Catch OTI and RDR at RightsCon!

RightsCon is the world's leading event on the future of the internet organized by Access Now, and this year takes place in Brussels, Belgium from March 29-31. The three day program brings together the global digital rights community in the heart of European policymaking to host impactful sessions, lightning talks, tech demos, and more. This week, OTI and the Ranking Digital Rights team are in Brussels hosting sessions on some interesting topics. 

For more details on the session, check out the program here.

Encryption Fights Around the World
March 29, 10:30 - 11:45 am, Serenity (2nd Floor)

As part of the digital security and encryption track organized to discuss how we can protect ourselves, our content, and our networks, the Open Technology Institute will host a session during the Digital Security and Encryption Program.

Join us for a roundtable discussion  of the threats to encryption in both the EU region and in the United States, as well as efforts to combat those threats. We will bring together public policy experts from a variety of countries for expert insight into the state of play, the talking points and techniques being used, and what outcomes are looking most likely. 

By the end of the session, everyone should come away with a better understanding of how these complex arguments are playing out in other countries and some ideas for advocacy in their own home country. Our intention is also to make introductions to facilitate a longer conversation after RightsCon as the landscape of the global encryption fight evolves.

2017 Ranking Digital Rights Corporate Accountability Index Launch
March 29, 2:30 - 3:45 pm, Creativity and Exploration (1st Floor)

On March 23, Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) released its second Corporate Accountability Index. This session will serve as the European launch event for the 2017 Index, which evaluates 22 internet, mobile, and telecommunications companies on commitments, policies and practices affecting users’ freedom of expression and privacy. A presentation by RDR director Rebecca MacKinnon of the key findings and highlights of the 2017 Index will be followed by an interactive discussion involving everybody in the room discussing the Index findings with representatives of the ranked companies, members of RDR’s global research team, civil society advocates who use the Index to push for changes in company practices, responsible investors who use RDR’s data to make decisions, and researchers who are working to adapt RDR’s methodology to companies at the local, national and regional level.

The inaugural Index, released in late 2015, analyzed 16 leading ICT companies. Although each company had at least one area in which it performed well, the picture as a whole was discouraging. Across the board, we found that companies were failing to disclose key information about practices affecting users’ rights. With the launch of the 2017 Index, RightsCon attendees can find out which companies made an effort to improve their performance in 2016, and on what issues — and where performance remains especially problematic. In addition to an updated methodology, which includes new indicators focused on key issues such as network shutdowns and data breaches, the 2017 Index also includes six new companies. Two of these, Apple and Samsung, are included as part of a new category of companies that make mobile devices and software programs, referred to as “mobile ecosystems.” This session will discuss important (and potentially also surprising) findings from the 2017 Index, as well as lessons learned from evaluating mobile ecosystems. It will also provide an opportunity for RightsCon attendees to have a conversation with the people who produced the Index as well as some of the companies that were evaluated.

Through discussing the 2017 Index’s key findings, participants will emerge with a better understanding of current trends and areas of concern relating to ICT companies and human rights. This will help to frame a conversation around specific issues for further discussion throughout RightsCon and potentially identify areas for future advocacy.

Telling Data-Driven Narratives About Internet Regulation and Access
March 31, 10:30 - 11:45 am, Vision (8th Floor)

Measurement Lab is hosting a session as part of the Demo Room Program, which focuses on introducing technical tools and platforms. 

After more than a decade of academic research on Internet measurement, recent development efforts have led to the availability of data collection tools that are finally usable by non-technical audiences. This has fostered an increase in the amount of advocacy and journalism about regulatory policies and censorship that is backed by evidence, rather than anecdotal claims. The availability of these tools is also timely -- as questions about network neutrality and content blocking continue to increase everywhere. For example, recent European Union rules require member states collect data of network neutrality and performance, data that is often publicly-available for civil society to use to engage policy-makers. In countries such as Iraq and Gabon, measurement data has been used to monitor and verify reports about Internet shutdowns related to political and social controls.

