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Workshop Format. Please click here for a description of available Workshop Session Formats.
Roundtable
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Duration of proposed workshop
90 minutes
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IGF 2015 subtheme that this workshop falls under
Internet and Human Rights
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Description
There has been growing interest over the past few years in civil society efforts to hold ICT companies accountable for their impact on human rights,. All stakeholders including companies have an interest in setting clear industry standards on dimensions of privacy and freedom of expression. To that end, more research and comparative data about different companies’ policies and practices can encourage companies to compete with one another on respect for users’ rights. Given the international scope and complexity of the sector, this task is more than any single organization can fully tackle on a global scale, and it is important to recognize the diversity of goals and perspectives represented by organizations working in this space. The purpose of this roundtable workshop is to bring together a geographically diverse range of NGO’s and researchers to share experiences and perspectives on creating projects to rank or rate ICT companies. The goal is to create a “how to” guide on launching such projects as well as a collaborative network of organizations and researchers. Company and government stakeholders will also provide feedback on how such projects can most effectively influence corporate practice and government policy.
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Name, stakeholder group, and organizational affiliation of workshop proposal co-organizer(s)
Rebecca MacKinnon, Civil Society, Ranking Digital Rights
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Has the proposer, or any of the co-organizers, organized an IGF workshop before?
no
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Subject matter #tags that describe the workshop
#rankings, #digitalrights, #privacy, #freeexpression, #benchmarking
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Description of the plan to facilitate discussion amongst speakers, audience members and remote participants
The discussion between the participants will be facilitated by Nathalie Marechal, doctoral student in communication at the University of Southern California. The emphasis will be on (1) highlighting the diversity of approaches and methods that are emerging in this space, and (2) identifying best practices that are applicable regardless of national or cultural context.
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Names and affiliations (stakeholder group, organization) of the participants in the proposed workshop
Rebecca MacKinnon
Civil Society
Ranking Digital Rights
Ms. MacKinnon is the author of “Consent of the Networked” and director of the Ranking Digital Rights project. She is an internationally recognized expert on the private sector’s role in restricting privacy and free expression rights on the Internet.
Confirmed
Christopher Parsons
Civil Society
The Citizen Lab
Dr. Parsons is a post-doc fellow at the Citizen Lab (University of Toronto) and Managing Director of the Telecom Transparency Project, which pushes Canadian telecoms to be more transparent about their data-sharing practices, notably in response to requests from government agencies.
Confirmed, pending funding
Parker Higgins
Civil Society
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Mr. Higgins is an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where he contributes to the “Who Has Your Back?” project, which ranks U.S. Internet companies according to their respect for user privacy in their domestic activities.
Confirmed, pending funding
Carolina Botero Cabrera
Civil Society
Fundacion Karisma
Fundacion Karisma is a leading digital rights organization in Colombia that is in the process of developing a scheme to rank ICT companies operating in Colombia according to their respect for privacy and free expression rights.
Confirmed
Arthit (Art) Suriyawongkul
Civil Society
Thai Netizen Network
Mr. Suriyawongkul is an activist with the Thai Netizen Network, a leading digital rights organization in Thailand that is in the process of developing a scheme to rank ICT companies operating in Thailand according to their respect for privacy and free expression rights.
Confirmed, pending funding
Cecille Soria
Civil Society
Democracy.Net.PH
Ms. Soria is an activist with Democracy.Net.PH, a leading digital rights organization in the Philippines that is in the early stages of developing a scheme to rank ICT companies operating in the Philippines according to their respect for privacy and free expression rights.
Confirmed, pending funding
Kelly Kim
Civil Society
Open Net Korea
Ms. Kim is General Counsel at Open Net Korea, the leading digital rights group in South Korea. Open Net Korea is in the early stages of developing a scheme to rank ICT companies operating in South Korea according to their respect for privacy and free expression rights.
Confirmed
Luca Belli
Civil Society
Terms of Service and Human Rights Project, Center for Technology & Society at Fundaçao Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro
The Terms of Service and Human Rights Project is assessing major global platforms on the requirements they place on users. Mr. Belli is also co-organizer of the Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibility and thus provides key perspectives and experience to this workshop.
