Information Communications and Technology Archives

USCIB Sets Out Priorities for Upcoming International Telecommunication Union Meeting

Published on September 20, 2022

Ahead of this year’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) meeting, scheduled for September 26-October 14 in Bucharest, Romania, USCIB issued priorities for the organization’s Plenipotentiary Conference 2022 (PP-22).

USCIB’s priorities target ITU Member States and Sector Members as they seek to reexamine the ITU’s general policies, adopt the four-year strategic and financial plans and elect the senior management team of the Union, including USCIB’s endorsed candidate Doreen Bogdan-Martin for ITU Secretary General.

According to USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy Barbara Wanner, who will be in Bucharest for the deliberations, decisions, such as the election for the new ITU Secretary General, taken at PP-22 have the potential to significantly impact global business on both the technical and policy fronts. USCIB was one of the first business organizations to join the U.S. government in strongly endorsing the candidacy of Bogdan-Martin to become the new ITU Secretary General.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Source: US Mission to Geneva

“By virtue of her current leadership of the ITU Development Bureau, we believe that Ms. Bogdan-Martin possesses both substantive knowledge and leadership skills that would make her a superb ITU Secretary General,” said Wanner.

USCIB extensive list of priorities for the ITU also included a position on the ITU’s role with respect to international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet and the management of Internet resources, including domain names and addresses. Aligning with the U.S. Government and others, USCIB opposes the ITU assuming a role in managing, coordinating, overseeing, or otherwise regulating the use of the Internet on grounds that this is beyond the ITU’s authority and expertise.

USCIB also provided comments on several newer issues, such as a proposal to strengthen the role of ITU with regard to transparency, confidence-building and measures in outer space activities and regulation of AI. Concerning the AI proposals, in particular, USCIB is wary of efforts to expand the ITU work program to include AI and other emerging technologies on the grounds that, if not properly scoped, the policy outcomes could stifle innovation and not be technology neutral.

Click here to read USCIB’s Priorities document for the ITU PP-22.

USCIB Welcomes New Digital Policy Assistant: Nan Schechter

Published on September 14, 2022
Nan Schechter

Last month, USCIB welcomed a new Digital Policy Assistant, Nan Schechter. Schechter joins the USCIB policy team in Washington DC to work closely with USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy Barbara Wanner.

In addition to assisting with management of the USCIB ICT Policy Committee, Schechter will be working closely with Wanner as a Point Person for all Digital Inclusion issues.

“An avid supporter of women’s rights and issues, Nan will apply her passion and talents to promote bridging the gender digital divide–a topic that has only been gaining more significance in organizations like UNESCO, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU),” said Wanner.

From 2020 until 2021, Schechter worked as a Legislative Intern for multiple politicians, namely Maryland Delegate Ariana Kelly, Congressman Jamie Raskin, and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. In these positions, Schechter gained a crucial skillset in administrative support, committee management, correspondence drafting, and research.

Schechter began her professional career in 2017 as an Administrative Aide for the City of Rockville Recreation and Parks Department. Concurrently, she served as the Vice President of Administrative Affairs for the Sigma Delta Tau, Alpha Theta Chapter for three years. During the summer of 2020, she worked as a Public Policy Intern for RAINN, providing research and policy drafting during her time with the organization.

Schechter graduated from the University of Maryland – College Park with a Master’s in Public Policy in May 2022.

She brings expertise in project management, drafting, research, and an enthusiasm for women’s issues.

USCIB Hosts Reception to Endorse Doreen Bogdan-Martin as New ITU Secretary General

Published on July 19, 2022
At the July 13 in reception in NY during UN HLPF. Left to right: Barbara Wanner, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Peter Robinson

Ahead of the upcoming election this fall of the new Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Bucharest, Romania, USCIB has joined the U.S. government and many others in endorsing the nomination of Doreen Bogdan-Martin to become the new ITU Secretary General. As part of this endorsement, USCIB hosted a reception on July 13 in New York during the United Nations High-Level Political Forum (UN HLPF), which was sponsored by Amazon, AT&T, BT, Lumen, Microsoft and Verizon.

