Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the global body that governs the Internet, believes that incidents like PRISM breaks public trust with regard to the Internet.
Speaking to Business Line , Fadi Chehade, President and CEO, ICANN, said, “We know the Internet can do a lot of good in terms of economic development, in bringing peace but if the trust on public net is eroded then it will limit the benefit of Internet.”
PRISM was a programme undertaken by the US security agencies under which information related to thousands of Internet users were sourced from platforms such as Google and Facebook.
The PRISM programme was exposed even as governments around the world are increasingly trying to control the World Wide Web.
There have been demands that the Internet should be taken out of the control of ICANN and bring it under the International Telecommunication Union, a UN body. This has been opposed by other stakeholders, including Internet companies, who are wary about giving control to an inter-governmental body.
Consensus next year
“ITU is a phenomenal body that has done much for the world. But we need to asses whether the ITU framework and the way it works is representative of all the views. We need places where we don’t have centralised decision making but a distributed model,” said Chehadé.
“As Internet evolves rapidly we need to think about new institutions and new models. Existing institutions, including ICANN, need to be rethought,” he said, adding that a consensus on the issues would be reached by mid-next year.
“We don’t need balkanisation of Internet. We need one Net and not 20 Internet. But we need guard rails. An open free internet working in a framework,” the ICANN chief said.
Globalised governance
When asked about the concerns over US influence on ICANN, Chehadé said that he agrees that Internet governance needs to be globalised and ICANN cannot remain an institution that’s rooted in the US.
To start with Chehade has set up regional hubs in Singapore and Istanbul.
Chehadé said that India can take the lead in partnering ICANN in search for new set of principles and models to ensure that Internet continuous be a place where one can do business and commerce freely and safely.
ICANN has partnered the Center for Development and Advanced Computing to set up a research facility in India that will help tackle cyber attacks and online security threats. The institution has been named, Center for Excellence in DNS Security.
“India greatest asset to the rest of world is its human capital. We decided we need serious research by scientists on DNS security to ensure stability of Internet. I said that we need to bring this to India because India leads the world in critical thinking,” he said.