ITU’s Plenipot: What Happened

Every four years, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) member states meet at a three-week conference, the Plenipotentiary (or the Plenipot), to set the priorities of the organization for the next period and elect its top five leadership positions. The 2018 Plenipot took place in Dubai, from the end of Oct to the middle of Nov. Here are some of the key issues that Public Knowledge followed in the Plenipot:

• Privacy: Some member states called on the ITU to keep working on privacy and data protection in various proposals that dealt with over-the-tops (OTTs), cybersecurity, and even the transition to IPv6. In the end, the ITU’s work on privacy remains limited.
• Role of states in internet governance: It became obvious in the Plenipot that many countries outside the Americas, Europe, Oceania, and Japan are dissatisfied with the multistakeholder model of internet governance and would like the ITU to push the centrality of governments in representing and deciding the public interest. However, given that the ITU is a consensus-driven organization, there was no agreement towards disrupting the internet governance status quo.
• Community networks: The Americas region had put together a joint proposal to treat new actors such as community networks as valuable for narrowing the digital divide. Public Knowledge believes that it is critical that member states leverage the ITU’s radio spectrum and telecommunications expertise to find new and efficient ways to bring more people online, in collaboration with community networks and other contributing actors. Unfortunately, and incredibly, only European nations supported the inter-American proposal to mandate the recognition of community networks, and it was defeated.