Report prepared by Ms Diana Scobioală (Moldova)
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on the 4 edition of the European dialogue on internet governance (EuroDig)
Belgrade (Serbia), 30-31 May 2011
The 4th edition of EuroDig (European dialogue on internet governance) was held on 30-
31 May 2011 in Belgrade, Serbia. EuroDig is an open platform for informal and inclusive discussion and
exchange on public policy issues related to Internet Governance (IG) between stakeholders from all over
Europe. It was created in 2008 by a number of key stakeholders representing various European
stakeholder groups working in the field of IG.
This event brought together about 500 representatives from all stakeholder groups and regions
across Europe, almost twice the participants of the previous meeting held in Madrid, a year ago.
The programme of these 2 days was intense and presented a number of challenging issues.
Following an opening session on the value of internet for democracy (a tool or a trap?), there were 8
thematic workshops and four plenary sessions organized by open-ended groups of interested European
stakeholders.
I mainly participated in 2 workshops, which were: WS-1 on Data protection and WS-5 on
Freedom of expression and hate speech.
The first workshop, “The privacy standards that we want”, treated the theme of Data
protection. The key issues were: data autonomy, effectiveness and, freedom and privacy in service
driven architectures.
So, in regard to data autonomy: right to oblivion and consent, was underlined as a common
feature for both issues, the need to raise the awareness of the users on their rights, as much as on the
consequences of their actions, and the functioning of the system they are using. This should be a shared
responsibility between public authorities, industry and civil society. The right to oblivion should be
safeguarded and give users who publish their personal data on internet the possibility to have it deleted.
Meanwhile the consent cannot be the sole legal basis to the data processing as it is not always
necessary, and as it may not necessarily be free. Individuals have in any case to be informed on the data
processing (purpose, duration, etc) either to give an informed consent or in order to exercise their right
to control.
Effectiveness was analyzed in the context of global standards and the chain of actors: the
multiplicity and lack of transparency of layers of actors involved in the design and implementation of
equipment and data processing, and the variety in jurisdictions, imply that users might not be as
protected as they should and agreeing on common values and principles at global level, taking into
account the possible regional differences, would enhance users’ protection. Here it was recalled that
respect of privacy and personal data is a human right which has to be protected by all those who
process data.
The third issue discussed in this workshop was freedom and privacy in service driven
architectures: behavioral targeting, search engines and social networks. Since data increasingly appears
to be the price users pay for the services, users should be given a real choice to give away their data, or
on the contrary to object to the collection and processing of their data. The trust relationship between
businesses and users was underlined, as this trust is a vital element of the continuity of the business.
The fifth workshop, “Freedom of expression (FoE) and hate speech- the dilemma of reconciling
FoE with combating racism”, was another difficult attempt at squaring the circle and gave rise to a
heated debate. These concepts does not mix well, and there are different ideas of their relative
importance.
Matters are made worse by differing national definitions of hate speech, of which examples
were given. Even though there are internationally accepted principles, full harmonization is as
impossible as criminalization of the denial of the Armenian genocide in Turkey. It was pointed out that
the Cybercrime convention of the Council of Europe is open to all. The Council of Europe has taken
specific initiatives for promoting restrictions on hate speech and tolerance education. There should be
more emphasis on the latter. The role of education, rather than legislation, was stressed, as well as the
importance of starting early, as children are getting online. Attempts to make service providers and
other intermediaries responsible for preventing hate speech were seen as a disturbing development.
South-East European television news exchange (ERNO) was presented as an example of positive
incentives being used to turn ”something for which hate speech is a mild expression” into successful
cooperation among broadcasters. After the session, an online participant raised (by e-mail) the
perspective of different platforms (YouTube, Twitter etc.) adopting different rules and creating a new
geography of cyberspace with new jurisdictional problems.
As I mentioned above, there took place four plenary sessions, as follows: New business, Cyber
security, New Media and Privacy. “New business” was about new and emerging Internet services and
business models which will meet the increasing demand of the customers to be always online, especially
either for video streaming or downloading. “Cyber security” discussed about “cleaning up businesses
and infrastructures”. There were seven main issues addressed here: strategic and policy planning by
governments, resilience of infrastructure, awareness, responsibility, capacity building, cooperation and
next steps. Probably most valuable of all remain to be next steps which need to be followed. “New
Media” focused on ways to identify which services and activities should (or should not) be considered to
be media in the new environment and how media regulation could be adapted to enable – old and new
– media to perform their role in democratic societies, usually understood as to provide a space for
public debate and political dialogue, shape and influence public opinion, promote values, facilitate
scrutiny and increase transparency, provide education, entertainment, cultural and artistic expression,
to create jobs and generate income. Finally, but not least important, “Privacy, anonymity and identity”
struggled with the need of guaranteeing privacy and data protection in state-sponsored applications for
the safety and security of citizens, but also for building confidence and trust in such applications.
Governments, therefore, need to create and use trusted reliable identities, so that they ensure the
integrity, security and non-repudiation of the identity data used. Key issues were: citizens rights and
control of personal data, registration authorities and ID Assurance, rights and responsibilities of ID
Providers, privacy and anonymity v. security : the balancing act.