GPPi co-hosts workshop on internet governance in Sao Paulo
Together with the Rio Institute for Technology & Society
and in cooperation with the Network of Interdisciplinary Internet & Society Research Centers, GPPi co-hosted a workshop on internet governance on 22 April 2014 in São Paulo that assembled experts to discuss what Brazil and Germany can do together to foster an open, free and secure internet.
The event took place in advance of NETmundial, a global multi-stakeholder meeting in Brazil on April 23 and 24 about the future of internet governance. Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff called for the conference last fall following the leaks of US surveillance activities.
The off-the-record morning workshop focused on debates around internet policy in Brazil and Germany. Participants identified norms of internet governance that both countries share, in particular the right to privacy, and sought to pinpoint areas of collaboration going forward.
GPPi’s Thorsten Benner, Tim Maurer, Oliver Read and Oliver Stuenkel participated in the morning event. In his contribution, Thorsten Benner stressed that Germany and Brazil have a huge contribution to make leading by example and building coalitions around issues of privacy, surveillance and norm development in cybersecurity. Drawing on his recent research on “swing states,” Tim Maurer identified the governments with which Germany and Brazil could try to enter a coalition. Oliver Stuenkel stressed the need for Brazil to follow through on its commitment to norm entrepreneurship in the area of internet governance. Oliver Read moderated a panel on Germany’s internet policies.
Following the morning workshop was an afternoon session that was open to the general public and not specific to Brazil and Germany. Discussions reflected on the two key tasks of NETMundial: developing a set of guiding principles in a highly diverse internet governance system and developing a roadmap for the “globalization” of core internet governance modalities.
Among many others, participants during the day included: Dirk Brengelmann, Germany’s commissioner for international cyber policy; Detlev Dauke, director general of Germany’s federal ministry of economic affairs and energy; Carlos Afonso, board member of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee; Alessandro Molon, member of Brazil’s national congress and rapporteur on Marco Civil; Jeanette Hofmann, director at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society; Markus Beckedahl, blogger at netzpolitik.org; Frank La Rue, UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Monroe Price, director of the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School; Erika Mann, director of public policy in Brussels at Facebook; Vint Cerf, chief internet evangelist for Google; and Urs Gasser, director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
Ronaldo Lemos and Carlos Affonso de Souza, directors of the Rio Institute for Technology and Society, were GPPi’s key Brazilian partners for the event. Both were closely involved in the process that led to a landmark law called Marco Civil da Internet, providing a civil rights framework for internet users in Brazil.
The event was sponsored by Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee and the International Development Research Centre.
Learn more about GPPi’s Global Internet Politics program.