The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Berlin, Germany, from 25 to 29 November 2019. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? If you can hear me, you can show your pen. Can you hear me?
>> Louder.
>> MODERATOR: So I would ask you to ‑‑
(Laugh)
>> MODERATOR: I would like to ask you to take your seat, and we are going to start. S'il vous plait. We still have some people that want to go out. I see some people that want to come in. Take your seat, and we are going to start this session.
Thank you.
So this ‑‑ this afternoon we to have a feature on the feature of internet governance, and that's a session that we are going to manage, I think.
My name is Antoine Venn. I'm with Smithsonian Public. And what we do as an organization is engaging ordinary citizens into governance questions. But today I'll be the moderator of that panel, and I'm really happy and proud to do that so thank you
We will talk about the future of international governance and European stakeholders in the future.
You have the possibility to react and give a vision and the tool through Slidor. You've been using it in the past day, I'm sure. We will have it on the stage at a later stage, and it's an open question on how you see that, and we invite you to give some words and comments on that.
The panel today we'll starred request Andrea Bocelli.
(Laugh)
>> MODERATOR: So I'm French. I'm not speaking Italian.
Andrea you are the director of second engage at ICANN, and you represent the technical community. Welcome today on this panel.
We'll then have Olivia Branchier next generation digitech. It's around international organization and organizer of this open forum.
We have Maria Pavoleti welcome. She's at Aetna, which is of a European telecommunication network operation and representing the private sector today.
And lest but not we have Julia in Berlin. The social science in Berlin and here as part of the group of academia.
Hello, everyone.
We will start by a question, which I will ask my panelists. You will have reaction from them, and you keep your question and reactions also for later when we have had first round of answers, we will open the floor to the comments and the futures of international ‑‑
We will step in directly with Julia, and I will ask you a question around the appeal of the media stakeholder model of governance. We have seen last year in Paris. And, again, this year in Berlin that internet governance and IGF attracts more and more high‑level interest and political intervention, and we had more than 5,000 people register for this year, so what does that mean?
Does it mean IGF is becoming a mainstream model or go‑to platform for discussion on the future of internet governance? Or is it the beginning in the end in a way, and it's been more and more captured by some of the actors and players or even become some kind of tourist attraction while you visit and go to talk about internet governance, Julia?
>> First of all, thank you for the question. Thank you for having me on this panel and what I believe is a very crucial role of the European stakeholders in the internet governance. Coming to your question, my short answer is no. It's none of these things that you mentioned. I don't think the IGF is becoming mainstream. I don't think it's becoming a tourist attraction. Mainstream, even though we think ‑‑ and we see that how many people are involved we still have to realize that we are a minority. The people who really actively try to shape internet governance or the digital transformation is still a minority also among policymakers, and I don't think the IGF is at risk to become captured. It also always been addressed becoming captured it's vulnerable in that way, but I think in the last 10 or 15 years has shown it has a very strong resistance in its institutional structure, so I don't think there's a risk. That's the short answer.
But the long answer I think there's another reason why we see this high‑interest by politicians, by policymakers, and we also see these high number of attendance at the IGF and maybe an interest in other internet governance venues, and this is because we're at the moment of transition. And citizens who look for ideas and exchange for ideas and input for orientation, maybe all confirmation of their ideas, maybe very similar to the idea of governance and the world summit and the first internet governance forums with the difference that we now do have established institutions where this exchange can take place, and there's are several reasons why I see this moment of transition.
The first reason for the first 10, 20 years internet governance had a very specific common objective, which is the protection of the open, free, transparent and, you know, all the adjectives, so it was the protection of this open infrastructure and due to the nature of the applications and services surrounding all this infrastructure. And there might have been struggles ‑‑ what it means open, transparent, and so on, it also has struggles how to achieve, but we all still believed in this goal, and we all tried to achieve this goal.
And in the last years I think many policymakers and people involved in internet governance have kind of lost this goal or the belief in these goals. It has to do with the scandals we have seen over the last several years. Cam breakage analytics, and so on, and it also has to do with the platformization the datafication, civilians, capitalists, and there are many thinkers who have put great names or these different phenomenon, so I don't have to explain them. We have the belief in the open transparent inclusive internet and applications this ‑‑ in some way could lead us to some kind of depression and in our research on international internet policy we can see it has a cooling‑down effect on nonstate activism and in digital policy and international policy but in what is some way a positive as well as another transition taking place which gives us some more hope, and that's the transition from what I see as internet governance to digital governance.
