DataPrivacyBR¹ and the Internet Integrity Task Force, IITF², in collaboration with CircleID and IGF recently held 2 online events focusing on digital citizenship, governance, and a digital bill of rights and responsibilities.

A diverse group of high-level presenters and speakers³ spanning all stakeholder groups, addressed questions such as:

• What are the foundational principles that define and protect the rights and responsibilities of digital citizenship?
• Do existing internet governance models take digital rights sufficiently into account?
• Are there alternatives to business models that are based on digital exploitation and servitude?
• Why do we need a digital Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and how can it be created?

Analysis and insight from the discussion of these questions strengthen the roles of persons, society, government, and business in securing digital integrity and trust in our digital futures.

Digital technologies make the world truly global and need to be guided by fundamental universal human values that transcend our differences. The required common principles and values are commonly expressed as a “Charter” or “Bill of Rights.” They are the foundations upon which respective governance mechanisms get established.

At the current stage of Internet governance, this process has not occurred in any meaningful way. Therefore, rights of engagement, and the rights and responsibilities of our digital residency, as digital citizens remain unclear.

This event described the role and function of a digital Bill of Rights and looks at the role of digital rights in the past, the present, and in our future. A round table of experts discussed the role and implementation of digital rights from the point of view of different stakeholder groups, coming to key conclusions such as:

• The age-old struggle to establish/extent our civil rights must be extended into cyberspace.
• The general technical consensus that enables the interoperability of Cyberspace needs to be complemented by political consensus.
• Digital citizenship requires extensive awareness and capacity building of all involved.
• The digital economy needs a new kind of innovation worth investing in.
• We urgently need an extensive, all-inclusive dialogue to formulate a common Bill of digital Rights and responsibilities. More important than the discussion about in which organizational framework such a dialogue is taking place is the principle that it is based on the fundamental values as expressed by the UDHR. The IITF pledges to continue to be the space where open and inclusive dialogue, awareness and capacity building place based on the fundamental values of the UDHR can take place.

Watch the Event Recordings

Related Slides

A Bill of Digital Rights and Responsibilities by Klaus Stoll
Digital Rights as the Foundation of a New Digital Economy by Klaus Stoll
Digital Citizenship: Right and Responsibilities by Sam Lanfranco
Digital Rights Today and in the Future by Sam Lanfranco