Photo: Ariel Barbosa
This year’s IGF in Istanbul drew more than 1,600 foreign participants and around 700 local participants, as well as a high number of government representatives from Turkey and other countries, including Colombia, with a delegation headed by the minister of ICT and the director of the communications regulatory commission.
One of the most striking aspects of the forum was its diversity – not only the cultural and regional diversity of the participants, but also the wide range of areas and sectors related to the internet. Representatives of governments, the private sector, academia and civil society were gathered in one venue where up to 12 sessions in main halls and smaller workshops were held simultaneously, all addressing different themes.
Some of the most frequently recurring themes at many of the workshops were the agreements and conclusions reached at the NETmundial meeting held in April 2014 in Brazil, the IANA transition, and the ever controversial issue of net neutrality.
But what was most noteworthy was the large number of workshops dealing with human rights and the internet, and particularly two specific areas: women’s rights online, and the right to privacy. There were close to 50 human rights-related workshops on the official agenda, in addition to the "extra-official" workshops and events held in parallel in various parts of the city.
Regarding the right to privacy, of special note was an initiative to send a message on the subject to the UN Human Rights Council, which gives considerable weight and support to discussions on the issue and, through this connection with the United Nations, could reach the governments of member countries. Although the issue has lost a certain amount of momentum (the Snowden revelations were made in mid-2013), it is now taken for granted in numerous countries that massive surveillance is a reality, which means the next challenge is to ensure the participation of multiple stakeholders in the potential control by governments of the private information of their citizens.
Directly related to this issue was the launching at the IGF of Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) 2014, as the theme of this year’s edition of this annual APC publication was communications surveillance. The official GISWatch launch not only provided an opportunity for the report authors to share their views on the subject and the situation in their respective countries and regions with others, but also strengthened APC as an international organisation that produces high-quality research, through the participation of many different authors addressing the particular theme of each year’s edition.
For me, an especially important learning from the IGF was a greater understanding of the concept of internet governance, which I had been working on since attending the regional forum in El Salvador (July 2014), and the mechanisms for civil society participation in such crucial areas as child online protection, the production of local content, and means to ensure multi-stakeholder participation in internet governance, among others.
Another valuable aspect of the IGF was the presence of stands permanently located outside the meeting halls, where it was possible to obtain information on different organisations and entities in the business, educational, governmental and civil society sectors. Through these stands and in other informal spaces, I was able to make important contacts such as:
- Tactical Tech, for the dissemination of their training materials in Spanish not only in Colombia but in Latin America.
- Judy Okyte, with whom I was able to share her experience in India in the implementation of web accessibility standards on government websites and our experience in the creation of NTC 5854, a Colombian technical standard for website accessibility, and the process of making it part of the Colombian e government programme.
- Internews and Access, from whom we hope to obtain support on legal and judicial matters related to work on issues like cyber security, privacy and freedom of expression. One of our expectations in this regard is the dissemination and implementation of the 13 International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance.
- A conversation with the ITU for the dissemination and implementation in Colombia of the Guidelines for Industry on Child Online Protection, which were presented at one of the IGF workshops.
- Direct talks with the Colombian ICT minister and director of the Communications Regulatory Commission on the importance of civil society participation in internet governance in Colombia, as well as in the current development of the Law on Cyber Security and Cyber Defence. This contact and the search for means of participation is particularly important in view of the new strategies being proposed by the current government, such as the so-called “citizen’s electronic folder” that would include the personal information of all Colombians.