So many of us are clearly aware of this transition, but I think we don't name it often enough often when we talk about internet governance we don't talk about the same things than we talked about 15 years ago, so the issues we discussed today and in the name of internet governance go far understand are beyond the internet structure and the applications and services so concrete examples could be if you talk about automated driving systems or the localization of how related data ‑‑ we do not necessarily talk about the characteristics of an open, transparent, and so on internet anymore.
It goes beyond this level of the internet. It really goes into the digital transformation, which is not simply a transfer commission or economic process it's real societal transformation which affects all levels of society and really puts into question all the demonstrative underpinnings in our democratic societies and all societies around the world, so this means today when we think about digital governance, we cannot simply refer to the same values, norms and principles we had over the last 15 years, but we need to reflect anew ‑‑ or maybe not new but other values, principles and norms, and we need to agree on this new principle, and we to have exchange ideas.
So to sum up, I see that the intense interest we have in these venues as the IGF by politicians, high‑level politicians but also by normal attendance and nonsector, it has to do with the moment of transition and a moment of disorientation maybe, and it's ‑‑ I think it can be interpreted as a positive sign that policymakers in this moment of transition turn to established multistakeholder internet governance venues to exchange ideas and to test ideas and maybe to come up with new policy responses. But we also have to keep in mind that it's a moment of transmission, and it's a momentum, and we should make sure that we do not leave this momentum in 9 or 10 years we sit here and say, okay. We lost the struggle for the open inclusive internet, and we lost the construing for a human sustainable digital transformation.
What else do we have to come up with?
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Julia, and Oliver, a note to you we have heard from depression and hope and from internet to digital governance. Can you comment in terms of governance and technology linked and behind that governance?
>> Thank you very much for being here. I'm very happy to have a full room to discuss this topic, and I hope we'll get to input in the discussion from the room.
So the ‑‑ I think something, which is very important ‑‑ I agree with Julia, there are a number of new issues to internet governance that need to be addressed and one of them, I think, is the question of technology governance so there are a number of technologies that are reaching the market, that are reaching our life such as artificial intelligence, Blockchain, very soon virtual and augmented reality, and we have to see how we want these technologies to be developed, how we want these technologies to be used, how we can make sure that they follow our policy regulatory framework and the values behind these frameworks.
I would like to point to an approach that we have taken in the European commission, which is to set up multistakeholder and multidisciplinary groups, which advise us on the development and the ‑‑ and the adoption of these technologies, so you might have heard of Annette Barr, which is the group that is set up for Blockchain governance or the group that we are set up on AI and ethics, and these are multidisciplinary groups which advise us, for example ‑‑ if I to take the example of artificial intelligence on what are the ethical principles we should be following or we should aim at when we develop technology as an intrusive and as important as artificial intelligence, and I think there is ‑‑ there is some inspiration to be taken from the work we are doing with these groups and the same type of discussion in terms of taking place inside the Internet Governance Forum and for that we need to have a broad community of stakeholders involved. We need to have, of course, the civil society and the governance and the experts in the world. We need also the people who tell us about the ethical aspects of technology and advisors on these sometimes quite specific questions, so we see it as a quite ‑‑ as a quite important area to invest in, technology governance.
And something, which, I think, is also important beyond internet governance and beyond discussion how we want to govern or manage not only the structure, but the ‑‑ the infrastructure and the services that's on the basis of the internet, I think, it's also important to invest in the technology itself.
And we heard yesterday Chancellor Merkel speak about digital Soviet, European digital sovereignty, and I think it's important that Europe is not only seen as a place where we try to regulate technologies or a place where we promote governance discussions like we have done this year or the two previous years in two European countries, but it's also the place where we develop the technologies tomorrow where we develop the ‑‑ develop the NPR and to allow people to control that data and to control their electronic identity online, and we have launched ‑‑ in one minute I will tell you the next generation internet initiative which we have launching three years ago with first projects which we run in the beginning of the year. We invest in people who have ideas who develop the technologies to implement their own values, to develop the internet of humans that we want to develop.
