Internet governance

Just Net Coalition, along with more than 170 civil society groups addressed an Open Letter to the UN Secretary General urging him to shelve plans for a High Level Multistakeholder Body which, if set up, can be expected to become the default apex global digital governance and policy body. This body is to be privately funded, with strong hints…

In collaboration with the Data and Society Research Institute, the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), and others, IT for Change is co-organizing the first Annual Conference of the Platform Governance Research Network, which will take place from March 24 to 26, 2021. The three-day online conference seeks to bring together an…

IT for Change is excited to announce its new project, Tech Practice and Policy in a Post-Covid World – Developing Civil Society Agendas, funded by the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC).

Digital technology is proliferating with ever-increasing rapidity owing to the pandemic. As the extent to which it is poised to…

This paper explores changes in General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in greater detail, explaining how they are relevant to the platform economy in Canada. It then discusses Canada’s current data policies, and the…

This policy brief reviews current trends in the regulation of data collection and analysis with a focus on platforms. In particular, it interrogates emerging regulatory frameworks that shape, constrain, or advance citizens’ control over personal (and related) data. In doing so, it points to areas of necessary intervention to address citizen…

This research details how Indonesians working in the tourism sector are included or excluded from the travel platform economy. It investigates why these actors are choosing to use travel platforms and how they express the benefits and constraints in this context. Inclusion in the platform economy involves understanding and addressing structures…

In recent years, the Philippines has seen a trend of platformization in domestic and care work through small-scale digital platforms that offer on-demand cleaning services. The nascent and informal nature of this system has given rise to new modes of employment and labor relationships that do not conform with the traditional models of domestic…

This paper examines the influence of digital platforms on Chinese workers across two booming on-demand service industries: ride-hailing and food-delivery. Though digital platforms have attracted considerable scholarly and legal attention in the past few years, this project is among one of the first to center on worker’s experience, and through…

This research project investigates the institutional, policy and operational dynamics of ride-hailing platforms in South Africa. A limited number of studies on platform economies in African nations have been conducted from business and economics perspectives that often do not focus on issues of inequality, poverty, economic inclusion and social…

This report was produced as part of the research project ‘Policy frameworks for digital platforms - Moving from openness to inclusion’.The report provides evidence from the Nigerian context to complement the global debate on designing appropriate regulatory frameworks for platforms that ensure accountability of platform providers to the…