Security, Child Pornography Issues To Dominate Internet Governance Forum

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (AHN) - Issues ranging from open standards for child protection and child pornography will dominate discussions at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Rio de Janeiro on Nov. 12-15.

The issue of security had attracted the most attention, said IGF Executive Coordinator Markus Kummer, with 19 out of 70 parallel events devoted to it, many of them focusing exclusively on child protection and the fight against child pornography.

The Forum gathers representatives of government, the private sector, civil society and the Internet community to address a wide range of issues concerning the Internet.

Kummer stressed that international cooperation was the key, citing the example of a British-run watchdog program on Internet child pornography, which resulted in the establishment of a self-regulation mechanism where consumers could alert the watchdog of any illicit content.

In close cooperation with the Internet industry, the watchdog in turn alerted Internet service providers and the police, and removed the content from the Internet.

As a result, the United Kingdom had reduced locally-originated child pornography to zero.

The IGF is chaired by Nitin Desai, the Secretary-General's Special Adviser for Internet Governance, and Hadil da Rocha Vianna, Director for Scientific and Technological Affairs in Brazil's Ministry of External Relations.