So I think this is a mix if we want to arrive at this human‑centric, these internet values. It's a mix between these governance discussions, investing in technologies and, of course, regulating when it is ‑‑ when it is necessary.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Oliver.
And I have captured two words, technology governance and human‑centric and turn to you, Marie, and we'll be a bit more provocative in the previous question so what we've seen now is kind of the business‑driven and research‑driven innovation has kind of worked pretty well. We have seen when there's a backlash and the regulators have seemed to react, we have the financial crisis in 2008 and as an answer we have Blockchain and to deregulate it, and we have that and other fields of technologies are appearing. 5G and artificial attendance as you mentioned but also other sectors like geometries and other huge development, and we have a huge‑centric approach and my questions is do you really need that or and if we need that, how do we make that happen?
>> Thank you.
Human centricity, and I think indeed it should be a key part of innovation and also when we are rolling out and developing developmental services, and I don't think you are alluding to the business driven approach or research‑driven approach ‑‑ I don't think there's such any constriction between these two, so, in fact, the two are very much complementary and should go hand‑in‑hand, and I think especially in Europe this has been in the last previous years, few years, very high on the policy agenda, so we, for example, with the GDPR, with privacy data protection, it's been very clear that the European users hold this very dear and also for us, so we are representing the European telecommunication sector, this has been become an integrated part of our processes when we are launching services, et cetera.
And I think also that as the societal kind of framework in Europe seems to encourage that, as a kind of precondition when we are thinking about innovating and launching new services we have to think about the trust factor, so, no, company would be launching services if they don't feel that was services can be trusted or if there are too many questions by users, so we really need to make sure that we integrate the human‑centric or the citizen‑centric angle into our citizen ‑‑ business approaches.
Of course, in the telecommunication center in Europe at the moment we are working very hard on rolling out 5G, and it is not a simple task, so it's actually a process, and I think the citizen‑centric angle can be ‑‑ well, enters into this process in many stages, so, you know, you have considerations regarding privacy, of course, in terms of communications and 5G. There's been a lot of discussion about security which touches directly also citizens and consumers, and also through IoT.
Of course, we know that 5G will be used to a larger extent to connect physical objects to the network, so we need to make sure that the devices, IoT devices, for example, comply with various safety standards that we have, that we might have defined at the European level or global level in terms of collaboration, so we really need to integrate these approaches when we talk about new technologies.
And I also much appreciate the European commission's efforts so Oliver mentioned the artificial intelligence indeed there has been a high‑level working group in Europe to work out the ethics behind artificial intelligence and from eth know side, and we had our member countries in this high‑level working group, and it has been an inclusive process, and we do feel that we have been hurt and, hence, I think also the end result is more solid, so the outcomes from this specific task also reflect to larger extent for use as the telecommunication industry.
So perhaps just to link it back into the IGF here and how do we from the private sector view the internet governance processes and the IGF in particular?
So we have made a big effort in the last year for everybody to listen to other organizations and not only in this internet governance but also in our day‑to‑day work in Brussels and have had would I level workshops including consumers, other industries, central industries to try to understand how we can better take other ‑‑ other people's views into consideration.
And if you want to see the results I will not to take the time here we have launching recently our policy agenda for 2030, which has a very specific pillar ‑‑ it's three pillars and the human‑centric approaches, and I think it's very visible that we do appreciate and want to endorse this aspect. And, of course, here at the IGF here, we are here probably representing the European industry. I think telecommunication industry, and I think there's a lot of discussion about the lack of engagement from private sector at times, and we don't see a lot of private sector from this flora, but on the European side we have been involved at the European level but then at the IGF for many years now and are committed to continue this.
And it's true that innovation is not limited to any regions or nor should it be. It should be a global phenomenon, and it should be open to whoever has good ideas, so we shouldn't have geographical borders as such, so it should be good to see more innovators at this flora, and we have lots of people from internet, and we have global internet companies present, of course, but also have companies in Asia where innovation is happening and other parts of the world, and we would be seeing more better and more coherent outcomes in terms of the good discussions we have here.
So I will leave my reactions there. Thanks.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I get the word "listening" is very strong and getting what people have to say and listening is my keyword for me.
Let's remote and go to the global level and Andrea talking about ICANN.
