The voting in the UN General Assembly that was expected to pass the Draft Convention on Cybercrime, was postponed. This Draft was the outcome of many years of negotiations which started with a UN resolution initiated in 2019 by Russia, China and other states (such as Iran, Egypt, Sudan, and Uzbekistan) , with 88 votes to 58, and 34 abstentions. There is a wide consensus that this convention puts in danger human rights, privacy, and safety online, and a large number of human rights and journalists’ associations  have officially expressed their criticism of the surveillance pact, including Privacy International, Access Now, the IPI, and European Digital Rights, the umbrella organisation of many European NGOs. ISOC global in their position article on the UN convention state clearly two major concerns regarding its potential negative impact: > 1) Impact on the work of security researchers: As highlighted in this > statement from security experts, good faith security research is crucial to > ensuring the security of the Internet and preventing cybercrime. > 2) Impact on encryption: Article 28.4 on search and seizure of electronic data > might be interpreted to allow countries to authorize competent authorities to > order the handover of encryption keys or other sensitive information about the > security of hardware or software. Adrienne Fichter, in her article titled “The UN community has negotiated a global surveillance regime — but it could have been worse”, explains in detail all the shortcomings of this convention and the potential impact in the Swiss context. A recent article (9.Dec 2024) by Lawfare media analyzes the legal language of the Draft Convention and another one by Anja P. Jakobi und Lena Herbst, at the same day, concludes that despite the problems with this convention, > It is, however, unlikely that the draft Convention will fail to pass the GA. > Therefore, it seems advisable to accept the treaty with reservations and > become a state party to the Convention. Without internal critics, the > ‘Conference of Parties’ (CoP), tasked with reviewing and implementing the > convention, could develop additional measures and worsen a Convention that at > least includes some human rights safeguards. In particular, due to Russia’s > and China’s growing influence, rejecting the Convention could pave the way for > ‘digital authoritarianism’ in a central UN norm on cyberspace. Still, > accepting the Convention requires careful monitoring, not only of the CoP, but > also of its results in practice. If reviews of the treaty show that its > implementation means compromising human rights and data protection, states > should continuously reevaluate whether to stay or leave the treaty, with the > Budapest Convention as a remaining fallback option. The argument of making compromises to “stay at the table of negotiations” have been used also for other critical issues in recent debates among digital rights associations in Switzerland. And although “staying at the table” is a valid argument, for such important threats on fundamental human rights, someone needs to stay out of the table and fight for privacy, self-determination, and safety! So, we are in a critical moment of this process, and signing the ongoing petition, initiated by the Pirate Party CH, and supported by the ISOC Switzerland Chapter, we can pass the message to policy makers that people care for human rights and privacy: https://act.campax.org/petitions/un-cybercrime-convention-stoppen-arreter-la-convention-des-nations-unies-sur-la-cybercriminalite The post UN Convention on Cybercrime: staying out of the table and fighting for human rights, privacy, and safety appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

On May 15th, ISOC Switzerland Chapter hosted the Public Policy Sessions 2024 including a diverse set of introductory talks and a very interesting panel on the topic of disinformation online, organized by Bernie Hoeneisen, co-founder of ISOC-CH. You can watch the recorded live stream here: https://livestream.com/internetsociety/isoc-ch-public-policy2024 First, Markus Kummer (ISOC-CH Chapter Advisory Council Representative) introduced... The post Public Policy Sessions 2024 (summary) appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

The ISOC Switzerland Chapter is proud to be one of the partners of the Horizon Europe project NGI0 Commons Fund, which started on January 1st 2024. The project is part of the NGI0 NGI Zero coalition, led by NLnet Foundation, which uses a very flexible cascading funding scheme that enables a large number of carefully... The post ISOC-CH is a partner of the NGI0 Commons Fund appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

The ISOC’s General Assembly 2022 took place online on December 15, 2022 The draft minutes of AGM 2022 are available here: GA-2022-minutes_DRAFT.pdf The approved minutes of the AGM 2021 are available here: GA-2021-minutes_APPROVED.pdf The post General Assembly 2022 appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

The Internet has now become essential for all aspects of life and business. Thus it is not surprising that more and more people, including people who don’t understand much about technology, express thoughts about how the Internet, and its governance, should evolve in the future. There is a tendency in some quarters to take the... The post A vision for the future of the Internet appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

The ISOC Switzerland Chapter launches a new web site with modernized, and simplified design, together with a new series of posts on learning, imagining, sharing. Stay tuned! The post New web site for ISOC-CH Chapter appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

Background The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was an outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held in Tunis in 2005. The Internet was the most controversial issue of the Summit – the main point was whether or not governments should be in charge of the Internet. There were those who argued that... The post The Swiss IGF appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

The Beyond the Net Grant supporting this event series has now successfully ended. You can read here a short review of the events in 2021 (available as a printed booklet at L200). But the 7at7 series continues, since everything is in place already and additional funding from ISOC will be pursued soon! You can see... The post The Beyond the Net Grant ended, but the 7at7 series continues! appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

Digital sustainability was one of the first topics addressed in the 7at7 series, on September 7, 2020. Six months later, Panayotis Antoniadis and Nana Karlstetter (one of September 7at7 keynote speakers) joined Rahel Estermann and Laura Hagen to create the Digital sustainability working group at Digitale Gesselschaft, which presented itself for the first time in... The post Digital sustainability and sustainable digitalization appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

Elliot Vaucher “What scarce objects provide is a straightforward basis for implementing, in an intuitively secure way, the anonymous commodity exchange economies formalised in microeconomics in a P2P fashion on the Internet.” Nick Szabo. Attending “Internet ways of networking” seminar Thanks to the Internet Society, I had the chance to attend a series of webinars... The post Bitcoin : a form of electrical matter appeared first on ISOC Switzerland Chapter.