“The outcome of this election will have important ramifications for telecommunications/ICT policies and regulations, which ultimately could affect countries’ ability to tap innovations that will boost economic and social prosperity, drive capacity building, and help to realize the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” said USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson.

Bogdan-Martin, who currently serves as Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau, has shared her vision for the long-term success of the ITU, which includes: aiming high to achieve universal digital connectivity that is safe, inclusive and affordable; collaborating for impact to transform delivery; and excelling as an institution with integrity and accountability.

“By virtue of her leadership of the ITU Development Bureau, we believe that Ms. Bogdan-Martin possesses both substantive knowledge and leadership skills that would make her a superb ITU Secretary General and place the Union at the forefront of global efforts to meet connectivity needs and expand digital opportunities for the people of your country and around the world,” added USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy Barbara Wanner. “Importantly, she understands what business needs: effective policies and standards that attract investment and support innovation. And perhaps most important, Ms. Bogdan-Martin will ensure that the ITU continues to embrace multi-stakeholder input into the development of the ITU’s regulatory practices and technical standards, and that those practices and standards directly relate to the ITU’s core mission.”

USCIB Joins Pledge to Enhance Cyber Resiliency and Counter Evolving Global Threats

Published on June 15, 2022

In partnership with the Coalition to Reduce Cyber Risk (CR2), USCIB was among thirty-seven companies and organizations that pledged on June 8 to enhance cyber resiliency and counter evolving cross-border cyber threats, such as the growth of ransomware.

Signers to this groundbreaking pledge from eight countries have promised to encourage the development, evolution and implementation of risk-based approaches that rely on consensus-based standards and risk management best practices, support efforts of vendors and supply chain contributors to adopt risk-based cybersecurity approaches in order to help small businesses flourish while improving the resiliency of the cyber ecosystem, incorporate widely accepted international cybersecurity standards as a foundation of cybersecurity policies and controls wherever applicable and feasible, and periodically reassess cybersecurity policies and controls against revisions to cybersecurity standards and actively participate in industry-driven initiatives to improve those standards.

“CR2 is committed to driving a globally-aligned approach for managing cyber risk. Thirty-Seven organizations from eight countries have signed the Cyber Risk Management Pledge, demonstrating the breadth of usage of international standards such as ISO/IEC 27110 and 27103, as well as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and associated sector profiles.” said
Benjamin Flatgard, President of CR2 and Executive Director of Technology and Cybersecurity Policy and Partnerships at J.P. Morgan Chase.

He added: “Governments should embed widely used international standards at the core of their national cyber policies to facilitate a seamless approach to shared cyber risk.”

For more information on the CR2 and the pledge, or if your company or organization is interested in joining the pledge, please visit https://www.crx2.org/

USCIB Joins Global Trade and Industry in Statement to Urge WTO to Renew Moratorium on Customs Duties on Electronic Transmissions

Published on May 18, 2022

May 17, 2022, New York, NY — The United States Council for International Business (USCIB) joined today nearly 100 other global trade and industry associations to urge WTO members to renew the Moratorium on Customs Duties on Electronic Transmissions at the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference in June.

According to the statement, allowing the Moratorium to expire would be a historic setback for the WTO, representing an unprecedented termination of a multilateral agreement in place nearly since the WTO’s inception – an agreement that has allowed the digital economy to take root and grow. All WTO members have a stake in the organization’s continued institutional credibility and resilience, as well as its relevance at a time of unprecedented digital transformation.

Continuation of the Moratorium is critical to the COVID-19 recovery. As detailed by the United Nations, the World Bank, the OECD, and many other organizations, the cross-border exchange of knowledge, technical know-how, and scientific and commercial information across transnational IT networks, as well as access to digital tools and global market opportunities have helped sustain economies, expand education, and raise global living standards.

Continuation of the Moratorium is also important to supply chain resilience for manufacturing and services industries in the COVID-19 era. Manufacturers – both large and small, and across a range of industrial sectors – rely on the constant flow of research, design, and process data and software to enable their production flows and supply chains for critical products.

The Moratorium is particularly beneficial to Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs), whose ability to access and leverage digital tools has allowed them to stay in business amidst physical restrictions and lockdowns.

