Internet Society ICOMM16, 22 Sep 2016

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From YouTube: Lawrence E Strickling

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Lawrence E. Strickling from the NTIA speaks at InterCommunity 2016

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Thank you, sally, and thank you, kathy, for inviting me to participate in your program. Today.

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In particular,, to give me a chance to talk about a topic.

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That we've made a top priority during my seven years at ntia.

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I know many of you in this room and watching from around the world are familiar with multi-stake holder processes through the work of icann and the iana stewardship transition.

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However, I'd like to spend a few minutes to go into detail as to why we see this as not just a tool for global, technical internet issues,.

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But also as a potential alternative to address a far broader set of policy, issues.

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Clearly, this model has a successful record of accomplishment.

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When it comes to technical internet issues, and all of us have watched in awe over the past two years,.

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As the global internet community, comprised of businesses and technical experts, and public interests, groups and governments, has engaged in the one of the most compelling demonstrations.

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Of a multi-stakeholder process ever undertaken through the work on the iana stewardship transition.

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And given the intensive level of effort that went into developing that transition, plan,.

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And building consensus for it from all parts of the icann community,. It's no surprise that today we find all sectors of the community, businesses, civil society, technical experts,, supporting the transition.

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And I want to thank the internet society and kathy brown in particular for your steadfast support of the transition..

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I know you and other supporters want to see the united state follow through on its longstanding, bipartisan commitment to complete the privatization of the domain-name system.

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And, as I told the senate judiciary committee last week,, we need to show our trust in the private sector.

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And the work of technical experts from around the world,.

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Global businesses, and civil society who have delivered a thoughtful consensus plan by supporting.

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This long-promised privatization.

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at ntia,, we have been inspired by the efforts of the iana transition, multi-stakeholder working groups.

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And we are putting our time and resources into adapting the multi-stakeholder process to address other issues., because we know it can help build trust in the digital ecosystem and can be an effective tool,.

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Not just to make progress on internet policy challenges.

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The process has the ability to produce in a timely way.

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Meaningful guideposts for industry and consumers in this rapidly evolving technological environment.

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As we have thought about how to use the process more widely,, we have focused on two key attributes.

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We think are critical in the design of any multi-stakeholder approach..

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They are participation and consensus decision, making.

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Let me start with participation.

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internet policy issues draw a much larger range.

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Of stakeholders than traditional telecommunications, issues.

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and one key benefit of a multi-stakeholder process.

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Is that it can include and engage all interested parties.

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And as I've mentioned,, these parties can include industries, civil society,, government,, technical and academic experts, and even the general public.

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The internet is a diverse,, multi-layered system.

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That thrives only through the cooperation of many different parties. and solving or even meaningfully discussing policy issues.

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In this, space requires engaging these different parties.

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And indeed,, by encouraging the participation of all interested parties, multi-stakeholder processes can encourage broader and more creative problem. Solving.

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The second key attribute is consensus, decision making.

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For a multi-stakeholder group to succeed, its members must know that they will be the ones.

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To make the decision, not someone else, and that it must be a consensus decision.

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some countries,, their organizations have run what they call multi-stakeholder processes.

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That in reality are only consultations,, because the group is not empowered to make the final decision., but we have found that when groups know that they control the final decisions,, they are more likely to put in the extra effort, often needed to reach a true consensus.

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and usually,. Reaching consensus requires making compromises.

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But the group has to feel that reaching a shared decision.

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Is the most important goal, commanding and requiring making those compromises.

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Otherwise, stakeholders who are simply satisfied with the status-quo can be ultimately destructive.

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To a multi-stakeholder model.

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participants must also believe that the multi-stakeholder process has the legitimacy to reach a decision..

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They must have some trust in those convening the process and a sense that the participants are representative of the broader community. often,. That legitimacy may come from a government or some other official entity that convenes the process,, but that does not always have to the case..

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The internet engineering task force, in fact, is an example of a successful multi-stakeholder body.

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That has gained legitimacy organically over the years.

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And did not require the blessing of government agency like ntia..

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Instead, it gained its legitimacy by producing voluntary standards of the highest quality and through open, transparent, and inclusive processes..

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In the united states,, the legitimacy of multi-stakeholder processes that we have convened.

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Has certainly been helped by our involvement and by their open and transparent manner., but government does not always need to be the legitimizing force., and so, while it's a crucial factor in the success of multi-stakeholder processes,, there may be different ways to obtain it..

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So let me tell you how we've been using the process in the united states.

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keep in mind, that my agency, ntia, is not a regulator.

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Like our federal communications commission.- however,, we have been able to make progress on issues of privacy,, intellectual property, and cyber security by organizing and facilitating.

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Multi-Stakeholder discussions on these issues., like icann,, our domestic processes are open to anyone who wishes to participate,.

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And we have carefully circumscribed our role to act as a neutral, convener and facilitator.

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We take extreme care not to ever substitute our judgment.

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For that of the stakeholders.

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in the privacy area, we've convened industry, academics,.

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And others to develop codes-of-conduct and best practices.

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That implement the consumer privacy bill of rights outlined in president obama's blueprint on consumer data privacy..

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After more than a year at work,, stakeholders reached consensus on a code-of-conduct to provide improved privacy notices for mobile devices.

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And just this past june, stakeholders wrapped up work on a set of best practices to help protect privacy related.

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To the commercial use of facial recognition, technology.

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Last year, the president directed ntia, to convene stakeholders to develop best practices.

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On privacy,, transparency, and accountability, issues.

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Related to the commercial and private use of unmanned aircraft, systems, better known as drones.

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And after several months of hard work, a diverse set of stakeholders,, including privacy and consumer advocates,, industry,.

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News organizations, trade associations, announced in may.

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That they had reached agreement on a best practices document.

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on the copyright, front, ntia collaborated with our sister agency,, the u.s. patent and trademark office.

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On a multi-stakeholder process to explore ways to improve.

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The operation of the notice and take-down system for removing infringing content from the internet.

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Under the digital millennium, copyright act.

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and after many meetings, stakeholders completed a helpful list of good, bad, and situational practices.

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Aimed at improving the processing of dmca notices.

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By both senders and recipients.

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and then on, cyber security, stakeholders are working to finish principles and guidance for the disclosure of cyber security, vulnerabilities.

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And next month, we'll be convening a new process.

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To support better consumer understanding of the need for security upgrades and internet-of-things products.

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now,, we do not see the multi-stakeholder process as totally replacing the need for legislation and regulation.

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however,. This tool can be an effective way to address emerging issues in the evolving technological landscape.. It allows for nimble, flexible approaches.

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That participants can agree upon and modify much faster than traditional regulatory or legislative models would allow..

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If we addressed all technological policy challenges with the typical washington, regulatory or legislative.

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Process,, we might still be waiting for resolution.

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Worse, by the time, laws or regulations were finalized,.

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We would likely find that the problem they were tended to solve no longer exists, or has evolved into a totally different challenge.

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But utilizing multi-stakeholder processes, we can minimize.

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This likelihood of hamstringing technologists.

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And users from creating the robust, evolving internet we enjoy today..

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The united states government,, including our congress,, has long championed the multi-stakeholder approach as the preferred tool for dealing with internet policy issues. at ntia,. We will continue to trumpet the advantages of the this approach wherever we can, both domestically and internationally..

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And I ask all of you who support the model to help educate others about it, and to push back against the ignorance sometimes displayed by opponents or skeptics of the approach, few of whom have ever actually participated.

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In a process. we all want to protect internet freedom, and promoting the multi-stakeholder model is central to that. Protection. thank you, for listening.