Internet Governance/Advocacy

The Global Digital Justice Forum, of which IT for Change acts as the secretariat, has issued a rejoinder to the open letter from tech community leaders and internet innovators to the United Nations, expressing their reservations that the draft text of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) being…

Anita Gurumurthy, Nandini Chami, Amay Korjan, Eshani Vaidya, Sandeep Radhakrsihnan, and Merrin Muhammed Ashraf, prepared inputs that fed into UNCTAD’s Issue Paper on Data for Development. The input comprehensively discussed issues of neo-colonial dynamics of data economy, infrastructural and…

IT for Change's Merrin Muhammed Ashraf participated in the virtual consultation convened by the co-facilitators of the Global Digital Compact on 22 August 2024 and delivered a statement on Rev 3.0 GDC on behalf of IT for Change and the Global Digital Justice Forum. The statement flagged some…

Anita Gurumurthy represented IT for Change at a session titled, ‘All Hands on Deck: Shaping an Inclusive Future of AI’ on 6 February 2024. The discussion was held as part of UNESCO’s ‘Global Forum on the Ethics of AI 2024’ in Kranj, Slovenia.

Artificial intelligence (AI) processes and…

On behalf of IT for Change, Merrin Muhammed Ashraf submitted comments on the recently released UNESCO Consultation Paper on Regulatory Approaches for Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Consultation Paper is part of a broader effort by UNESCO, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and the Internet…

On 13 February 2024, Merrin Muhammed Ashraf represented the Global Digital Justice Forum and IT for Change at a virtual consultation convened by the co-facilitators of the intergovernmental process for drafting a Global Digital Compact, which would be annexed to the Pact for the Future. The goal…

On behalf of IT for Change, Merrin Muhammed Ashraf submitted comments on the recently released OECD Draft Recommendations on Information Integrity. The draft Recommendation aims to provide guidance for policy makers to promote information integrity in line with the universal human rights of…

IT for Change submitted a response to the Zero draft of the Pact for the Future, which was launched on 26 January 2024, as a first step towards the negotiations of the agreement in September 2024 within the Summit of the Future. Engaging with each chapter of the draft of the Pact, our submission…

On 21 February 2024, Shreeja Sen represented IT for Change and the Global Digital Justice Forum at a virtual consultation, seeking feedback on the Zero draft of the Pact for the Future, which was launched on 26 January 2024. In line with the written submissions, Shreeja's inputs emphasized that…

IT for Change responded to the Open Consultation Process on the WSIS Forum organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Our inputs focused on how the WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event should address questions of the digital and data divide, in particular the critical role of…

In response to the call for inputs by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), IT for Change and the undersigned civil society organizations, who are part of the Global Digital Justice Forum, welcome the opportunity to contribute to the thematic report on, ‘…

The UN Secretary-General's AI Advisory Body recently launched its Interim Report: Governing AI for Humanity. The report’s proposal to strengthen and enhance the international governance of artificial intelligence (AI) is an important starting point towards bridging the critical global-level…

The Global Digital Justice Forum responded to the Joint Questionnaire for CSTD's 20-year review of the World Summit on Information Society implementation. The submission focused on the fact that instead of the vision of "people-centered, inclusive and development oriented" future, the digital…

IT for Change submitted its feedback/comments on the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 (DPDP Rules) released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The key points of our feedback are outlined below.

1. Notice given by Data Fiduciary to Data Principal…

In the last few years, data has been likened, aside from the hackneyed comparison to ‘oil’, to any number of tangible entities such as mineral deposits, dividend deposits, and even the Alaskan Permanent Fund. Metaphors as a tool could re-entrench existing power asymmetries or resist them,…