Cooperation WG
Wednesday, 4 May 2011 ? 14:00
Co-Chair Maria Häll introduced the agenda. The minutes of the previous
Cooperation WG session were approved.
B. Internet Intermediaries ? Moderators: Paul Rendek, Patrik Fältström
- Introduction: Patrik Fältström
- Internet Intermediaries
- The human rights perspective
- Striking a balance between integrity/neutrality, law enforcement,
business
Niall O?Reilly noted the importance of understanding how these three
factors (neutrality, law enforcement and business) affect each other, and
that the ?best? balance between them may favour two out of three. Patrik
agreed that this was an important calculation, but one that is not widely
enough discussed.
Benedikt Stokkeland noted that there is a need for regulation in some
areas that is going unmet. He cited the example of ADSL providers
providing telephone services over ADSL, the reliability of which means it
cannot be a replacement for a standard telephone in an emergency
situation. He noted that ?Responsibility? is another axis that conflicts
with the money-making axis - there is a need to ensure people can?t be
sold something dangerous to them.
Olaf Kolkman suggested that ?Public benefit? is a plane that cuts through
this multi-plane structure in Patrik?s presentation. He also noted that in
the non-Internet space, much experience has already been gained in
balancing law enforcement and freedom/openness. In terms of regulation,
there is a need to make available technology that is of public benefit in
the long-term, and this should contribute to decision-making.
Jim Reid argued that ?Public benefit? can mean many things ? RIPE may
differ with the Chinese Government on what is constitutes ?public
benefit?. He also noted that there are additional dimensions added to the
calculation by ?alliances? between those different positions, and cited
the UK, where ISPs challenged a law to make ISPs enforce laws, a decision
based on their own business case, rather than in the interests of
?freedom?. Patrik added that different definitions of ?lawful? around the
world also pose a problem.
Wout de Natris suggested that this discussion demonstrates that all
stakeholders are still learning how to work together, but that this
cooperation will be vital in ensuring that when there is a crisis,
governments do not ?panic? in responding.
Constanze Bürger emphasised the need for awareness, and suggested that
governments have a responsibility to ensure that the freedom of the
Internet is not abused, but that regulation may not be the best tool for
this.
Patrik Fältström noted the lack of harmonization of positions even within
governments, and that often, within a government, there is one group
talking about opennesss and another group talking about cybercrime issues,
each coming to different conclusions for Internet policy.
Maria Häll asked whether it is actually desirable to have a different
legal framework for the online world.
Edmund Juskevicius, of Industry Canada, noted that the Internet tends to
work pretty well most of the time, and asked how has this sort of
cooperation been done up to this point. Patrik noted that there has been
work done in some areas from an EU regulatory perspective, but there has
been a more general lack of focus, and this is now starting to change.
Paul Rendek also noted the greater interest being taken by international
organisations like the OECD, with whom the RIPE NCC is working as part of
the Internet Technical Advisory Committee.
Malcolm Hutty highlighted the importance of government participation in
developing cooperative relationships, and noted that this has often been
lacking. In terms of the larger question of liability, he noted that there
are people who break laws, through content or activity, and people want
that stopped, and that this situation raises certain questions: what is
the mechanism for doing this? If it is through intermediaries, what are
the checks? Can private sector intermediaries act as law enforcement
agencies, that is call in evidence, witnesses etc.? While such a solution
may look attractive to stakeholders dealing with a large number of
complaints, it would mean a very different system of justice for the
online world. It is government?s role to create these definitions and
balance the needs of law enforcement agencies against citizens? rights.
Malcolm suggested that at this point, governments are only hearing from
the complainants, and they need to take a more balanced view on such
issues.
Niall O?Reilly emphasised that it is governments that must face this
responsibility and that there must be some kind of evidence-based review.
He noted that in terms of the Internet, it will be impossible to predict
the results of new policies without some kind of evidence-based review and
discussion.
Aleksi Suhonen highlighted the case of Finland?s child porn filter and the
unforeseen consequences of this policy, which can serve as a warning case.
He also noted that many operators are multi-national and therefore need to
navigate different, often competing legislations, which can be very
difficult.
Toomas Lepik noted that the Palestinian government would like to turn off
some Autonomous Systems from the routing path.
Constanze Bürger argued that it is necessary to discuss these issues, and
that the Internet poses real challenges in terms of borders,
self-regulation and democracy. She noted that laws are not the only
solution, and that government needs to look to other sectors for solutions
as well.
C. Update on European Union Activities:
Data Retention Directive ? Patrik Fältström
Jochem de Ruig of the RIPE NCC asked about law enforcement and data
retention, and noted that law enforcement agencies (LEAs) have concerns
regarding IPv6 and the logs that ISPs keep regarding assignments and
allocations. Patrik noted that the first issue knowing which ISP is using
which IP address, which comes back to the quality of the RIPE Database. He
pointed out that some parties have argued we need something other than RIR
databases, and for this reason he is wary of making changes to policy that
will affect data quality in the RIR databases. If you find the ISP, the
issue is then what is the responsibility of the ISP? At the moment, most
existing regulation says that the ISP must know who had which IP address
at a given time.
