insight 

On Thursday we held an interactive workshop about the key issues on Internet governance from a UK perspective. It was a surprisingly well-attended and really productive session. Several key messages emerged from the discussions which we will now be sharing alongside several examples of best practice in Internet governance from the UK at the next IGF in Rio in November.

Some of the key learning points we plan to share are as follows:

• There is a lot of overlap between three of the IGF themes: access, openness and diversity.
• The theme of security is particularly broad, and could benefit from being broken down further into sub-categories.
• It is our responsibility to share the successes and challenges demonstrated by the winners and runners-up in Nominet’s Best Practice Challenge with other nations. There are a lot of encouraging examples of innovation, creativity and determination to overcome obstacles faced by less developed countries.
• It was interesting that from a show of hands at the event, the majority of people present felt that the most relevant IGF theme from a UK perspective was security. When asked to consider what the key theme would be from an international perspective the majority voted for access, with security a close second.
• Diversity will be a critical issue on the Rio agenda as the world grapples with how to empower many different cultures and minorities on the Internet.
• In terms of openness, we can share excellent examples of self-regulatory codes of practice, as demonstrated by the Internet Watch Foundation with regard to policing images of child abuse on the Internet.

At the event Alun Michael MP, who was Chair of the Judges Panel for the Best Practice Challenge, laid out three possible routes forward for Internet Governance. The first was to leave it to companies and countries to do their own thing (which he dubbed the ‘Wild West option’); the second was to go for ‘international ownership’ through a bureaucratic ‘UN Agency’ approach; and the third was a partnership approach based on self-regulation which he advocated as the best way forward. We consider this to be one of the most significant messages for the IGF in Rio,

Overall this event demonstrated that we have a wealth of examples to share of how self-regulation works in practice in the UK. We hope that other countries will be inspired by and are able to learn from the UK’s best practice and leadership in this area.