policy-2

Chair: Maarten Botterman

Maarten Botterman

Maarten Botterman is Founder and Director of GNKS, a company known for its policy research on information society issues. He is currently ICANN Board Director, Chairman of the IGF Dynamic Coalition on the Internet of Things, and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of NLnet Foundation. Maarten is information society policy expert, based in the Netherlands, and with a focus on European, US and global information society policy issues like impact of technology on society, global governance, information assurance, e-government, and global internet challenges. He has been involved in Information Security policy, Data protection, Future Internet and Internet Governance, both as policy analyst (RAND, GNKS) and as Chairman on the Board of the third largest general Registry in the world (Public Interest Registry, serving .ORG and .NGO, a USA based non-profit business). He has been involved in studies and impact assessments around future internet and other ICT policy related studies since 1999.

Expert Group Members:

  • Maarten Botterman – GNKS Consult BV Director, ICANN Board Director, IGF DC IoT Chairman (chair)
  • Dr David Farber – Carnegie Mellon University, IEEE fellow, ACM fellow (co-chair)
  • Dr Jonathan Cave – Warwick University, GNKS, Regulatory Policy Committee Economist Member
  • Dan Caprio – The Providence Group
  • Dr Avri Doria – Technicalities
  • Dr Ilkka Lakaniemi – Chairman of Future Internet Public Private Partnership, Finland Chamber of Commerce, Aalto University
  • Dr Glenn Ricart – Founder and CTO, US Ignite

Policy Papers:


Short overview:

One of the objectives of the PICASSO project is to bring forward policy recommendations that are designed to improve the EU/US ICT collaboration. The Policy Expert Group explores opportunities to support EU/US ICT collaboration improvement by identifying and addressing key policy challenges and opportunities to ICT collaboration.

One of the most contested issues is personal data privacy, which is not only a matter of concern to private sector and civil society stakeholders, but is also an increasing bone of contention between national and supranational governments in relation to criminal justice, national security and other vital national interests.

This was the first of five policies that will be developed by the Policy Expert Group. Whereas PICASSO will not be able to satisfy all concerns across all stakeholders, the aim is to explore how US/EU collaboration in ICT can be served, best, taking into account the differences in approach towards privacy and data protection in the USA and in Europe, with respect for law and citizens’ expectations, and keeping the widest possible space for innovation and deployment.

Following the discussion about privacy and data protection (see Policy Paper 1), the following subjects came forwards as priorities that, looking at the other PICASSO expert subjects (5G networks; Big Data; IoT/CPS) would seem to be relevant across the board:

  • Security: without security we have “nothing”; ensuring a certain level of security will be a key requirement for all ICT applications developed in US/EU. It was decided to propose this as a candidate subject for one of the last four policy papers. David Farber (CMU) kindly volunteered to “hold the pen”, thus facilitating further development of this paper. (Policy Paper 2)
  • Standards: standards are important to ensure interoperability, but also relate to possible antitrust issues. ICT related standards today are developing on global level, often beyond the traditional standards bodies that were very sectoral: sectors that are rapidly converging now. Avri Doria (Technicalities) kindly volunteered to “hold the pen”, thus facilitating further development of this paper. (Policy Paper 3)
  • Spectrum: for both 5G and IoT/CPS, spectrum issues arise in particular because of the differences that historically exist on spectrum policies around the world. Focus of the paper would be on how to deal with these differences, and how to find ways forward allowing new technologies to find their way. (Policy Paper 4)

The 5th thematic paper focused on “digital communities”. In this paper, many aspects of the previous papers come together. In all communities, there will be an onslaught of sensors collecting data and sometimes summoning help, controlling signals and valves and the brightness of street lights, managing waste pickup, and sometimes directing public safety efforts. As personal data inevitably is caught up by these sensors, we can apply the policy lessons of the Picasso policy paper on privacy.  As sensitive data is collected and the use of ICT devices can be damaging, when used wrongly, we can also apply the policy lessons of the Picasso policy paper on security. To avoid separate data collection and management systems for each type of sensor, we were able to build on the policy lessons of the Standards Picasso policy paper.  Since most of these sensors are wireless, the policy lessons of the spectrum Picasso policy paper could also be applied. The outcomes of subsequent discussions on the policy papers during IGF2016 (on the privacy and data protection aspects) and IGF2017 (on ICT security and standardization aspects) have been reflected in this, too.

Like with the other policy papers, finalization of this paper happened following a webinar based on a draft report raising specific relevant issues. The results will be presented and discussed during EuroDIG 2018, 5 June, in Tbilisi, Georgia. For more information on EuroDIG2018 see www.eurodig.org.