So if we now look at the global internet governance what is for you, the role of the EU and the European stakeholder, and we have talked about the GDPR, and there's a EuroDIG benefits, and it's a very strong leg of innovation ‑‑ funding innovation through 2020. How do you see that as connected to global internet governance?
>> Thank you, Antoine. Good afternoon, everybody.
How do we see that from the global approach? But first I wanted to thank the commission for inviting us and having an open forum and ‑‑ but this is a dialog on the future of the European Union, and then congratulations also because officially today we have a new commission in Europe, so I think it's a very timely.
So from an American perspective what is the role of Europe? Well, certainly European has played a key role in the global internet and at ICANN we have seen that. We have seen that during the transition times must have may remember ‑‑ many of you may have remembered when the internet governance was finally announcing to the unique contact they had with ICANN go through the fully global model of ICANN while Europe played the middle ground where we risk fracturing the internet and thanks to IGF and for the work within ICANN we have one single internet and if you look at the internet today, probably it's the only truly global and single part of the internet that we are left with, so this is something that we have to nourish in the role that Europe has in that it's extremely good because it's probably no longer a superpower in the internet economy but is probably a superpower in terms of values, in terms of participation, in terms of putting the innovation and even the multistakeholder model, and we have seen that with the GDPR.
The GDPR clearly set the standard at the global level for the protection of personal data on the internet. Other countries around the world follow that, from Japan, to Argentina from Brazil to several African countries up to the West Coast of the U.S. Where California actually just had a very GDPR‑inspired initiative, so this is something that we don't have to discuss because we are going to clearly towards a reality where the internet is going to be more and more fractured at different levels. We see that from the patterns that we use every day, but we still rely on one single route to do that and to do that because we also buy into a model of more statistical approach
And Europe does that in a more effective way after we have two European leaders leading ICANN which never happens. We have the chairman of the board, which is Dutch and the president of the organization, which is Israeli national.
I mean, going forward clearly, we will see that there will be ‑‑ I wouldn't call it an arm race but probably a legal race to regulate the internet more and more, and we see that from ICANN.
From our technical perspective, you know, we're neutral to that. We have to ensure that the internet stays single at the route level at the DNS level and to do that avoid these legally ‑‑ the legalization will fracture that, and we lose the internet which keeps us all on the single network.
You know, the global has been formed at this level, but the reality countries, regions ‑‑ they are taking initiatives in their own borders because still we live in, you know, in the system that is very much based on regional sovereignty but at the DNS level regional sovereignty doesn't really fit. It's a different language, really.
But what we want to flag, and that's important for the Europeans to maintain these middle ground to the foresight vision that they always have is that the risk of adding a race where each country tries to protect its own citizens and enact laws to protect rights and privacy and access to data can have an impact on how the internet works. And that could be quite dangerous, so we are happy to work with the Europeans in this case, but there's countries in the world to make sure that everything you do to protection, you know, our lives online and at the same time also protect the sovereignty of the Europe, and it is the region to lead the way. It is doing that.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, and before giving the floor, I'd like to understand if one of you want to react to the other one? And particularly, I noted your point, Julia, from internet to digital governance. I would like to see if the others see that point and if they want to react from that.
From Oliver, the question of technology advance. We have the same kind of idea from internet to something else governance.
And on your side, I'd like to see if the other one want to react on the question of ‑‑ the human‑centric approach and the necessity to have that, is that part of this transition to digital governance? Is it part of it?
And on your point on the legal race and the thing that is happening now if the other one wants to react on that point.
>> I can start. When listening to Andrea, actually I can still very close to the orange governance idea because they really work on the infrastructure, of course, it goes beyond this but still they are fully agreed that we need this global approach, but I think exactly what I said before a transition from the internet governance to technology governance, digital governance, something else governance as you call it.
>> This is the reason why we see the digital policies and regulations, and we have more and more countries and regions trying to find like their own regulatory response to certain challenges because what think tried to regular is not a lone global infrastructure. The problems they try to find a solution for they are really in the realm of policy field which have always and traditionally been national policy fields, so they often are an industry policy, of course, there's some coordination but still it is something, which is mostly done on the national level or the insecurity policy which, of course, is also more nation‑centered policy field and that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be any kind of coordination or global conversation going on and certainly there is, but I think this is the explanation why we see this increasing fragmentation of regulatory frameworks around the world, so this confirms that ‑‑ a real moment of transition, and I think what the challenge is here that we use this moment of transition, and we tried to keep the structures we developed for global exchange and for global conversation and see or make sure that even after this transition to a more digital governance, we still keep on having these global conversations around these issues.
