Internet Governance/Advocacy

Our  Executive Director, Anita Gurumurthy, is a member of the UN CSTD Working Group on Data Governance. In line with its mandate under Para 48 of the UN Global Digital Compact, the Working Group is exploring follow-up recommendations towards equitable and interoperable data governance…

The United Nations is developing a code of conduct for information integrity on digital platforms in close consultation with a broad range of civil society groups. The objective is to establish a gold standard guiding actions to strengthen information integrity while vigorously protecting human…

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…

It for Change, as part of the Global Digital Justice Forum, submitted its text proposals on the Zero Draft of the WSIS+20 Outcome document. We cautioned against an overly optimistic reading of the progress towards WSIS Commitments and urged an honest acknowledgement that a profit-centric…

The Global Digital Justice Forum is a dynamic coalition driven by a vision of digital justice. The forum represents a diverse array of civil society stakeholders, including sustainable development organizations, digital rights networks, feminist groups, corporate watchdogs, communication rights…

India should prioritise strong AI governance to ensure data sovereignty, promote indigenous innovation, and address ethical concerns.

ChatGPT may represent a point of inflection in public consciousness about the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its key role in society. It is time…

Abstract

Twitter, the social-networking platform which serves as a socio-political barometer, was recently purchased by Elon Musk, owner of Tesla. Musk has fired 50% of Twitter staff, toyed with its policies on registration and posts, making it an oligarch’s doll. Clearly the world needs…

Over the last two decades, information and communication technologies have become an important part of the implementation of different types of programs and schemes by the Government of India in the form of ‘large-scale public digital information systems’, designed for the implementation of…

In April 2023, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology introduced Amendments to The Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (Social Welfare, Innovation, Knowledge) Rules, 2020, and opened the same for public consultation. The Amendment allows non-state actors to provide…

A data-propelled tendency for economic concentration and the policy deficits that have fueled the rise of Big Tech companies have brought to the fore a critical realization – market power is coterminous with data power and the entrenched control of Big Tech over the data value chains is at the…

The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act of 2023 has rightly been criticised for failing to uphold good consent and data subject rights. One provision that has been largely overlooked is Section 16, which pertains to the transfer and processing of personal data outside India. Section 16…

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,…

As procurers of all the civic tech that surrounds us, municipal authorities today find themselves in a unique position — they have become the custodians of personal and aggregate data generated by the world’s largest human concentrations. Rich or poor, large or small, democratic, autocratic, or…

In this paper, the authors argue that there is substantial scope for data governance policies for the Global South to draw from theories and practices informed by the idea that data can be a subject of decentralized, community-centric governance. First, the paper highlights the importance of…

UNESCO has released its initial draft proposal of the ‘Guidelines on Regulating Digital Platforms: a multistakeholder approach’ (Guidance Document) for inputs and observations. The document is meant to serve as a guidance on the regulation, co-regulation, and self-…