What requirements should a free internet state meet?

Internet creator Tim Berners-Lee withpoliticians from Ghana, France and Germany have developed an action plan to improve the Internet. The document, entitled “Network Contract,” consists of principles that must be followed at three levels: user, government, and company level. The article discusses the basic requirements at the government stage of the network contract.

State level Internet governance

The document states that everyone should have access to the Internet. For the implementation of this paragraph must meet three criteria:

• Ensure the cost of 1 GB of Internet is not higher than 2% of the average monthly income in the world.
• Broadband Internet should be at least 90% of the country's citizens.
• At least 70% of young people should have skills in working with information technology.

Legislatures should develop measures to comply with laws and regulations aimed at expanding access to the Internet:

• Investment and fiscal policies should stimulate the development of infrastructure in all regions.
• Sharing non-discriminatory access to radio frequency spectra.
• Access to license-free spectrum and open access to infrastructure in non-competitive areas.

In addition, it is necessary to provide Internet access for systematically excluded groups of the population:

• Develop the Internet in hard-to-reach regions.
• Stimulate digital business.

An important point is the quality of the signal, which the state can influence.

• Any intervention should take place only incompliance with human rights law. This includes the removal of content, which should be documented and based on laws that do not contradict human rights. Any removal of content may be challenged in court.
• Transparency of political advertising.
• Creation of independent bodies that will monitor the work of Internet providers.

Another important part was data privacy:

• It is necessary to create a legal basis for data processing.
• The right to object or refuse to process personal data.
• The right to delete personal data.
• The right to redress from private and public bodies that do not respect the human right to privacy.

Government requests must meet the following criteria:

• Must be implemented in accordance with the laws and only subject to the availability of a competent and independent judiciary, which provides opportunities for redress.
• Limited when information is of public interest.
• Not hidden from the public.

The scope and purpose of data collection should be clear and justified:

• Data collection should be minimized. Data should only be collected for a clearly defined public interest.
• Public registries should ensure transparency of data sharing and / or purchase agreements.
• Require regular safety assessments andconfidentiality of data, provide independent and transparent oversight of such evaluations and independent audits for the public and private sectors, as well as carry out its implementation if necessary.

Network agreement in Russia

Russian politicians did not comment on the situationof the agreement, but Dmitry Peskov, the President’s Special Representative for Digital and Technological Development, during the discussion of the law on significant IT companies and the global development of the Russian innovative business, gave some comments regarding the ideas of Tim Berners-Lee:

"The era of the Internet, built on anarchistthe rules that Tim Berners-Lee invented at the end of the 80s at CERN, when everything is built on direct trust, this era is over. We are entering a scenario that I call islandization: this means that all countries, overcoming the position of transnational corporations (some earlier, some later), begin to build their national information infrastructures, extending for the first time their sovereignty to the information space. A scenario of islandization is inevitable, countries will have to demand the establishment of national sovereignty over their information space. ”

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