Confirmed
Ankhi Das
Private Sector
Facebook
Facebook is the subject of many ranking projects included in this workshop, thus the company’s perspective will be important.
Confirmed
Luciano Alakija
Private Sector
Telefonica
Telefonica’s global operations in the telecommunications sector, and the company’s willingness through its membership in the Telecommunications Industry Dialogue to make human rights commitments and publish information about government requests it receives, brings perspective on what can and cannot be benchmarked across diverse geographies and business conditions.
We have contacted him and are awaiting a response
Stephen Lowe
Government
United Kingdom Foreign Office
As a member of the Freedom Online Coalition working group on transparency, Mr. Lowe brings perspective on the value of transparency and disclosure to strengthening the open Internet.
We have contacted him and he has tentatively accepted
Jens Karberg
Government
Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA)
As Programme Manager with responsibility for Information Communication Technology at SIDA, Mr. Karberg can speak to why the establishment of international standards and monitoring frameworks around digital rights policies and practices in the ICT sector is important to the goal of an Internet that is open, secure, and accessible to all.
Confirmed
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Name of in-person Moderator(s)
Nathalie Marechal
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Name of Remote Moderator(s)
Priya Kumar, Opeyemi Akanbi
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Name of Rapporteur(s)
Nathalie Marechal, Priya Kumar
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Description of the proposer's plans for remote participation
We will encourage remote participation via Twitter (hashtag to be determined in coordination with IGF organizers) and by inviting stakeholders who aren’t able to attend in person to submit questions ahead of time.
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Background paper
No background paper provided
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Agenda
Participants will share their experiences and perspectives regarding the use of rankings of ICT sector companies on dimensions on privacy and freedom of expression. The emphasis will be on (1) highlighting the diversity of approaches and methods that are emerging in this space, and (2) identifying best practices that are applicable regardless of national or cultural context. The goal is to create a “how to” guide on launching such projects as well as a collaborative network of organizations and researchers. Company and government stakeholders will also provide feedback on how such projects can most effectively influence corporate practice and government policy.
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Key Issues raised (1 sentence per issue):
Transparency reporting by ICT companies is an important, and growing, practice for digital rights advocacy
Leadership by certain multinational corporations with a global presence makes it easier to press other ICT companies to be more transparent about their commitments and practices related to digital rights
No single project can address every facet of this complex issue, but projects build on and complement one another
There is value in starting with modest goals, then gradually raising the bar to encourage incremental positive change in company commitments and practices
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Please describe the discussions that took place during the workshop session (3 paragraphs):
The workshop brought together a geographically diverse range of NGO’s to share viewpoints on how to measure ICT companies’ respect for digital rights. It also offered government and company perspectives on the value of such approaches. The discussion focused on the complementarity of the various projects in this space, including those represented at the workshop.
Jeremy Malcolm, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, discussed the genesis and evolution of the “Who Has Your Back?” report, which has evaluated US-based ICT companies’ adherence to US legal principles with respect to their domestic US operations. He noted that on several occasions, companies had made rapid improvements in order to earn additional stars in the report. The criteria are revised every year in order to raise the bar and induce companies to continually improve their performance. He further remarked that EFF had been working with organizations in four Latin American countries (Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Brazil) to develop similar projects, and that one other group (in Hong Kong) had developed a similar project independently.
Carolina Botero, of Fundación Karisma, shared her organization’s experience producing “¿Dónde están mis datos?,” which assesses Internet service providers (ISPs) in Colombia. She noted that disclosure of policies related to digital rights was very poor, and that many companies simply repeated the text of relevant legislation without explaining how they specifically responded to takedown notices or requests to block content. Companies were initially very frustrated by their inclusion in the report, despite Karisma’s best efforts to communicate with them throughout the process. Botero described that company representatives attending the report launch initially angrily accused Karisma of illegal behavior in publishing the report and insisted that they were in full compliance with Colombian law. But as the meeting progressed and the representatives came to understand that these kind of reports exist throughout the world, and that major companies like Google and Facebook were also being assessed in such rankings. The next iteration of the report will be published in May 2016.
