The Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) is a regional initiative on Internet governance. It adopts a multi-stakeholder approach and serves as a platform for discussion, exchange and collaboration at a regional level, and also to aggregate national IGF discussions, and ultimately advance the Internet governance development in the Asia Pacific region.

Nayantara Ranganathan from the Internet Democracy Project will be attending the Forum, and speaking on a panel organised by Rayznews on Internet Democracy Project’s findings on online abuse.

The overarching theme for the forum is A New Internet Era – Merging Physical Space with Cyberspace’. The workshops will span the suggested sub-themes, which are-

  1. The Future Impact of IANA Transition 
    The IANA transition proposal is expected to be submitted to USG sometime in the early 2016. There are many new designs arising from the proposals, from those related to institution to those of mechanism, some of which are very different from what we are used to. How does it work? What is changed? What may be the impact?

  2. Security
    Cyber Security, the protection of information systems from damage and disruption, is critical not just to the stability of cyberspace, but also increasingly important to the physical world. At the same time, Privacy and Data Protection are also hot issues that nations are grappling with in this new era. Where is the balance between security and privacy/​data protection?

  3. Human Rights
    Human rights are central to a New Internet Era.” Human rights standard should apply to the internet environment in the areas of access and development, freedom of expression, right to assembly and privacy as well as on the right to education, health, culture and to a broad range of other rights. The impacts of new laws and policies on cyber-security, data protection, surveillance, anonymity, intermediary liability on human rights have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate by all stakeholders.How should human rights online be enforced, and by whom? What are the main instruments to engage all sectors and make them accountable for human rights protection? How are new laws pertaining to cybersecurity affecting freedom of expression, assembly, and privacy online? What protections exist in different countries, and what best practices are being developed? What standards for human rights protection should ICT companies, service providers and infrastructure providers follow?

  4. Impacts of International Agreements and Policies 
    Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)’s and a couple of other multilateral free trade agreements’ impact to Cyberspace. Concluded recently, TPP’s implication extends to intellectual property (such as copyright and domain name dispute resolution) and cross-border data flow issues, while US congress did not approve SOPA. What will be the impact on ccTLDs, etc? What are the impacts of such agreements on Internet community?

  5. Universality
    The next era will involve global changes to the Internet, such as the deployment of IPv6, and internationalized domain names and email addresses. What progress is being made, and how can we do more towards these important global developments?

  6. Cyber Connectivity
    Increased connectivity is driving digital transformation at unprecedented rates and has the potential to bridge the digital divide and even wealth gap. It is also changing traditional business models – one of the more recent developments has been the growth of IoT (Internet of Things) and ubiquitous use of technology, from the global industrial economy right down to our personal lives. What developments can we expect in the new era, what potential do they hold?