The objective of this session is to demonstrate how civil society organizations and researchers are using Internet measurement tools to tell narratives about public interest issues related to the Internet. Through highlighting successful stories, we will demonstrate the tools that are available to the public, show how they were used to describe an issue, and expose best practices that surfaced across initiatives. Since tool developers often have an interest in supporting civil society organizations to deploy tools (as a result of funding requirements or to test tools), but do not have strong outreach, an additional objective will be to promote partnerships between communities. The broader theme of the session will be to motivate those in the audience to engage in their own data collection and data-drive advocacy, and further build out the measurement community. The session will also promote open source and public data values, which is critical in a field that is often competing with proprietary and untrustworthy alternatives.

How to Talk So Companies Will Listen, and Listen So Companies Will Talk: Doing Company Advocacy and Research
March 31, 12:00 - 1:15 pm, Evasion (1st Floor)

It’s now a well-established fact that ICT companies have major power over users’ ability to enjoy and exercise their human rights - online as well as “in real life.” As a result, more and more civil society actors are researching the inner workings of companies and developing advocacy campaigns to influence them. However, researchers often face obstacles including lack of corporate transparency, legal issues, and difficulty developing a collaborative relationship with companies, and the strategies that have served us well in engaging with government actors don’t always translate to working with the private sector. For example, executives of many companies are not familiar with the connection between privacy, data protection, security and human rights. Other company officials may be familiar with transparency as a tool to fight corruption, but do not see the connection between transparency, human rights, and the business operations of an ICT company, even though these issues are well-understood at other levels of the same company. In this session, seasoned researchers and advocates will discuss how they use various tools to understand what's going on inside companies, and share their insights on to conduct company-oriented advocacy in a way that company representatives will actually engage with.

Surveillance in a Time of Upheaval : Transparency About Government Surveillance as a Human Rights Imperative
March 31, 1:15 - 2:30 pm, Klimt (Ground Floor)

Recent political upheaval has placed powerful legal and technological surveillance tools in the hands of populist, nationalist, and authoritarian regimes. The potential abuse of these surveillance tools presents a threat to human rights around the world. One check on the use of the levers of surveillance are company-generated transparency reports, documenting the number and kind of government demands for sensitive user data.

For over three years, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Open Technology Institute have been developing best practices for transparency reporting for US-based companies. This work has culminated in the Transparency Reporting Toolkit, comprised of a series of 8 policy memos (released at RightsCon 2016) looking at a variety of best practices in reporting, and a guide and template to help companies produce more consistent transparency reports (released in December). This Toolkit has been produced in a collaborative fashion with input from companies, civil society, and academia. While the work has been focused on US companies, much of what we’ve learned is universal. At the same time, developing an effective transparency report also requires understanding the unique demands and constraints of local, national, and regional intelligence and law enforcement processes.

This session aims to spark a conversation among the participants to help identify and advance best practices for transparency reporting on government demands for user communications specific for EU-based companies. We want to work with the community of regional experts and company representatives that attend RightsCon to think through the specific challenges and needs of transparency reporting in the EU, in order to create an EU-focused version of our report. The three co-authors of the Toolkit will lead a discussion with several other invited panelists and participants in the room about the variety of practices that would advance transparency and privacy.

Better Ways to Document Internet Shutdowns
March 31, 2:30 - 3:45 pm, Harmony, 1st Floor

The wide array of stakeholders involved in internet shutdowns — telcos, tech companies, end users, and governments — makes documenting them extremely complex. It’s often a case of each person feeling a piece of the elephant but not being able to identify the whole animal. But if we don’t know how many disruptions happen, and where, it’s difficult to take action to stop them. In this session, we’ll look at new research on how we can better document shutdowns, and proposed solutions.

Elsewhere at RightsCon...

You can catch Rebecca MacKinnon speaking on Everything We Know About Internet Shutdowns (March 29, 12:00 - 1:15 pm, Palace Ballroom 1 - Ground Floor).

Kevin Bankston will moderate Fighting Words: Firsthand Lessons From Former Extremists (March 29, 2:30- 3:45 pm, Harmony - 1st Floor) and will be a discussant on Digital Rights Under Trump: Can Left & Right Join Forces (March 31, 4:00 - 5:00 pm, Stoclet - Ground Floor).