Session
Organizer 1: Fawaz Shaheen
Organizer 2: Tithi Neogi, Centre for Communication Governance, NLU Delhi
Organizer 3: Angelina Dash, Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University Delhi
Speaker 1: Maitreya Shah, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Ariana Aboulafia, Civil Society, Western Europe and Other States
Speaker 3: Sebenzile Matsebula, Technical Community, African Group
Speaker 4: Tatevik Grigoryan, Inter-Governmental Organisation, Western Europe and Other States
Fawaz Shaheen, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Tithi Neogi, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Angelina Dash, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Classroom Format
Duration (minutes): 90
Format description: The classroom workshop layout is advantageous allowing for more structure and clearer outcomes and learning objectives. In order to ensure that our format promotes open communication among diverse participants, we will be having a moderated discussion and will include collaborative breakout sessions. The chosen duration of 90 minutes further fosters participant engagement and accounts for any additional unforeseen accessibility considerations. The first part of the workshop comprises two policy questions to be discussed for a duration of 50 minutes, interspersed with 5-minute Q&A sessions after each policy question. The second part of the workshop will focus on collaborative breakout sessions where participants co-create the Multistakeholder Code of Best Practices for a period of 15 minutes. Additionally, the session requires 5 minutes for the introductory remarks and 10 mins for the closing remarks.
A. How can data protection frameworks protect the privacy rights of persons with disabilities? B. How does digital accessibility strengthen data protection for persons with disabilities? How can consent mechanisms be made more accessible for persons with disabilities? C. How does automated decision-making affect persons with disabilities? How can data protection principles and frameworks prevent discrimination against persons with disabilities by automated decision-making systems?
What will participants gain from attending this session?
Participants will gain insights on how data protection frameworks can enable ADM technologies to be fair for persons with disabilities. The session aims to equip participants with an understanding of accessibility by design mandates, opt-out measures to data processing, and transparency disclosures by ADM technologies, in order to empower persons with disabilities to make informed decisions about how their data is processed. Our speakers belong to diverse stakeholder groups, regions and genders, some of whom have lived experiences with disabilities. This diversity ranges from entrepreneurial experience at an automation company in South Africa, to policy research including digital accessibility and public interest advocacy in India and the US. We also have a speaker working on accessibility, inclusivity and digital governance in the inter-governmental sector. The session aims to enrich participant perspectives by collaborating to develop pathways for an inclusive Internet. By centring accessibility as the precursor to meaningful engagement, the proposed workshop will also inspire participants to employ similar accessibility measures in future events.
Description:
Multistakeholder conversations around Internet governance often do not adequately include disability related concerns within their ambit. This omission becomes more concerning when discrimination against persons with disabilities is furthered by artificial intelligence and automated decision-making technologies (ADM). These technologies can process personal data in a manner that makes unfair decisions about Persons with Disabilities, preventing them from using the Internet to achieve economic growth and holistic development. This collaborative workshop (classroom format) initiates a multistakeholder conversation to advance human rights by securing digital inclusion through data protection frameworks for persons with disabilities. Using innovative approaches, speakers and participants will collaboratively design best practices to achieve an inclusive Internet for persons with disabilities. This will be accomplished by: 1) exploring the interplay between digital accessibility, data protection and ADM; and 2) examining how data protection frameworks can address technology-facilitated inequalities faced by persons with disabilities, in alignment with SDGs. Relying on the Centre for Communication Governance’s ongoing research on centring disability in India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the workshop will be bolstered with insights based on CCG’s continuous engagement with diverse stakeholders from the disability and technology ecosystem. The workshop will collaboratively facilitate the design of ‘Our Shared Vision’: a multistakeholder code of best practices toward digital inclusion for persons with disabilities. These best practices will emerge from the exchange of ideas between the participants and the diverse speakers from various stakeholder groups - across industry, civil society and academia, and inter-governmental organisations. Our diverse panel comprises persons with disabilities. Their experiences and expertise will serve as representation of heterogeneity in persons with disabilities on the Internet. Addressing that disability is not a monolith, and that persons with different disabilities face discrimination through technology differently, is crucial to achieving digital inclusion, autonomy and user choice for persons with disabilities.
This session enables experiential outcomes through multistakeholder discussions on preventing technology-facilitated discrimination against persons with disabilities through reliance on data protection frameworks. CCG aims to realise the following outcomes: 1. ‘Our Shared Vision’ - a multistakeholder code of best practices toward digital inclusion for persons with disabilities. This output will be disseminated on the CCG's Blog and social media. 2. CCG blog series on Disability and Data Protection focused on multistakeholder solutions to the gaps identified in the workshop. 3. Summary report of the IGF Workshop - to be shared with our speakers, published on CCG Blog and disseminated across CCG’s social media. 4. CCG Podcast discussing the workshop’s learnings and ‘Our Shared Vision’, to be disseminated on CCG’s podcast channels - Spotify, YouTube, etc. along with social media outreach. 5. CCG’s Courses and bootcamps will integrate learnings from the workshop on building inclusive Internet governance for persons with disabilities.
Hybrid Format: To ensure meaningful engagement, online and onsite moderators will separately divide into online and onsite interactive breakout sessions and reassemble to exchange insights on the multistakeholder code with speakers and other participants. For continued engagement, this code will remain available to view or download for a week after the session concludes. Centring accessibility within hybrid participation, a workshop policy on institutional values and accommodations provided will be shared through a QR code before the session commences. These accommodations include closed captioning and easily readable workshop documents (speakers’ resources and the workshop policy) with text descriptions for images and accessible colour contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. The session will promote participant engagement through Q&A sessions after each policy question, and breakout sessions. The multistakeholder code format will be predesigned on Google documents instead of advanced interactive tools like Miro, ensuring accessibility and avoiding functional difficulties.