[Chapter-delegates] Madrid Declaration

Tue Nov 3 10:33:28 PST 2009

Dear All,

First, thanks for your email: we're very pleased to hear how engaged  
many of the chapters are in this very sensitive area of privacy. From  
the many reactions which I have seen on the list, I believe that we  
could have been more considered and less direct in our response and in  
particular we should have taken more time to expand on the reasoning  
behind this mail. I hope the following note will solve this.
This said, before I come back on my original mail, I would like to  
share some general thoughts with you, with a view to seek your ideas  
on how we could improve the process to issue collective positions on  
such public policy declaration when ISOC as a whole has not been  
formally engaged.

Your ideas would also allow use of the recommended processes for  
consultation drafted by the sphere-consult group to follow.
A real issue is that we (all of us) are often being offered to support  
last-minute widely-distributed calls from various organizations to  
support work that is effectively finished.  As a matter of course, we  
often have not been given a chance to input on the proposed text,  
which would provide us the opportunity to reflect ISOC diversity and  
strategic goals and objectives in the draft, influence it and then  
support the declaration.  The main reason is that we, as Chapter, as  
ISOC staff, as Member, can't be everywhere and be involved in the  
drafting of all these works. I'm not claiming we should be ISOC- 
centric (this is not the point) I'm just saying that we should  
seriously reflect on ISOC's ability to participate effectively to the  
drafting of those many declarations. As the case may be, ISOC may not  
be able to support declarations that include language we cannot  
support, regardless of their potential good intent.

This is an *open* question and I would very much like to hear your  
opinions.

What's for sure is that allowing time for such a reflexion will  
certainly help all of us  to improve our communication with all ISOC  
components because, yes, there is definitely a need for improvement.

Now allow me to come back to my first mail which definitely needs a  
clarification.

Speaking directly to the Global Privacy Standards for a Global World  
proposed by the Public Voice, our intent was simply to indicate that  
it is difficult to support in its entirety the declaration as  
currently written.  As has already been pointed out by various Chapter  
Delegates,the intent of the declaration is to a high degree aligned  
with ISOC's mission as it relates to respecting privacy.

There is no question that this draft Declaration is well intentioned  
and that it proposes very strong and robust principles.  Our decision  
not to sign it does *not* mean ISOC does not support those principles.  
Further, and even more importantly, it does not mean that ISOC would  
advise going counter to those principles.However, there are areas in  
the Madrid Declaration that we are unable to support and those are  
significant enough to lead to a decision that our organization should  
not support the Declaration.Indeed, we believe that it is not  
advisable to support a declaration whose wording could position ISOC  
in a wrong manner, at a moment where ISOC is succeeding to strengthen  
its credibility vis-a-vis multiple stakeholders in this very sensitive  
area.

- ISOC is playing a major role with others in the Internet technical  
community and other actors in the development of global privacy policy  
(among other areas).  Those actors include governments in the OECD and  
elsewhere, and with others including Public Voice, also in the OECD  
context.  ISOC is dedicated to providing reasonable, well considered  
and technically sound advice on these topics.  While in general terms  
ISOC supports the underlying principles in the draft Madrid  
Declaration, we believe there are portions of the Declaration that we  
are unable to support at this time because we believe they are not yet  
sufficiently well crafted.

- As importantly, ISOC has  launched a Major Strategic Initiative on  
closely related issues (Trust and Identity) and is engaged in  
discussions related to privacy in both technical and policy forums  
with an interest in User
managed Identity. Also ISOC is managing an ongoing working group on  
the policy responses to infringement of copyright law on the Internet  
which offers to gather the view of all stakeholders (from civil  
society, ISOC Members including many of our Chapters and Org. Members)  
on this very sensitive issue.  Here again, we do not believe it is  
appropriate for ISOC to preclude any of the results of these important  
initiatives by signing a declaration which, by some of its phrasing,  
seems to support some specific positions only.  We are not confident  
that the Declaration as it now stands provides a good basis for moving  
forward on the policy front.

- Last, and in some ways an example of what I said above, we of course  
understand and agree that many new technologies, including embedded  
RIFD, raise significant challenges for privacy, and their widespread  
deployment is a very controversial issue. That is the case for many  
new technologies enabled by the Internet.  We believe, however, that  
calling for a moratorium is not a sensible position for ISOC to take  
as a technical and policy contributor to the International debate.  We  
must be open to the development of new technologies consistent with  
ISOC's principles, and understanding that development of both  
technology and policy can only take place in an open, bottom-up and  
often iterative process.  Calling for a complete moratorium is not  
compatible with that kind of development.

We came to these conclusions through a series of internal discussions  
that we broadened beyond our policy group to include our privacy and  
identity teams.  We would be pleased to work closely with all of you  
who have already expressed their support to help modify the  
declaration in an effort to improve it.  As we understood the process,  
though, at this time they were only seeking signatures and not  
suggestions. And the deadline was very short.

Finally, while the expert team who worked on this suggested that ISOC  
not support this specific declaration, that in no way indicates that  
you should not feel free to support what you believe to be right.  By  
all means, you should stand up and be counted when you feel it  
necessary to do so.
We simply ask that you follow the processes established within ISOC  
with respect to "approval" prior to signing.  We risk losing  
credibility if we are not consistent to our principles across the  
organization. (please see also "http://www.isoc.org/isoc/chapters/policy/ 
  point 5)

I hope this clarifies our position and I'm happy to further discuss a  
position which all of us, ISOC Members,  would craft and promote  
together and which would better reflect what ISOC is trying to achieve  
in this very complex environment.If you're interested in working on  
such a position, please indicate your interest by reply and we will  
start a working group, open to all ISOC components, to formulate  
policy recommendations in this field. We would follow the process  
which has been recently discussed within the Sphere Consult, which has  
been widely agreed by Chapters and which provides guidelines to  
conduct an internal consultation.
Again, I regret the misunderstanding, and hope that this helps clarify  
our position.  We appreciate your comments and look forward to  
continuing to effectively work together.

Thank you

Best Regards
Frederic

Frederic Donck
Director Public Policy
Internet Society

www.isoc.org

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