As governments increasingly seek to regulate digital content, data flows, and communications infrastructure across borders, there is a growing need for governance frameworks that evolve in ways that uphold privacy, freedom of expression, and other fundamental rights.
GNI engages in global policy and regulatory processes that shape how data, content, and digital infrastructure are governed across jurisdictions and within international institutions. As the preeminent multistakeholder organization focused on technology and human rights, GNI is uniquely positioned to influence key debates, mobilize diverse stakeholders, and advocate for governance models that are transparent, inclusive, and grounded in international human rights law. Much of our work on content regulation, network disruptions, and surveillance is cross-border in nature. In addition, we have contributed to major global processes on issues including data protection, cross-border data governance, digital public infrastructure, and cybercrime. Throughout this work we continuously advocate for the inclusive and equitable participation of diverse stakeholders, particularly from Global Majority countries.
GNI embodies and promotes the value of multistakeholder collaboration within evolving multilateral governance frameworks. We engage actively with initiatives such as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Global Digital Compact (GDC), the United Nations Cybercrime Convention (UNCC), and the UNESCO Global Policy Dialogues on Digital Cooperation and Internet Governance, working to ensure that these processes are participatory, inclusive, and aligned with international rights standards. Our work addresses how multilateral frameworks, laws, regulations, and state practices – including cross-border data requests, data localization mandates, and content-based jurisdictional assertions – can impact privacy, freedom of expression, and the interoperability of the global Internet. GNI advocates for legal and policy approaches that are rights-respecting, proportionate, transparent, and in line with international human rights and humanitarian law.
GNI has also engaged on a range of issues that raise important questions about when and how governments can and should assert authority over data. These include decisions through which authorities in one country seek to influence the content visible in other countries, as well as data localization laws that impede companies’ ability to transfer data freely across borders. In our 2015 report, Data Beyond Borders: Mutual Legal Assistance in the Internet Age, we proposed concrete reforms to the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) process to better align with today’s digital realities. Since then, we have contributed to ongoing global discussions around alternative frameworks for lawful access to data that maintain strong human rights safeguards.
Through sustained multistakeholder collaboration and international engagement, GNI works to ensure that the governance of digital data, infrastructure, and content reflects democratic values, protects fundamental freedoms, and supports an Internet that benefits all people.
Read our latest work on data, information, and network governance below.