Freedom of expression and security on the Internet
14-11-2007 (Paris)
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"Freedom of expression and security on the Internet are not contradictory but complementing values in the information society." This was one of the outcomes of a very well attended workshop entitled "Freedom of Expression as a Security Issue" held during the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF), an international and multi-stakeholder conference that opened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this week.
The workshop, jointly hosted by the Council of Europe, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and UNESCO, brought together experts from Europe, India and the United States.
Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change, India, underlined the importance of not putting freedom of expression and security as opposites. "The right balance between them should stem from a democratic dialogue between the state and its people," she said. "Because the Internet, through its inherent openness, challenges the traditional paradigm for this balance, it is important to watch out for states putting unjustified restrictions on the Internet with a reference to security interests", Ms Gurumurthy stated.
In his presentation, Bob Boorstin, US Policy Communications Director at Google, stressed that his company always tries to maximize freedom of expression for all users, but he also stated that Google is bound by local laws and attentive to local cultural traditions. "If accepting not putting a few percent of the potential information volume on the net in a given country will result in us having the permission to put up all the other texts, we are willing to respect this instead of seeing all the information being removed", he said. "It is however a thin line you have to walk and we are therefore within the industry discussing how to establish a code of conduct for these dilemma situations", he concluded.
Karol Jacubowiz, leading Council of Europe expert warned against the narrowing of the openness on the internet, both from corporations and from governments. "States should not use security arguments as a pretext to curb freedom of expression", he said. He also gave examples of good policy standards, introduced by the Council of Europe that had successfully reconciled freedom of expression and security issues, such as the conventions to combat cyber crime and to protect children from sexual exploitation or abuse.
The discussion clearly showed that the participants in the workshop wanted industry’s Internet content management to comply fully with human rights standards, particularly concerning the right to freedom of expression and information regardless of frontiers.
The Internet Governance Forum is a UN process with yearly meetings originating from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) addressing emerging issues of Internet governance in the fields of openness, security, access and diversity. The next IGF will take place in December 2008 in New Delhi, India.
Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change, India, underlined the importance of not putting freedom of expression and security as opposites. "The right balance between them should stem from a democratic dialogue between the state and its people," she said. "Because the Internet, through its inherent openness, challenges the traditional paradigm for this balance, it is important to watch out for states putting unjustified restrictions on the Internet with a reference to security interests", Ms Gurumurthy stated.
In his presentation, Bob Boorstin, US Policy Communications Director at Google, stressed that his company always tries to maximize freedom of expression for all users, but he also stated that Google is bound by local laws and attentive to local cultural traditions. "If accepting not putting a few percent of the potential information volume on the net in a given country will result in us having the permission to put up all the other texts, we are willing to respect this instead of seeing all the information being removed", he said. "It is however a thin line you have to walk and we are therefore within the industry discussing how to establish a code of conduct for these dilemma situations", he concluded.
Karol Jacubowiz, leading Council of Europe expert warned against the narrowing of the openness on the internet, both from corporations and from governments. "States should not use security arguments as a pretext to curb freedom of expression", he said. He also gave examples of good policy standards, introduced by the Council of Europe that had successfully reconciled freedom of expression and security issues, such as the conventions to combat cyber crime and to protect children from sexual exploitation or abuse.
The discussion clearly showed that the participants in the workshop wanted industry’s Internet content management to comply fully with human rights standards, particularly concerning the right to freedom of expression and information regardless of frontiers.
The Internet Governance Forum is a UN process with yearly meetings originating from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) addressing emerging issues of Internet governance in the fields of openness, security, access and diversity. The next IGF will take place in December 2008 in New Delhi, India.
Related themes/countries
· Brazil
· Freedom of Expression: News Archives 2007
· UNESCO and WSIS
· News
· News Archives 2007
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