>> MODERATOR: Yes. Maybe one reaction to what I heard?
>> I think ‑‑ I mean, we are really happy to be contributing to the IGF, and we are really happy to come there and explain how we have developed and will implemented our regulatory frameworks, what we are doing in terms of data protection and what we are doing in terms of cybersecurity.
>> Having an ethical AI being ‑‑ being developed.
But I see the IGF also as ‑‑ it's really a two‑way street, so it's not that Europe wants to be there to lecture the ‑‑ lecture the world. We also are here to listen to the ‑‑ to the ‑‑ to the stakeholders so listen to the different categories of stakeholders, of course, but also listen to stakeholders coming from nonEurope geographic areas.
I'm very interested to listening to panels where we hear about the specific issues that global south countries are experiencing, and I think that's very important for us.
What is their point of view how data should be protected? What is that point of view how data should flow? What are the issues that they encounter, and it's clear that the issues are slightly different? They are all new issues. We have to tackle them. Technology governance is one of them but there are still issues around their access, and there's still issues around inclusion. We had that clearly explaining in several panels yesterday.
So for us it's also important to be here, to listen, to understand what are the problems, the opportunities from the community, from different geographic areas to feed into our own policy, be it our economic policy or foreign policy.
That's why it's so important to preserve the broad participation in the IGF, and I think it's good to have the IGF involved in Berlin and Poland, and it's good that IGF will be organized outside of Europe. After four IGF in Europe it's time to go outside and meet the community in another region of the world.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Oliver.
We'll now open the floor in the room, but I'll pick who is said and if there's someone coming from the global south and want to give us an insight mirroring the question and how do you see Europe outside being in the lead, not being in the role of Europe and, and I would like take that question first and put it at the top. That's if someone wants to comment with that perspective. I don't see behind me.
There's one. So you can think about it and give us a sign when you are ready to give us a perspective, which is ‑‑ we have that.
(Pause)
>> MODERATOR: And here you have Slidor or link if you want to put questions or reactions online, and we will have them on the screen also to pick that up.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm a speaker from Italy. For the first time in history as a young delegation of ministers in the digital innovations participating to the IGF. That's why we are proud as Italian voice is heard at the international level. The European Union tops come on points. On one hand they are both have been created by vision of 8 people and on the other way they are looking for a most sustainable network. That's the reason why we are fighting both against the same digital problems.
We both heard that the technology gap between the European countries as we have seen during the last decade will increase and the digital access will increase. We both heard that the European network will be available to share projects and ideas with the European members about the digital sector.
We both heard to create efficient sustainable projects between the EU members, and we both heard that the virtual process of inclusion in imagination between EU countries will be one of the EU priorities.
Today, if you want to be part of a great project, carry out concrete actions and digital rights in relations with the PA and the access to the labor market. The internet society is where we need ‑‑
(Inaudible)
>> Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. That was more of a statement and not really a question, and I will go on gathering questions and statements. We have one here and one here.
Okay. Let's go here, and then here.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm Alicia from Italy. I would like to explain the situation of Italy.
I'm a member of the international society Italian chapter, and I'm the president of the association generation from CC.
As each generation we organize meetings and workshops. We have also driven up legitimate proposal and our European petition, numbered 0755 of 2013 is still under consideration to introduce in Europe the right to internet access. Our aim is to raise awareness on digital topics, yes. We interact with the institution in order to carry innovation especially in the south of Italy because we are a long way behind the other states.
However, we continue to exchange and operate there because the south really needs action and support, and anyway we are very hopeful for the future because for the first time Italy has a means for digital innovation, and we hope and hope that she is able to rectify the situation. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for the message and hope for Italy, and I will go right there now.
>> AUDIENCE: Hello, I'm part of the Grunet Project, which is a project that started in 2003 designing a new protocol for the internet that cannot be surveilled, and have the ability to root by cryptocurrency, so you can immediately communicate between those. There's never a need for a third‑party to connect people. You can just connect one person to another person, so it's a very human‑centric internet in itself.
