Session
Organizer 1: Jyoti Panday, 🔒Internet Governance Project
Speaker 1: Alison Gillwald, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 2: Pramod Varma, Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Anriette Esterhuysen, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 4: Luca Belli, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 5: Nikhil Pahwa, Civil Society
Milton Mueller, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Jyoti Panday, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Jyoti Panday, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Theater
Duration (minutes): 90
Format description: Since this is a relatively topic in internet governance we want to allow experts enough time to lay out the issues while also engaging the audience. The workshop is organized as a 90 minute session which will include 30 minutes of presentations from select panelists and 45 minutes for debate and discussion which will be moderated. 15 minutes will be allocated for questions, answers, and contributions from the audience. The theater format will enable the audience to feel more involved in the structured debate.
What are the varying definitions of DPIs across jurisdictions? What are the specific values, design features and functions that allow for classification of systems as DPIs? What are the gaps in existing models in balancing innovation, economic growth and human rights? How can we ensure the institutional frameworks keep pace with the changing role of state-market collaboration and advances in technical capabilities of networks and platforms? What could be the respective role of regulation and industry self-regulation in enhancing trust in DPIs and helping them scale? How can we enhance multi-stakeholder cooperation in this space to facilitate knowledge-sharing and collaboration?
What will participants gain from attending this session? The workshop will be an opportunity to discuss IGP's ongoing research on the evolution of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in India and its impact on governance of digital technologies and markets. By bringing together experts that are involved in the development and introduction of DPIs, a key aim is to develop a shared understanding of the term “digital public infrastructure” and unpack its link to the concept of “digital sovereignty”. Presentations from participants will facilitate comparison of various approaches, and help identify shared opportunities, challenges and learnings. Panelists will reflect on the rise of state-market collaboration related to DPIs and what are some of the trade-offs associated with this development. Attention will be drawn to the impact of the emergence of DPIs on governance of data. The workshop aims to gain consensus across various approaches towards arriving at a common principles-based framework for the development of DPIs.
Description:
"Digital public infrastructure" (DPI) is an approach or strategy for building large-scale networks, platforms or services to mediate key processes or functionality essential for operating in the digital economy. DPIs are transforming the global economy, impacting business practices and have altered relations between state, market and citizens. The emergence of DPIs like identity and authentication or interoperable payments systems have blurred the differences between public and private sector, traditional and new economies, tradable and non-tradable products, and between goods and services. They have created new avenues for the development of norms and standards for trust, security, and competition. Issues such as domestic and cross-border flows of data, intellectual property rights, data protection, digital security are being shaped and advanced through DPIs. The advancement of DPIs is happening even as legitimate concerns about their impact on trust, security and competition in the digital economy remain unexplored and unaddressed. Rapid development and deployment of DPIs also has profound implications in terms of disrupting traditional sectors and businesses. Another risk raised by DPIs which are rooted in digital sovereignty is that it could lead to fragmentation. Control of the institutional arrangements and technical architecture of DPIs, and its usage creates discrete spaces of data and transactions, which can encourage and enable governments to pursue a sovereignty based agenda. Delays in reform, and rise in protectionism could hinder the adoption and expansion of DPI and nationalistic policies, if embraced elsewhere, could encourage their replication and extension into new arenas. Given the economic, political, social impact of DPIs it is important to think through their development and create avenues for oversight. This workshop explores a robust governance approach for DPIs that goes beyond regulations and actively engages stakeholders to enhance the accountability and integrity of DPIs and the entities involved in their creation and utilization.
This proposal calls for a moderated debate and discussion that will bring together experts from US, Brazil, India and EU. We seek to identify shared principles, baseline standards for the development of DPIs to avoid internet fragmentation. We will also explore the concessions that states and markets will have to make if DPIs are to scale globally. Through this workshop we hope to contribute to an institutional framework for DPIs that is consistent with the multistakeholder approach and with the principles of an open Internet.
Hybrid Format: Once it is known that the proposal has been accepted by the MAG, the organizers will begin preparing the speakers by holding several online pre-meetings to facilitate engagement between online and onsite speakers. Advance preparation of this kind improves the quality of the interactions. During the workshop, apart from assigning a slot for online speakers we will ensure, they are given an opportunity to respond to discussions as well as highlight the steps being taken to address issues being raised. An open mic session follows the main session to enable the onsite and online participants from other countries to join the conversation and present their experiences, opinions, suggestions, etc., on how to move the discussion forward and identify action areas. To broaden participation, social media (Twitter and Facebook) will also be employed and online moderators will be charged with distilling the discussion using a dedicated hashtag.