Some Issues on ICT and Internet Policy and Regulations

Global Issues

Access and Civil Liberties are two sets of issues in ICT policy which are crucial to
the modern society. The other concern is the civil liberties which refer to human rights
and freedom. These include freedom of expression, the right to privacy, the right to
communicate and intellectual property rights.

Issue No. 1: Freedom of Expression and Censorship

Under international human rights conventions, all people are guaranteed the rights
for free expression. However, with the shift from communicating through letter,
newspaper and public meetings to electronic communications and online networking, a
need to look into how these new means modifies the understanding of freedom of
expression and censorship.

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that everyone has the
right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, likewise the right to freedom of
opinion and expression. However, there are practices that violates these provisions in the
use of internet.

Issue No. 2: Privacy and Security

Privacy policies are an issue. Most commercial sites have a privacy policy. When
someone uses a site and clicks “I agree” button, it is as if you have turned over private
information to any authority that may access it.

Issue No. 3: Surveillance and Data Retention

The use of electronic communications has enhanced the development of indirect

surveillance. In the indirect surveillance, there is no direct contact between the agent and
the subject of surveillance but evidence of activities can be traced. The new and powerful
form of indirect surveillance is dataveillance. Dataveillance is the use of personal
information to monitor a person’s activities while data retention is the storage and the
use of information from communication systems.

There is very little that can be done to prevent surveillance. What can be done is
to change the methods of working to make surveillance difficult. This is called “counter
surveillance” or “information security” if it refers to computers and electronic
communication.

Issue No. 4: E-pollutants from E-waste

Large amounts of E-waste is generated by ICT. These are in particular, terminal

equipment used for computing (PC’s, laptops), broadcasting (television, and radiosets),
telephony (fixed and mobile phones), and peripherals (fax machines, printers, and
scanners).

The accumulated E-waste is due to rapid turnover of equipment due to rapid

improvement of software. While material waste can be destroyed be crushing, toxic
material brought about by the different equipment requires utmost management. The
quantities of e-waste are increasing in both developed and developing countries. A very
dismal state is that there is a significant amount of electronic waste that has been shipped
from industrial countries developing countries, using less environmentally responsible
procedure.

Remedies include standardization and regulatory measures to increase the life

cycle of equipment before they become obsolete. Efficient extraction of toxic components
and requiring the recycling by both consumers and equipment vendors are selling must
be required.

If not controlled then, e-waste will tremendously affect climate change, damage
human lives, and overload the capacity of the earth in carrying solid waste.