Failure to renew the Moratorium will jeopardize these benefits, as customs restrictions that interrupt cross-border access to knowledge and digital tools will harm MSMEs, the global supply chain, and COVID-19 recovery – increasing digital fragmentation. As UNCTAD has explained, such fragmentation “reduces market opportunities for domestic MSMEs to reach worldwide markets, [and] … reduces opportunities for digital innovation, including various missed opportunities for inclusive development that can be facilitated by engaging in data-sharing through strong international cooperation…. [M]ost small, developing economies will lose opportunities for raising their digital competitiveness.”

The rest of the statement can be found here.

About USCIB: USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development, and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and regulatory coherence. Its members include U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world. As the U.S. affiliate of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Organization of Employers (IOE) and Business at OECD (BIAC), USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide and works to facilitate international trade and investment. More at www.uscib.org.

USCIB’s Statement of Priorities for the Proposed Global Digital Compact

Published on May 4, 2022

On occasion of the United Nations Secretary General’s inclusion of the proposed Global Digital Compact (GDC) as part of Our Common Agenda, USCIB released a statement of priorities, which highlights how digital technologies and the online environment act as drivers that help grow the global economy, bridge inequalities, foster creativity and innovation, build trust, and expand societal engagement and exchange.

USCIB’s statement outlines several specific issues as key to realizing improved digital cooperation, such as infrastruture, connectivity and spectrum; multistakeholder governance approaches; free flow of data; the avoidance of internet fragmentation; the importance of trust; open markets and predictable regulatory environments; protection of freedom of expression online; importance of Artifical Intelligence (AI); and finally accountability criteria for discriminatory and misleading content.

“Key to realizing the developmental benefits of digital transformation are policies that support an enabling environment for technology innovation,” said USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy Barbara Wanner. According to USCIB, such policies may address economic, social/cultural, technical, and governance issues, all of which are interlinked and cross-cutting. This holistic approach best ensures the development of an open, safe, highly secure, stable, interoperable, seamless and sustainable digital ecosystem with the potential to close development gaps and address other inequities.

 

USCIB Supports “ITU International Girls in ICT Day” and Candidacy of Doreen Bogdan-Martin

Published on April 20, 2022

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has developed an initiative aimed at realizing greater inclusion in the digital economy, bridging the gender digital divide and encouraging young women throughout the world to study and pursue careers based on STEM skills.

This year, the ITU’s International Girls in ICT Day will be celebrated on April 28.

According to Barbara Wanner, USCIB vice president for ICT Policy, this year’s theme will be “Access and Safety,” a selection based on consultations with girls and young women, who indicated that they need safe and reliable access to the Internet and digital tools to pursue their STEM career ambitions.

“It is USCIB’s hope that events such as this will help to broaden global support for the candidacy of Doreen Bogdan-Martin, currently Director of the ITU Development Bureau, for ITU Secretary General when elections are held at the ITU Plenipotentiary, September 26-October 14, 2022, in Bucharest, Romania,” said Wanner.

USCIB featured a discussion about the ITU’s efforts to bridge the gender digital divide and encourage more young women to pursue STEM careers as part of our workshop at the 2016 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) – “An Internet of Women by 2020: From WSIS Vision to Reality.  “Our expert speaker, in fact, was Ms. Bogdan-Martin,” added Wanner.

 

USCIB Policy Experts Participate in B20 Indonesia

Published on March 23, 2022

Several USCIB policy experts are actively participating in B20 2022, the official global business dialogue with G20 nations.

Led by Indonesia this year, the B20 is comprised of seven task forces that develop consensus-based policy proposals outlining business priorities on key issue confronting the G20 nations in the year ahead. Senior Vice President for Innovation, Regulation, and Trade Brian Lowry and Policy and Program Associate for Sustainability Agnes Vinblad are on the Task Force for Integrity and Compliance, USCIB Senior Vice President for Policy and Global Strategy Norine Kennedy is on the Task Force on Energy, Sustainability and Climate, USCIB Vice President for Corporate Responsibility and Labor Affairs Gabriella Rigg Herzog is on the Future of work and Education Task Force, USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy Barbara Wanner is on the Task Force on Digitalization, and Director for Investment, Trade and China Alice Slayton Clark is on the Trade and Investment Task Force.

