well as multi-stakeholder interests is important, currently there is an immediate need to strengthen enforcement of existing regulation in the face of pervasive and systemic breaches of law.
Furthermore, different approaches to balance different interests were discussed. While a majority of users according to a survey by IABEurope currently dislike to pay for various online services, many are open for alternative ways of how platforms are financed. Alternatives to targeted advertisements were discussed superficially; for example contextual advertisements or opt-in-based approaches for targeted advertisement were mentioned in the discussion, so that the individual desire for privacy or higher quality of advertisements can be served. Overall, there is a consensus on the importance of the consent paradigm already present e.g. in the European data protection regime.
In general, a good level of participation in forms of general to specific questions developed in the zoom chat, indicating a high interest in the topic. For debate contributions and questions, participants connected via video. The tool tweedback, likewise the hastags, was intended to stir discussions among non-panelists, but it was not used as much as the organisers hoped to despite several hints to do so.