It was noted that there are often different rules for IP, cell and
fixed-line telephony, and this is problematic. Maria Häll and Patrik
Fältström noted that Sweden has made a proposal (not implemented) that is
technology neutral, but this is not reflected in the Directive. Patrik
believes, though, that the people working on this in the Commission would
like the revised Directive to be technology neutral.
European Critical Infrastructure Directive ? Kurt Erik Lindqvist, Chris
Buckridge
Kurt Erik (Kurtis) Lindqvist and Chris Buckridge presented a brief summary
of the discussions currently going on around the revision of the European
Critical Infrastructure Directive, and the possibility that it will be
expanded to cover the ICT sector.
Leo Vegoda asked if the Directive intended to apply to organisations based
in EU. Kurtis responded that it was his understanding that the Directive
targets physical assets rather than organisations.
Maria asked, given the closed nature of the EC discussions to date,
whether there is a problem in terms of lack of information flowing between
the different stakeholder groups. Kurtis acknowledged that an open
discussion such as would happen at a RIPE Meeting would be preferable, but
that it is a positive step that the Commission has reached out and invited
a wide range of industry and technical community representatives to
contribute to the discussion.
Kurtis also gave a brief account of the recent critical infrastructure
discussions held in Hungary, and the joint EU-US work that is being done.
Jaap Akkerhuis noted that while the Directive talks about cross-border
issues, there is a feeling that national telco industries don't talk to
each other and are isolated. He also noted that for most telcos, borders
don't really exist apart from regulation. Kurtis noted that the point of
the work in this area is that physical assets clearly affect more than one
country. While the industry can route around many borders and obstacles,
however, the cable infrastructure demonstrates that there are limits to
this. He noted that the Directive talks about infrastructure that affects
more than 2 member states
D. Update on Council of Europe Activities ? Wolfgang Kleinwächter
Chris Buckridge gave a quick update on the work being done by in the
Council of Europe on a set of Principles for Internet Governance,
particularly the conference held in April that brought together a wide
range of stakeholders to discuss the issue. This work is ongoing.
Maria Häll commended the important work being done by the Council of
Europe.
E. CSTD WG Update ? Nurani Nimpuno
Nurani Nimpuno provided an overview of the work being done in the Working
Group convened by the UN?s Commission on Science and Technology for
Development (CSTD) to examine ways to improve the IGF. While initially
composed only of government representatives, there was a concerted push
for greater multistakeholder involvement, and Nurani was selected as one
of the five technical community representatives.
Nurani noted that the initial meeting turned out to not be very
substantive, though it was clear that there are very diverging views on
the issues. A second meeting in Geneva also failed to produce a report,
and the WG?s report will now be written by the Chair. The technical
community representatives have stated their objection to this outcome, as
it places this back in the hands of Member States alone.
Nurani noted that the technical and business communities have failed to
some extent in reaching out to the civil society stakeholders, and that
better coordination between these groups will be important moving forward.
Maria Häll noted that this whole process is an attempt to make the
multistakeholder model work on a global level.
Constanze Bürger noted that it was difficult to convince some in
government of the value of participating in the IGF, but noted that the
regional and national IGFs can be very useful in this regard. Nurani agree
on the need to more effectively demonstrate the value of the IGF to all
stakeholders.
F. ICANN GAC Update - Maria Häll
Maria Häll gave an update on the activities of the ICANN Governmental
Advisory Committee (GAC), noting that has grown to 109 members. The issue
of new gTLDs has been the major area of activity for the GAC over recent
months, and the GAC has been working with the Board and community to
resolve a range of issues identified in a ?Scorecard?.
Z. AOB
Steve Nash noted that while there has clearly a lot of work going on in
this area, the working group?s mailing list has been virtually silent, and
it would be great to see more discussion on the list. Maria agreed, and
noted the Working Group Co-Chairs will be working to improve this over the
coming weeks and months.
Wout de Natris pointed out that few government people were in attendance,
and that the technical community members need to take these specific
topics to their relevant government people and challenge them to take
part. He also noted, in response to an earlier point from Malcolm Hutty,
that the Internet poses one significant difference for law enforcement to
their usual work: when you track someone down on the Internet, you may
have to go to addresses where the actual perpetrator isn?t there, only a
hosting provider with a command-and-control centre for that network. This
has major implications for obtaining evidence, and establishing a
framework for how this works is a role for government and law enforcement.
Jim Reid noted that it is clear that government representatives are not
taking part in RIPE Meetings in great numbers, and it might be necessary
to change tack. He suggested that it might be useful for more community
members to take part in the RIPE NCC Roundtable Meetings. Paul Rendek
thanked Jim for the suggestion. He noted that while the Roundtable
Meetings are deliberately closed, to facilitate government participation,
it may be useful to invite more community members to contribute, and the
RIPE NCC will look into this option.
Maria Häll closed the meeting.
Best, Patrik and Maria
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