And to give you an idea what this implies, for example, we have winter beans that hackers find out on which IP number they want. They just scan the internet, and they found winter beans on a certain IP, and they figure outside a certain SQL and broke into the winter bean page and managed to change the controller of the motor of the winter bean and created damage in the order of millions of Euros, so this is a scenario that in a new internet would not be possible because if you don't know the key ‑‑ the cryptographic key of the winter bean, you can't even find it.
(Laugh)
>> AUDIENCE: That's quite interesting. Would we choose as a future instead of going further in breaking up an already profound breaking internet more and more and keep I saying on using ‑‑ insisting this completely broke internet stock and if we took the dive to replace the internet with one that respects constitutional principles, human rights and concepts like of that kind, it would actually take away the possibility for all kinds of cybercrime, malwares, spam. You just cannot make spam if you don't know the repeat, and it would be ideal for all internet of things because those things cannot do any harm.
>> MODERATOR: We get the point, so the idea is not to go on discussing internet governance but to build a new internet that would serve ‑‑
>> AUDIENCE: I thought we were talking future internet, next generation internet right here and, and I thought what I'm talking about is very specifically on that topic.
>> MODERATOR: It is. The point is ‑‑
>> AUDIENCE: I'm adding ‑‑ I'm responding to several keywords that you mentioned. IoT, human centrism and the other one is AI. If we have an internet that does not allow anyone to collect personal data of people, then there's no problem with AI because nobody can feed personal data into AI and AI does not create any problems if it doesn't have access to data that is potentially destructive of democracy and human rights. All we need to do is make sure that personal data never gets into wrong hands.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. So we get the message. Maybe we will have a reaction on that.
But online any comments, nothing. On the internet you have someone asking a question? No, yes, here. We have one, so we'll gather that one and remark on that one -- you can have a short reaction on that. Okay. You want to say what?
>> Just a reaction first thinking the youth group for their intervention, and I'm very happy to see you sitting in the room. That's very important to have the youth, and that's something that's working on the youth and inside the EuroDIG are really active and very successful groups, and this is something we really to have support, and to react to the gentleman on the ‑‑ on the ‑‑ developing a new protocol stack, very briefly to say ‑‑ that is also part of the IGF initiative, but I don't know to create a new stack, but at least we're thinking about how to renovate, how to improve the architecture up to the level of the protocol, and we have funding available for that, and funding for individual innovators, so we try to follow future Sourcelogics, and this is how the protocol can remain clear, and we move in that direction. I will not go into that, and I would disagree with you on the statement on personal data and AI.
I think if it's properly protected we should be able to process also personal data and feed it into AI and AI will work so if we have not only machine data but also data from think of that gate, and you may have a number of safeguards, et cetera. If we want AI to function, the access, the flow of data is going to be very important.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I will let you discuss that tonight. Both during the evening because it is a very interesting question.
One question here, and then I have one here and one there.
>> AUDIENCE: Thanks so much. No statement just a question, a critical question, though.
I was instructed by the panel seeming to suggest that Europe is not ‑‑ does not have a strong digital economy and that it would mainly set an example in terms of values and maybe regulation.
Did I misunderstand that? Does Europe have to be a powerful, you know, digital economic power as well to then be effective in setting an example for internet governance more broadly? And if so, how does it do that because it's probably true that, you know, so far European enterprise products cannot keep up with the big America platforms and Chinese platforms.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much for that as we prepare the discussion for that today we had exactly that discussion and if you want to react on that and Andrea because you were also talking about that before.
>> Yes, so thanks for your question and as I already ‑‑ I hope it was clear from my previous statement that we do believe at least in the telecommunication sector we have a strong European ‑‑ well, competence in this sector. Both in that we have a lot of large operators. We have a lot of operators in Europe in general. You may claim that the sector is fragmented, so it's not so easy to say, okay, we have one Telco kind of giant or champion, but I don't think that's even the right language to use in this context so ‑‑ but we also then have on top of the operators, of course, vendors, equipment manufacturers, so I feel that there is a lot of competence and innovation happening in Europe, too.
