Freedom Should be Key to Internet Governance, Council of Europe Speakers Says
Internet freedom “must be at the forefront” whenever Europe talks of Internet governance, Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said Monday. Openness, interoperability and neutrality must be maintained and user privacy and security are ensured, she said. Privacy, security and openness aren’t mutually exclusive, she said, speaking via video at a two-day Council of Europe dialogue in Strasbourg. The event, focusing on Internet governance, was the first aimed at crafting a European position for December’s UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Hyderabad, India.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The Internet challenges the conventional top-down idea of governance through its multistakeholder approach to the issues, Council of Europe Deputy Secretary General Maud de Boer Buquicchio said. Until now CoE instruments on human rights protection, the rule of law and media pluralism have been addressed to authorities and governments, but the body is revamping its work methods so it can heed as many parties as possible, she said.
The IGF acts as a safety valve to prevent the Internet governance debate from exploding, said Peter Hellmonds, Nokia Siemens Networks head of corporate social responsibility. It’s good risk management for business, he said. Today’s business models assume that the Internet will stay the same - - but if it does change, those models must change as well, he said. Industry has a strong interest in balancing goods, rights and values, Hellmonds said. The IGF has shown it’s the right place for business to interact at the global level on the issues, he said.
Participants tried Monday to map key issues for inclusion in Europe’s perspective. John Carr, representing the U.K. Children’s Charities Coalition on Internet Safety, urged more nuanced consideration of the issues. Much talk of “empowering” children and helping families handle the Internet assumes the various groups are homogenous, but they're not, he said. He criticized the absence from the room of the e-tailing and banking industries, saying they created needless problems, such as enabling youngsters to buy guns, booze and porn online, that only they can solve. Carr endorsed more engagement with mobile handset makers on child security.
But a press organization representative said the EU should focus on freedom of expression, not security, child pornography or other topics. He urged study of the extent of online criminal behavior, saying that in terms of the total Internet universe, outlaw activity probably is fairly limited. Internet crime should be punished, but European countries should go to Hyderabad with the idea of enlarging free speech, he said.
Issues over ISP filtering and privacy of Internet protocol numbers should be raised at the IGF because they're at the debate’s heart, Hellmonds said. National laws try to tackle part of the “big conundrum” between fighting online piracy and other behaviors while not restricting human rights, he said. There should be a line drawn at the EU and global levels on what is and isn’t personal data online, said Sarah Greenwood of Symantec.
The Internet is about freedom of expression first, said Matthias Traimer, chair of the CoE steering committee on media and new communications. A 2008 CoE recommendation on measures to promote online freedom of information was approved by all 47 member countries and should be highlighted at the IGF, he said.
The current democratic public infrastructure poses major risks, said Annette Muhlberg of trade union ver.di and a member of ICANN’s At-Large Advisory Committee. Information technology can restrict democracy, and the issue is gaining more public control of the Net, she said. She urged Europeans to stress workers’ rights in the information society.
The goal should be better quality of life, said Thomas Schneider, of the Swiss Federal Office of Communication. Schneider has no interest in having privacy and security to the detriment of being able to interact with others online, he said. Rights increasingly are privatized on the Internet as the state withdraws and new services roll out, he said.
The central question is whether to limit attacks on existing rights, maintain the current balance or boost the security and protections established in the past, said Bertrand de la Chapelle, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs special envoy for the information society. Human rights- based Internet governance is needed, he said. Each country has its own laws on censorship, content control and such, he said. Even if one assumes such measures all are adopted democratically cross-border issues remain, he said. Why should someone in a hotel room in Saudi Arabia, for example, be unable to access a publication that’s legal in his own country, he asked.