IGF 2024 WS #201 Rights Impacts of Cloud Data Centers in Repressive States

    Organizer 1: Joey Shea, Human Rights Watch
    Organizer 2: Deborah Brown, 🔒
    Organizer 3: Marwa Fatafta, 🔒Access Now

    Speaker 1: Marwa Fatafta, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
    Speaker 2: Joey Shea, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
    Speaker 3: Mohamad Najem, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group

    Moderator

    Deborah Brown, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

    Online Moderator

    Deborah Brown, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

    Rapporteur

    Joey Shea, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

    Format

    Roundtable
    Duration (minutes): 60
    Format description: A round table setup will encourage full interaction between the participants and ensures an interactive workshop with the group.

    Policy Question(s)

    • What are the rights risks associated with establishing cloud data centres in countries with repressive governments?
    • What are the rights responsibilities of businesses and investors under the UNGPs in relation to establishing cloud data centers in repressive states?
    • What can businesses, investors and government do to ensure that operations comply with international law?
    • How can human rights and customer due diligence help businesses navigate the expansion of their operations in repressive states?
    • What criteria is required for such tools to help companies identify and mitigate rights risks instead of being used to rubber stamp decisions?

    What will participants gain from attending this session? The workshop aims to demonstrate businesses’ responsibility to respect human rights independent of a country’s willingness to fulfil its human rights obligations. Participants will develop a better understanding of businesses’ responsibilities under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in relation to establishing data cloud centers in repressive countries, including conducting a comprehensive, thorough human rights due diligence process and meaningfully consult with at-risk communities, and right holder groups, and human rights organizations.
    Participants will also learn, with concrete examples, the human rights risks cloud regions may impose on individuals and communities, including threats to data protection and the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and peaceful assembly.

    Description:

    In recent years, major tech companies have invested heavily in expanding their cloud computing services and infrastructure around the world, including in countries with poor human rights record and weak rule of law. While cloud data centers can help drive digital innovation and open new economic opportunities in host countries, they can also pose a serious threat to people’s safety and privacy when they are built in repressive or non-democratic states. Such threat is compounded when companies forgo their responsibility to conduct thorough human rights due diligence and transparently demonstrate how they can mitigate such risks. This session brings together civil society and the private sector to delve into the adverse human rights implications of cloud expansion in countries with poor human rights record, and discuss businesses’ responsibility to respect human rights under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in relation to establishing cloud data centers in such markets.

    Expected Outcomes

    Our session will advocate for a more robust and right respecting approach to cloud centers in line with international human rights standards. As the cloud computing industry continues to grow, this discussion feeds into civil society’s calls for transparency, accountability, and building pressure on tech companies to fulfil their human rights responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles, and commit to upholding human rights by publicly detailing the measures they take to conduct a comprehensive, thorough human rights due diligence process, that includes meaningful consultation with at-risk or potentially affected groups, including human rights organizations from the region, and publish, in full, the findings, including the steps to mitigate the risk of facilitating human rights abuses associated with data center operations in repressive states.
    We will publish a news release on the discussion and outcomes of the workshop including a draft of civil society led principles for cloud regions.

    Hybrid Format: We will structure the workshop in a way that will allow interaction with participants via chat and inside the workshop space itself. Online participants will be able to send their questions or comments via the online platform’s chat or raise their hand to speak, which the facilitator will handle.

    The workshop will be a self-paced hybrid session with the facilitator merging online and offline participation. And will also include a Q&A segment led by the moderator and then questions from the audience.

    For online participants and speakers, we will be using an online platform for virtual participation which participants and speakers will call in to listen and speak.