Top 10 Emerging Challenges for 2010: Issue 8

Ensuring freedom of expression, privacy and security on the Internet

Billions of people use the Internet each day. Security, openness and privacy on the Internet have become critical issues as a result of the explosive growth in online traffic around the world. The implications for human rights are enormous and will require further engagement between governments, business and civil society in the years ahead.

New multi-stakeholder efforts are seeking to address the myriad challenges involved. The Internet Governance Forum, established to support the United Nations Secretary-General in carrying out the mandate from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), is a new multi-stakeholder space for policy dialogue in this area. In its first years of existence, the IGF has addressed a range of issues from ways to accelerate the availability and affordability of the Internet in the developing world to addressing valid security measures and those established by governments to collect data for control and suppression.

Companies in the Information & Communications Technology (ICT) sector are on the front lines of this emerging issue and face government pressure in some countries to comply with domestic laws and policies which may conflict with internationally recognized human rights standards relating to freedom of expression and privacy. The growth in social networking and other online sharing of information is also a challenge for the industry, as it may put individuals, particularly children, at risk as targets for identity theft and other forms of abuse.

An important multi-stakeholder effort to tackle such challenge is the Global Network Initiative, set up in 2008 by a group of companies, civil society organizations (including human rights and press freedom groups), investors and academics. The Initiative has sought to shape a collaborative approach to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector, and participants are now putting in place the structures that will carry the work forward in the years ahead.

These and other initiatives will test the extent to which the Internet can truly become a space which ensures security but also confidentiality, integrity and availability of information in a global environment.