71. UK Best Practice session: “Partnership in Action”
Introduction
The workshop showcased real examples of how different stakeholders have addressed issues relevant to the IGF main themes. In particular the discussion focussed on showing how stakeholders have helped to find solutions to the issues arising from the use and misuse of the Internet that are of particular concern to everyday users. Examples highlighted in the session were drawn from multi-stakeholder cooperation in the areas of education, combating e-crime and child safety on the Internet and included work identified through the Nominet Best Practice Challenge competition.
Issues addressed.
Andrew Miller MP showcased the work of the UK Parliamentary IT Committee (PITCOM) http://www.pitcom.org.uk/. This is designed to encourage Members of Parliament to engage with primary schools through a competition the committee has organised http://makeithappy.cc4g.net/. Since Hyderabad we have launched our third such event and have ambitious plans for the future. Projects like this and the other “best practice” presentations are hugely important as we can all learn one from another.
Alun Michael MP described his work with industry, government and law enforcement to improve cooperation between stakeholders. Working together has helped improve understanding of interrelation between the partners. All actors need to share the responsibility for providing a safer on-line environment. And this cooperation helps build improved trust, making the UK a more welcoming environment for e-business to flourish.
Simply leaving it to users to cope with the threats from crime and understand the choices they make in sharing personal information is no longer an option: there are challenges and threats to business and other users. And the point of the Internet Crime Reduction Partnership is to create a joined-up approach to enabling people to be – and to feel – safe on-line.
Margaret Moran MP highlighted work in the UK on addressing the needs of children on-line. She referred to the report for the Prime Minister by Dr Tanya Byron, a reputed child psychologist and media personality: Safer Children in a Digital World (www.dcsf.gov.uk/byronreview/) and to the creation of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) (www.dcsf.gov.uk/ukccis/), which unites over 100 organisations from the public and private sector working with the Government to deliver recommendations from Dr Tanya Byron’s report.
Dr Jeremy Beale looked at the role of industry in meeting its responsibilities as part of an industry self-regulatory model. The Internet provides an excellent opportunity for businesses, but this will be undermined if users and businesses loose confidence. However, the nature of the medium is such that conventional legislative responses are too slow and are often not well targeted, making it hard to respond to rapid developments on the Internet. Examples of industry and cooperative initiatives show that more can be achieved through such partnerships, providing a strong framework for the development of e-business in the UK. He used examples of the Internet Watch Foundation – a UK self-regulatory body providing a public hotline and ‘notice and takedown’ service on behalf of the online industry. It works to minimise child sexual abuse content hosted around the world – and the dialogue between the banking sector and Nominet, the .uk registry on addressing phishing.
Emily Taylor focussed on the Nominet Best Practice Challenge: this initiative was designed to celebrate success – looking at ways organisations and individuals were helping to make a difference in making the Internet a safer, more inclusive, more fun place to be, focusing on solutions.
In her overview, Emily highlighted the entries and winners of each of the six categories – development, security, industry standards, personal safety, Internet for all and the open Internet – as well as a special award for Internet and culture for the British Library’s sacred texts web resources (www.ukigf.org.uk/resources/Best_Practice_Challenge_winners_booklet.pdf). Winners included: local initiatives like Age Concern Edinburgh Information Technology and Common Knowledge UK, focussing on improving access to the Internet for particular groups (older people and people with cognitive learning difficulties); a national charity YouthNet, providing an on-line volunteering resource; a joint government-law enforcement-private sector partnership Internet security awareness campaign, Get Safe Online; and major names like Barclays Bank and the Internet Watch Foundation.
The Nominet Best Practice Challenge is now an established feature of the UK’s IGF preparations.
Ian Taylor, summing up, noted the importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation in addressing Internet governance issues. The UK-IGF initiative is a key to improving the value the UK draws from the IGF and goes to the heart of the IGF’s remit to facilitate the exchange of information and best practices. By looking at solutions and partnership in practice, it contributes to understanding Internet governance issues.
Panellists
Ian Taylor MBE, MP: Chair
First elected to Parliament in 1987. He was Minister for Science and Technology at the Department of Trade and Industry (1994-97) and now chairs the Conservative Party's Policy Task-force on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. In the House of Commons, he is co-Chairman of the Parliamentary Space Committee; Vice President of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee; a Board Member of the Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology; Director of EURIM (European Information Society Group); and Vice Chairman of PITCOM (Parliamentary Information and Technology Committee) and of the Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility.
