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<font face="Verdana">Hi All<br>
<br>
Over the last 6 days I was at the Asia Pacific (AP) Forum on
Sustainable Development, which is an annual event of the Asia
Pacific's Regional UN Commission ( UN Economic and Social
Commission for the Asia Pacific) ..There is a civil society
network of over 250 AP civil society organisations, called the AP
Regional CSOs (Civil Society Organisations) Engagement Mechanism,
which met for three days prior to the official forum. <br>
<br>
The Science and Technology constituency of this civil society
network prepared a constituency statement, which has a part on
Internet/ data issues. It also gave a shorter statement to the
official forum. Both are enclosed.<br>
<br>
Excerpts from the shorter statement submitted to the official
Forum<br>
<br>
(begins)</font><br>
The Agenda 2030 puts
emphasis on the development and use of data in service of the SDGs.
Data is not only a resource but a vital reality structuring people's
lives, choices and opportunities today. Vast amounts of data are now
held by big businesses unwilling to share the same to public
agencies
for public interest purposes. The socialisation of all data from
people's digital social interactions and its use in public interest
is a precondition for reaching the SDGs. Such data should by default
be publicly owned, with transparent collection methodologies and
well-defined regulatory frameworks for collecting private firms.
There should be in place ethical standards in the collation and
dissemination of data that adhere to gender equality and women’s
rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights,
communication rights, right to privacy and equal access to
knowledge.
<br>
(ends)<br>
<br>
Internet/ data related issues from the longer constituency statement<br>
<br>
(begins)<br>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%"><b>1.3.5.
Corporatisation of ICTs, Internet and big data; and reclaiming
them
as a global commons
</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">Internet, as its
name suggests, is nothing but people inter-connected, without the
hierarchies of technical and institutional mediation. As a
platform
that connects people, the Internet should be governed
democratically
and appropriated by countries and communities as a powerful force
for equality and social justice. The Internet today is however
greatly commodified, with corporations mediating people's
relationships, surveilling them, and predicting and controlling
their behaviour, in pursuit of profits. Instead of bringing people
to new frontiers of self determination, digital innovation is
captured within the walled gardens of software applications that
serve the interests of their corporate
owners. Though derived from public laboratories, Internet
technologies are today almost entirely privatised. In fact, even
their governance is privatised, in the hands of the Internet
industry itself.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">The Internet must
be
freed. It should be governed democratically, towards egalitarian
outcomes. Internet platforms must be collaborative spaces,
controlled
by their users. Big data should be owned by and employed for the
best interests of the people, to whom such data originally
belongs.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">Recent developments
indicate that abuse of biometrics, DNA profiling and other
invasive
technologies combined with big data for profit, surveillance and
invasion of privacy without any safeguards - such as unique
identity
platforms like Aadhar in India – are emerging as serious threats
(in South Asia at least – encompassing India, Pakistan, Bangladesh
and Nepal). This potential abuse of science and science based
technologies – in the name of promoting development - needs to be
questioned and resisted.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">The SDGs document
puts great emphasis on the use of big data, and on strengthening
of national statistical
agencies for better employment of data in the service of the SDGs.
However, this
requires that countries must put in place the necessary
legislative
safeguards that guarantee people's rights with respect to their
data.
Data is not only a resource to be used for development. Data is a
vital reality structuring people's lives, choices and
opportunities
today. Of deep concern is the fact that 'public data' is held by
private corporations motivated purely by monopolistic control and
unwilling to share the same to public agencies for public interest
purposes. This undesirable situation requires that the basic issue
of who owns social data generated over digital 'social' platforms
be
addressed. Such data should by default be publicly owned, with the
collating private
corporation licensed to make limited profit-motivated use of it
within well-defined regulatory frameworks. The socialisation of
all
Internet-based big data that originates from people's digital
social
interactions over the Internet and its use in public interest is a
precondition for reaching the SDGs.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%">In this regard,
both
the Internet as the people's inter-connectivity infrastructure,
and
big data as the people's digital footprints over the Internet,
should be claimed and governed as a real commons.</p>
(ends)<br>
<br>
parminder <br>
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