The UK Internet Governance Forum is the national internet governance forum for the United Kingdom.
Internet Governance Forums (IGFs) are an initiative led by the United Nations for the discussion of public policy issues relating to the internet. A key distinguishing feature of IGFs is that they are based on the multi-stakeholder model – all sectors of society meet as equals to exchange ideas and discuss best practices.
The purpose of IGFs is to facilitate a common understanding of how to maximise the opportunities of the internet whilst mitigating the risks and challenges that the internet presents.
The UK IGF has a steering committee and secretariat. The committee members can be found here and the secretariat function is provided by Nominet, the UK’s national domain name registry.
If you are interested in contributing to the UK IGF, please contact [email protected].
LATEST ANNOUNCEMENTS
Follow-up on Digital Cooperation Architecture
The High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation (HLPDC) submitted the report “The Age of Digital Interdependence” to the UN Secretary-General on 10 June 2019. It describes a world which is more deeply interconnected than ever before as a result of digital technology, yet is struggling to manage the economic, social, cultural and political impacts of the digital transformation. The Panel’s report makes recommendations emphasising the importance of leaving no one behind in the digital age and on how digital cooperation and technology can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on issues of human rights, human agency, trust and security in the digital age, and with special regard to the critical issue of artificial intelligence.
In Recommendation 5 A/B, the report also calls for a strengthened architecture for global digital cooperation. It identifies gaps and challenges in current arrangements, proposes three potential options for governance architecture and calls upon the UN Secretary-General to set up an agile and open Multi-stakeholder consultation process to develop updated mechanisms for global digital cooperation, using the options proposed by the Panel as a starting point.
The office of the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General, the Governments of Germany and the United Arab Emirates were named as “Champions” to facilitate this follow-up process on the recommendations related to the Digital Cooperation Architecture. In this role, all three “Champions” jointly act as coordinators of a broader Multi-stakeholder consultation, involving a diverse spectrum of actors, such as governments, civil society, academics, technologists, and the private sector. This process seeks to substantiate the ideas proposed in the report by convening stakeholders and gathering perspectives, identifying values, principles, understandings and objectives, and by being highly diverse, enabling inclusiveness and fostering regional balance.
The goal is to develop an “Options Paper”, which is to be delivered to the UN Secretary-General by summer 2020.
Survey – for regional IGF communities: deadline 21 May 2020
The national and regional IGFs formed a task force and developed a survey to provide input on Recommendation 5A/B of the Report of the High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation.
This survey focusses on the IGF Plus model that was one of the suggested architectures. All stakeholder, may they be individuals, organisation, governments, the industry or NRI coordinators, are invited to answer the survey until 21 May.
It is important to deliver this input to the Co-Champions, the Governments of Germany and the United Arab Emirates that are facilitating the follow-up process on the recommendations related to the Digital Cooperation Architecture.
Background
In July 2018, UN Secretary-General António Guterres established the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. Co-chaired by Melinda Gates and Jack Ma, the Panel consisted of 22 international experts from government, the private sector, academia, the technical community and civil society. Its goal was to identify good examples and propose modalities for working cooperatively across sectors, disciplines and borders to address challenges in the digital age. On 10 June, the Panel submitted the report to the UN Secretary General. You can find the report and further information here.