The third discussant was Luca Belli, from the Terms of Service and Human Rights Project at the Center for Technology and Society. This project has been assessing the compatibility of 50 ICT companies’ Terms of Service agreements with international human rights standards. They are working on “model provisions” for what these agreements as best practice should look like, focusing on the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, as well as on due process. Access Now’s Peter Micek discussed his organization’s clearing house for corporate transparency reports, the Transparency Reporting Index. It encourages companies to release transparency reports at regular intervals.
Rebecca MacKinnon, of Ranking Digital Rights (RDR), noted that there is a real ecosystem that is developing around the issue of corporate accountability for digital rights, where different projects rely on and learn from each other’s work. The indicatorsfor the Corporate Accountability Index, which build on the UN Business and Human Rights framework as well as the GNI principles, fall under three categories: commitment, freedom of expression and privacy. The Index is based on publicly available information, which means that a company that “has a really great secret policy” would not earn any points in the Index.
MacKinnon provided a run-down of the Index’s results, emphasizing that the highest-scoring company only got a ‘D’. There is a real lack of clarity vis-a-vis users when it comes to how their data is collected and shared. It is apparent that the audience for many of the telecom company disclosures that do exist is government regulators, not users -- who are not all telecommunications lawyers, as MacKinnon emphasized.
Ankhi Das, Facebook’s policy director for South Asia, pointed to Facebook’s early embrace of transparency reporting, membership in the GNI, and practice of pushing back against 55% of government requests for information globally as evidence of her company’s commitment to respecting human rights. She also noted the importance of making key information available to users in their own language, something that was part of the RDR Index’s criteria.
Governments continue to bear primary responsibility for protecting human rights. Marcin de Kaminski, policy specialist at the Swedish International Development Agency, explained his agency’s work in the field of business and human rights, including their support for human rights promotion in developing countries, and their frequent dialogue with Swedish companies on human rights issues.
Cecille Soria of Demokrasya and Kelly Kim of OpenNet Korea discussed their plans for ranking ICT companies in their respective countries, the Philippines and South Korea. In both cases, there is a lack of awareness of how ICT companies’ activities relate to users’ human rights. As a result, the practice of transparency reporting is limited, though the Korean Internet company Kakao fared relatively well in the RDR Index, and scored the highest on several privacy indicators. Both discussants emphasized the need to encourage companies to start disclosing information before ranking can be considered.
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If there were presentations during the workshop session, please provide a 1-paragraph summary for each presentation:
There were no presentations during the workshop session, instead the discussants engaged in a conversation with each other and with the attendees. The discussion is summarized under question 18.
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Please describe any participant suggestions regarding the way forward/ potential next steps/ key takeaways (3 paragraphs):
1) Transparency reporting from Internet companies is a growing practice, thanks in large part to pressure and guidance from civil society.
2) There are many useful approaches to this pressure and guidance, and the various projects in this space constitute an ecosystem whose strength is greater than the sum of its parts
3) Follow up actions include increased coordination between the various ranking/accountability projects and the creation of a research network for academics and others who want to either contribute to future iterations of the RDR Index or use its raw data in their own actions
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Estimate the overall number of the participants present at the session:
There were about 65 people present at the session, not including the 9 discussants. Additionally, the YouTube video was viewed 49 times as of November 17.
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Estimate the overall number of women present at the session:
About half of the participants were women
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To what extent did the session discuss gender equality and/or women’s empowerment?
It was mentioned briefly in the presentations and discussions
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If the session addressed issues related to gender equality and/or women’s empowerment, please provide a brief summary of the discussion:
One participant asked whether the Ranking Digital Rights Corporate Accountability Index included measures related to gender. Peter Micek replied that Access Now has been looking into the diversity of tech companies’ staff, including gender diversity. The characteristics of the people who make decisions within a company influence the decisions companies make. MacKinnon added that the Index’s methodology had to be kept as narrow as possible in order to be feasible, and that by necessity a number of important themes (gender but also children, terrorism, and LGBT rights) were omitted. Moreover, the Index’s focus on disclosure about all kinds of company policies will hopefully lead to more clarity with respect to how companies deal with these kinds of issues, including violence against women.
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