However, it is true, of course, that the digital applications layer at the moment is very much driven by ‑‑ well, mainly U.S. companies at this stage, and; whereas, I don't think it's in a kind of, you know ‑‑ it doesn't need to be in sync with the internet governance discussion. We still all have roles to play, but there is perhaps room for a strong European policy.
(Andrea)
>> And kind of thinking in terms of industrial policy on how we can also ‑‑ well ‑‑ if not revive perhaps in some cases or establish European companies or where we cannot establish but encourage innovation to create further European competence especially in critical areas such as security and other things, so I think there's room for improvement, certainly, and this is not to say that Europe should not be creating some type of protectionist zone where we want to protect our economy from others. I don't think that at all, and we were discussing from the operators point of view what we need is a global market, for example, telecom equipment manufacturers because if we have a wide choice of manufacturers and commitment that, that means we can choose the most innovative products and cost‑effective products, and so there will be an impact, of course, on the end product in this case, in our case the connectivity and the privacy connectivity ‑‑ price of connectivity for the end‑to‑end vendors, so voila.
>> MODERATOR: Can I respond to your question and the other one from the item point of view before the session but how many of you have a Nokia mobile phone in their pockets? Yeah? So I think that answers your question around that.
And when we had the first IGF in 2006, everybody would have raised their hands, and it's no longer the case, but from an American perspective, I was interested in your point. There's a driving fortress of the illusion of DNS.
>> And the feeling that I have is that these principles have been highjacked by, you know, the applications over the internet. By the ‑‑ move fast and break things. Break things and fail bigger, you know? But the technical community at that layer ‑‑ the permission of innovation stopped 30 years ago when with the worldwide web and the DNS is operating by itself and just a month ago celebrated 50‑year anniversary. I would be very surprised within 50 years we'll still be discussing about the DNS. That means that it has been completely highjacked.
Europeans, I don't know the statistics but there must be thousands of network engineers here, you know, in Europe, well, participating in ICANN in ITF and develop the new standards and address these issues from the European perspective to build the next level of the internet. Bear in mind, that the principle of singularity on the internet from a point of view cannot be put in question by the permission of innovation in my view of the permissions of the internet, and I'll stop here. I think it's clear.
>> MODERATOR: Let's take the bets in 50 years in DNS we'll see.
I'll take a question here ‑‑ one, and then there, and then we have a reaction, and I invite you to react ‑‑ we have 6 minutes, so let's to take the two questions first.
First, in front of me and sorry, you are exactly on the same line at the same table, I'm sorry.
>> Thank you. I'm Alexandra Watts. I work for Green French parliaments. I was in this discussion how we protect the values of the EU and how we can ensure innovation it can be ethical and sustainable networks, and I want to address governance that really hasn't been addressed much yet by the IGF and whether you could absolutely take a lead, which is the environmental reality of the internet maybe in terms of material impact, energy consumption impact.
The new implication that we got today had made huge commitments on transition ‑‑
(Inaudible)
>> So my questions is, do you envision the EU taking up the role and the lead in that matter?
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.
I will definitely take the next question and then have you react on that.
>> AUDIENCE: Hello. So the caution is: How does ICANN centralization model physic in a three‑point model paradigm?
>> MODERATOR: That's a lot of concepts. Web 3 paradigm way not be one for everyone in this room and maybe you can give us a short definition of what you mean with web 3.
>> AUDIENCE: Web 3.0 is I believe the future of the internet, and it is decentralized internet where there's a different ‑‑ there's a consensus and different modes, and I think it will become more peer‑to‑peer, so I'm just really wondering how a centralized system that is ‑‑ that is rules and governed by a few companies today with monopolies not just net neutrality but also content‑to‑content moderation ‑‑ how you will that change in the future?
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
Is it a bit clearer for the people in the room web 3 ‑‑ web 3 the Blockchain internets where you decentralized the system of exchange of data if I get that right. Maybe try to explain that? Is it okay?
So we have a question ‑‑ this is for ICANN, and then I would first like a reaction from the environmental aspect, and then on that question of the discentralization.
>> So we have a new commission now in place since this afternoon, and this is one of the key priorities of this commission as you have seen. The green deal so ‑‑ and clearly ICT is a big part of it on two counts.
On one side ICT is consuming a lot of energy.
