The federal government wants to be more “present” in shaping the “global technology future” – including the internet – than it has been in previous years.
Ambassador for cyber affairs and critical technology Brendon Dowling told NetThing 2023 yesterday that Australia – and the region – needed to adopt a more active stance, in particular to counter the influence of other states and tech companies.
“This is a hugely consequential era for policymaking and international cooperation,” Dowling said.
“Cyber and technology diplomacy is not niche, it’s actually at the core of how we see our place in the world.
“We’re seeing that for too long, tech companies and other states have been more present than governments like ours in shaping the global technological future.”
Dowling said there needed to be a “combined voice” from the Indo-Pacific region “to promote the interests of this region against the powerful interests that dominate this debate globally.”
He hoped the region would at least agree to back the existing multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance at a major UN conference in Kyoto in October.
There are concerns being aired at present that the UN wants to minimise the influence of the technical community as a distinct stakeholder group in the future direction of the internet.
Internet governance, Dowling said, is “perhaps the most important discussion that most people are not paying attention to.”
“Internet governance is a field upon which geopolitics and ideological differences are being contested in ways that we probably didn’t foresee in the early days of the internet,” he said.
“This requires us to stand up for a multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance that prevents any one group from exerting undue influence over the future of the internet.”
Dowling said that “many authoritarian states would prefer to limit the ability of non-government stakeholders to influence decisions on the future of the internet and emerging technology.”
“They want an internet that is more easily controlled by states,” he said.
“Let me be clear: Australia opposes all attempts to bring governance and technical management of the internet under the control of governments or into the multilateral system.”
Dowling said the multi-stakeholder model is criticised as “not fit-for-purpose to address online harms”, an argument nation-states used to push for “increased… control over the internet.”
He acknowledged that “there is a legitimate, indeed imperative role, for governments to play in preventing the malicious use of the internet.”
But he said technical management and governance needed to incorporate and balance a broader range of views.
Dowling added that the forthcoming cyber security strategy for 2023 to 2030 – anticipated to be released later this year – “will take a bold role in how we advocate for the interests of this region in the development of global digital technologies in the internet and in cyber security.”
“In developing the strategy … we’re considering how Australia can do more through international engagement and cooperation to ensure transparent international standards development, to defend open internet governance, to uphold responsible state behaviour in cyberspace, and to counter malicious cybercriminal activity,” Dowling said.