Session
Organizer 1: Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Organizer 2: Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Organizer 3: Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Organizer 4: Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Organizer 5: Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Organizer 6: Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 1: Sarah Jennings, Government, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 2: Dhruv Dhody, Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Roman Danyliw, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 4: Esteve Sanz, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization
Roundtable
Duration (minutes): 60
Format description: The intent of this workshop is to have a work session and discuss the pros and cons of arguments brought to the table. Before an effective discussion can take place, we need some time to level set, so there will be brief initial presentations to set the scene, followed by moderated discussion, following the workshop style.
A. How can Internet Standards Development Organizations and Governments collaborate when shaping the digital future? B. What lessons can we learn from Internet standardization and how can they apply to emerging technologies?
What will participants gain from attending this session? Participants gain an understanding about how the Internet standards making has been successfully shaped to contribute to policy objectives and where such attempts have failed. Further, the session will allow participants to inform the ongoing discussions on how to make the interactions between government and the global Internet standards community more efficient. Takeaways might apply to standardization in other fields too. This is intended to be a working session exploring effective collaboration.
Description:
Technical standards have touched upon policy issues almost since the dawn of the Internet. Throughout its lifetime, governments have contributed resources and provided input to Internet standards efforts that align with their goals, tracked efforts that might impact them, and pushed back on outcomes that they see as undesirable. More recently, governments have been looking for ex ante tools – including technical standards – to regulate emerging technologies such as the Metaverse, AI, and blockchain. Despite this long history, it can still be difficult for governments to engage in Internet standards and for standards developing organisations to engage with governments. Tracking relevant work involves sizable resource requirements, significant technical expertise is needed to follow discussions, and the role of governments is not always well understood in these efforts. This session will engage the broader Internet governance community to explore successful and unsuccessful encounters between state power and private Internet standards in order to gain a fuller appreciation of what works, what doesn't, and how such engagements might be improved.
The outcome may inform the evolution of processes within the IETF, the premier Internet Standards Development Organization. In the past, the IETF has organized policy roundtables on this topic to gain initial perspectives and input, but wider participation and a more varied perspective is expected from the IGF.
Hybrid Format: Building on the IETF’s extensive experience in organizing hybrid meetings, the session will be organized in a way that offers equity for on-line and on-site participants. We will assign a queue manager to manage and organise interactions to ensure fair access, in addition to the usual online and on-site moderators. There will also be online panelists, complementing the on-site discussion.