>> It's producing a lot of C02 and that needs to be curbed. I mean, we cannot have an internet that is growing in the flow of data, in the constitute of data and the constitute of energy used to promote this data to send this data and follows the same curve. That we cannot have, so it's very important that we invest in green ICT, in greener storage capacities, for example.
(Garbled)
>> I think the more interesting question is how we can use ICT to achieve sustainable developmental goals in general.
And to see with the climate action and there if you think about AI, if you think of IoT and how we can build smaller cities with data coming from cities, coming from connected objects, I think ICT has a huge, huge contribution to make in terms of achieving those objectives, so I think these are the two areas that for sure we are going to invest in the ‑‑ in the European Union, and this ‑‑ yeah, this is a topic for sure for ‑‑ for the IGF, I agree.
And maybe just on decentralization I heard ‑‑ I think it was yesterday who spoke of the decentralized Europe in a way that would be going back to what the internet was essentially.
The internet, the essential part of the internet, is that it's decentralized and maybe we have lost part of this decentralization feature with the event, it's clear they have market power and large quantities of data ‑‑ quantities of data and there has been a centralization data, and we have an opportunity with Blockchain as well as other intents for decentralization in the functioning of the internet, and I think the Internet Governance Forum where we really need to invest in the decentralized models, and we have many of them who vist, and I would quote a successful product, which is called decode, and we have a representative in the room where we have demonstrated that you can have decentralized data governance system, which I will use, which is used by large players to improve large public services or commercial ones, and that's definitely very important area to explore.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
So the clock tells me we have 30 seconds and, which is not completely true because we started 57 minutes, so we ‑‑ I mean, the system owes you three minutes, and I will use it to ask for the last sentence why we'll go to Julia if you want to say something as a inclusion, and then I will ask you two also.
>> Yes. A conclusion that I really appreciate the question about your question about the sustainability, and I think that's one of the biggest blind spots.
>> Although many are aware of it. In general I think a profound European sense that I trust our democratic governance, and I trust our regulation that's not the same case around the world but particularly in Europe we can use distrust to really ask for action when it comes to these issues. Decentralization new models be it technology models, and one of the main problems we have had in the past is that we do not regulate in the existing economic models, and I think we do have to do it, and we will hurt more if we do not do it, and we really hope have the confidence to do and really think ‑‑ when we think of a new governance system that you really think along the lines of sustainability and also about really human‑centered economic governance for the structure, and I keep it at that because I know we don't have much time.
>> Marie?
>> Maybe just a quickly to say in the regulation I didn't talk about that at all, but it's very important to have the balance not to regulate so early that you actually stifle innovation and that you can also have a basis already to understand the technologies, so that you can have time to prove regulation so; whereas, we agree regulation of policy has its role, let's not do it too early, so that we actually are shutting down opportunities.
I also upload the question and would just like to say we're very active on this, and this was one of the key policies in our agenda as our members are doing a lot of voluntary work and show we are leaders from the industry perspective in Europe.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Andre.
>> In my closing I would like to apply to the question before.
>> You on the big screen, and I was looking at your T‑shirt. Aladdin T‑shirt. Aladdin is flying on the carpet, so far the internet has been the, the DNS has been the carpet. If Aladdin had thousands of little carpets you wouldn't be flying, so I think this is something that we have to appreciate how important it is that so far we have been having yes ‑‑ maybe you love flying, I don't know but if a new model comes in Blockchain, you know, the internet no matter how you can label it, I think the important thing is to ensure that we are all under one single network. We'll be 7 billion of internet users one day and 50 billion devices or more, but we are all on one single platform and the technical level this has something that has been holding through, and we have been holding the discussion on the DNS, but I don't think we can take it for granted. We speak about sustainability. I think we have to ensure also that the future generations that will enjoy the same internet we enjoyed so far. That's the very thing that's what happening to the environment. If you want to fly on the same carpet as Aladdin make sure the technology remains possible that has been so revolutionary so far.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I will wrap up I have two conclusions and one question. If we look at the future internet governance in the context of Europe and European stakeholder I get international to digital governance. I think that was something that was very big in discussion. I get from a black internet to green internet at the very end of support on that side and one question centralized versus decentralized, and that was something we're more as a question.
I thank you all very much for your participation and hope to see you maybe tonight 'cause I think it's tonight, and yeah, have a nice evening.