EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Context and why it matters
The ideal of a global unfettered Internet is on a collision course with the values and aspirations of authoritarian states.  The global trend is against the privacy and dignity of users online.

People
An eclectic mix of people from major Internet companies, campaigners, government officials, regulators and academics assembled at Ditchley. 

Where we are now
The Internet is everywhere and will soon touch everyone.  Mobile means constant availability and ever deeper penetration into people’s lives. The digital economy is increasingly the economy.  Governments can no longer afford to ignore the Internet and when governments engage they bring their ideology, policies and goals with them.  Even liberal governments face challenges with even simple domestic crimes requiring access to data overseas.  National security is an even bigger challenge.  Authoritarian governments increasingly want to bring the Internet under control and keep data at home in order to ensure access.  The organised manipulation of standards to this end is increasingly common.  At the other end of the spectrum, initiatives like the German data sovereignty law may also end up fracturing the Internet in intended defence of privacy.  Cyber security will emerge as a critical challenge as the Internet of Things gains pace, becoming a safety issue.  New people coming online risk digital disappointment.  The new fragmented Internet may fail to live up to its early promise in terms of global connectivity and its contribution to innovation and development.

What we should do

• If we want a global Internet to endure we need to be able to define its qualities for users and work out a plan to deliver it.  A coalition of liberal states, companies and campaigners needs to get its act together to meet the challenge of authoritarian approaches to the Internet.

• We should argue for digital rights for individuals, linking this to Universal Human Rights.

• Linking the Internet to the achievement of millennium development goals is important too.

• The minimum ambition should a decentralised general purpose network that keeps open the possibility of global connectivity.

• An advocacy strategy and simplified language is needed that engages educated citizens and leaders not just experts.  Terms like “net neutrality” and “multi-stakeholder governance” are not the right rallying cries to win popular support.

• There are powerful economic levers to help persuade authoritarian governments to remain part of the global Internet.  We should use them.

• Governments face genuine difficulties in investigating crimes with data and evidence, even on the most domestic of matters, held overseas.  Better arrangements are urgent and failure to provide them will drive demands for data repatriation and sovereignty.

• Improving cyber security is essential for all and urgent with the advent of the Internet of Things.  Dialogue at the G20 might help.  China and Russia have interests in this too.

• Machine learning risks the Internet becoming a mirror or echo chamber for preconceptions and prejudice.  We need more transparency from companies on what they do with the data they collect and how they serve up material through algorithms.  The consumer and citizen needs to be encouraged and educated to be more digitally literate to understand what is happening.  The alternative is eventual loss of trust in the Internet as a medium.