• Agenda and Annotated Agenda (PDF)

 

13 September
08:00 am – 09:15 am	Registration of delegates

The World e-Parliament Conference 2012 was held at the Chamber of Deputies of Italy, in Rome, on 13, 14 and 15 September. The Conference concluded on the International Day of Democracy, established in 2008 by the UN General Assembly.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said that the conference succeeded in accelerating debate about some very important issues.
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Kenya released volumes of government data as it launched a web portal allowing free information access, a system billed as the first of its kind in sub-Sahara Africa. Population statistics, government expenditure, public health, education, parliamentary proceedings and other public information will be available in a digital format.

The OECD issued a communication on developing Internet policy that puts pressure on ISPs to take responsibility for policing their networks. [...] But civil liberties groups, worried that it puts too much emphasis on intellectual property enforcement, have criticized the text.

Key players in the Internet world stressed that the "light touch" approach to regulation, along with a free flow of information remained vital to life on the web, the OECD said on after a two-day meeting. But governments "should improve their efforts to protect personal data, the freedom of expression, and other fundamental rights online," the meeting of OECD governments, businesses bodies and technical experts agreed.

An act to make public records and information more freely available, provide for public access to public records and information, protect public records and information to the extent consistent with the public interest and the protection of personal privacy, protect serving public officers from adverse consequences for disclosing certain kinds of official information without authorization and establish procedures for the achievement of those purposes and related purposes thereof.

Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente — in collaboration with Información Cívica — has been organizing a series of video-conferences with transparency NGOs and “civic hackers” from Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile and Argentina. On May 5 and 6 a selection of those participants traveled to Santiago, Chile to participate in a two-day workshop focused on sharing information about new technologies, innovative transparency initiatives, and concrete ideas for future projects and collaborations. The majority of the participating organizations are involved in legislative monitoring in some form or another.

Panelists

Moderator: 

Andy Richardson, Information Specialist, Inter-Parliamentary Union

Panelists: 

Marco Obiso, Coordinator, Inter-Sectoral Activities, ITU

Gillian Murray, Chief, Conference Support Section, Focal Point for Cybercrime, UNODC

Frederick Wamala, Research Associate/Cybersecurity Advisor, Department of Management, Information Systems and Innovation Group, London School of Economics

The absence of an internationally-agreed legal framework hampers the fight against cybercrime. This session will examine the existing mechanisms for international coordination on cyber-security and discuss options for inter-parliamentary cooperation on and support to the cyber-security agenda.

Panelists

Moderator: 

Sebastiaan von Solms, Professor, Academy for Information Technology, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Panelists: 

Michael Mukuka, Principal Clerk (ICT), Member of the National Working Group on Cybersecurity, National Assembly of Zambia

Zondol Hersesse, President of the Constitutional Laws Committee, National Assembly of Cameroon

Marco Gercke, Director, Cybercrime Research Institute

Law-making in specialized parliamentary committees, oversight over regulatory bodies and scrutiny on governmental actions, targeted hearings and investigations, and representations of citizens and businesses concerns are some of the options available to parliaments to enhance cyber-security. The session will review a few practices carried out by legislatures around the world to respond to the cyber-security challenges and their effectiveness.

Date and Venue