“USCIB helps shape actionable policy recommendations provided through these task forces that will be shared with the G20 leaders when they meet in Indonesia in November,” said Lowry. “We at USCIB look forward to the advancement of business’ priorities to the G20 policymakers to help inform policies to advance a stable and inclusive post-pandemic economic recovery and supply chain resiliency, while grappling with the difficult national security issues confronting the world today.”

Business Explores Approach to DNS Abuse Mitigation, Ukraine Crisis Hangs over ICANN

Published on March 23, 2022

For more than two years, members of the Domain Name System (DNS) user community have highlighted the need for more effective Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) policies and contractual tools to crack down on abuse in the DNS, which spiked during the COVID-19 crisis. ICANN 73, held virtually on March 7-10, featured a plenary that sought to grapple with DNS abuse mitigation in a more focused and actionable manner. Using as reference an academic study commissioned by the European Commission, plenary speakers explored the distinction between maliciously registered domain names versus compromised domain names and discussed why this differentiation is important for timely mitigation.

According to USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy Barbara Wanner, who participated as an industry representative, panelists underscored the need for the ICANN community to work together to address this challenge, recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach may not be appropriate, that DNS users and providers will have to work both inside the ICANN community as well as reach out to “adjacent organizations” like hosting services to develop effective redress, and that “proportionality of harm” must be considered.

Not surprisingly, according to Wanner, the crisis in Ukraine was top-of-mind for all participants, who offered various views about an appropriate response by ICANN and its constituents. On February 28, the Government of Ukraine asked ICANN to revoke permanently or temporarily the domain name certificates for “.ru,” “.su” among others as sanctions for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “… a clear act of aggression and a manifest violation of Article 2.4 of the UN Charter.”

Ukraine’s letter to ICANN CEO Goran Marby further justified such sanctions on grounds that “… atrocious crimes have been made possible mainly due to the Russian propaganda machinery using websites continuously spreading disinformation, hate speech, promoting violence and hiding the truth regarding the war in Ukraine.”

Marby responded that ICANN would not intervene in this conflict. While expressing personal concern about Ukrainians’ well-being as well as the “terrible toll being exacted on your country,” he wrote to Ukrainian authorities that ICANN’s mission “does not extend to taking punitive actions, issuing sanctions, or restricting access against segments of the Internet — regardless of the provocations.”

“On March 6, however, the ICANN Board decided to allocate an initial sum of $1 million to be used to provide financial assistance to support access to Internet infrastructure in emergency situations, noting that the distribution ‘will focus on maintaining Internet access for users within Ukraine,’” said Wanner.

On March 7, ICANN further clarified that events in Ukraine would formally be considered an “extenuating circumstance under Section 3.7.5.1 of the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). This means that registrars now have the flexibility to extend the domain name registration renewal period for domain name holders in affected areas.

ICANN Board Chair Maarten Botterman further clarified on March 10 that the Board will shortly consider policy advice from the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) aimed at retiring the “.su” domain name.

ICC Releases Recent Trends in Trade and Trade Finance Report, Includes Impact of Ukraine Crisis on Global Recovery, Inflation

Published on March 22, 2022

The International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) Global Policy department has recently released the report, Recent Trends in Trade and Trade Finance. This report delves into the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications on global trade and finance, as well as the major challenges that can hamper a successful economic recovery.

While focused on trade, banking and finance issues, the report is also relevant to other policy areas, such as ICT, workers and the environment.

To complement this analysis, ICC also released a related presentation, looking at the global impact of the crisis in Ukraine on recovery and further inflation through, for example, supply-chain disruptions, lower consumer and business confidence, inflation in agriculture, manufacturing and energy, as well as liquidity and fiscal risks resulting from currency depreciations and increasing financing costs.

According to ICC, the “Recent Trends in Trade and Trade Finance” report will be used for advocacy geared toward increasing resilience to trade disruptions by enhancing trade digitalization.