Prior to entering Parliament, Ian had 18 years experience of providing corporate finance and management advice to companies in the UK, France and USA. He is a non-executive of, or adviser to, several companies mainly in the technology, security and investment sectors.
Rt Hon Alun Michael MP: the e-crime and disorder reduction partnership
First elected to Parliament in 1987. He was Deputy Home Secretary in 1997, with special responsibility for Criminal Justice, the Police and Voluntary Sector and became Secretary of State for Wales in the Cabinet (1998-1999). In 1999 was elected the Founding First Secretary of the National Assembly for Wales until he stood down in February 2000. He returned to Government in 2001 as Minister of State at the Department of the Environment as Minister for Rural Affairs.
As Minister of State for Industry and the Regions at the Department of Trade and Industry, Alun led the UK's successful delegation to Tunis for the World Summit on Information Society during the UK Presidency of the EU and has taken an interest in achieving a consensus on the difficult issue of Internet governance.
Prior to entering Parliament, Alun was a journalist on the South Wales Echo, spent 16 years as a Youth and Community worker in Cardiff, and became a magistrate in 1972. He is a member of the National Executive of the Cooperative Party, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Andrew Miller MP: "Make it Happen" schools project
First elected to Parliament in 1992. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry from 2001-2005 and Member of the Next Steps Team working with the Foreign Office to promote relations with new EU Member States from 2001. He is Chairman of the Regulatory Reform Select Committee, Chairman of the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee, Vice President, Parliamentary and Scientific Committee and was Member of the Editorial Board, Science in Parliament from 1997-2005
Prior to entering Parliament Andrew was a Technician in the Department of Geology Portsmouth Polytechnic and a trade union official.
Margaret Moran MP: the UK approach to children and the Internet, including the Report of the Byron Review for the UK Government and the creation of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety
Margaret Moran was first elected to Parliament in May 1997. She has served as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to five ministers. She has been an active member the House bringing forward a wide array of initiatives on subjects ranging from Kashmir to the powers of Internet moderators. Her interests span Northern Ireland, housing, domestic violence, new technologies, social exclusion and football.
In Parliament, she was responsible for the groundbreaking “Womenspeak” project, using interactive information and communications technologies to link Parliamentarians and survivors of domestic violence. As a result, she has driven policy and legislative changes to provide greater fairness for domestic violence survivors in immigration cases, greater protection for domestic violence survivors in court and ensure they get priority for re-housing.
Dr Jeremy Beale, Confederation of British Industry: Security, openness and privacy – an industry view
Jeremy was Head of the e-Business Group in the Company Affairs Directorate at the Confederation of British Industry where he was responsible for e-business policy and member best-practice, bringing together corporate users and providers of IT to identify e-business best practice and policy on internet, telecoms and information security issues. He was responsible for liaising with the CBI's counterparts internationally.
Prior to joining the CBI, Jeremy was a media analyst and e-commerce consultant in Sydney at the investment bank ABN AMRO.
Emily Taylor, Director Legal & Policy, Nominet: the Nominet Best Practice Challenge
Emily Taylor is Director of Legal and Policy at Nominet, the country code registry for .uk. In addition to heading Nominet’s legal team, Emily plays a key role in representing Nominet in international Internet governance debates and public policy development. She is also charged with fostering relationships between Nominet and the UK Government and other major stakeholders both within the UK and internationally.
In May 2006 Emily was appointed by the United Nations Secretary General to the Advisory Group for the Internet Governance Forum, which was formed to create a policy framework for the stable and secure development of the global Internet society.
Working with the Department for Business and other leading stakeholders, Emily has been central in establishing the UK-IGF as a way for the UK to contribute to the work of the IGF and to share the output from the IGF with other partners in the UK.
Background to the initiative
The “UK-IGF” is a cooperative framework between government, parliamentarians, industry, civil society, and the technical community. The co-organisers – from industry, government and parliament – are from different stakeholder backgrounds, and the initiative is based on a multi-stakeholder partnership. While the proposal is to present UK best practice, the session was designed to promote engagement with other countries to compare and contrast approaches to similar issues.