Ahead of a timely conversation around the civic role of the university in an age of democratic uncertainty and rapid technological change, Beth Simone Noveck spoke to the Scotsman about how Scotland's universities are uniquely place to reinvent the purpose of higher education.

Public servants are asking for leadership training at the same moment AI is reshaping government work. This reflection on InnovateUS’s Foundations of Leadership workshop series explores why the most important leadership challenges today are often deeply human ones: creating psychological safety, building real teams instead of loose groups, giving honest feedback, understanding strengths, and helping people perform under pressure and uncertainty. Across five sessions, participants wrestled with the gap between knowing what good leadership looks like and consistently practicing it within real organizations.

As governments rush to regulate AI, many governance frameworks still overlook what happens when people are harmed. This piece argues that AI governance will be tested by legal systems already struggling to deliver equal access to justice. Drawing on the recent report "A People-Centered Justice Approach to Implementing AI Governance," examples from Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States make the case for bringing courts, legal aid organizations, and justice institutions into the center of AI governance design.

In a new piece for the Rethinking Regulation series, Dane Gambrell examines how San Francisco used a custom AI tool developed with Stanford’s RegLab to scan 16 million words of municipal code and identify hundreds of outdated and duplicative reporting requirements across city government. The effort ultimately produced a 351-page ordinance proposing the deletion or consolidation of 174 mandates. The piece offers a grounded look at how AI can help governments make sprawling bureaucratic systems more legible and manageable.

Congressional information has long been technically public but practically inaccessible, scattered across government sites and locked behind expensive subscription platforms. In response, Zach Florman, Communications Director for Rep. Laura Friedman, created the Capitol Wire tool. The Capitol Wire shows how AI can close that gap by turning floor schedules, bill texts, and legislative updates into real-time alerts and searchable policy briefs that are fast, verifiable, and free. The result is a tool that makes public information more legible for staffers, reporters, and citizens alike, and increases the likelihood of public engagement.

A new entry in our Rethinking Regulation series, this in-depth case study by Dane Gambrell includes an interview with Reeve Bull, who led the state’s regulatory modernization effort. It traces how Virginia used AI to review decades of accumulated rules, cut regulatory requirements by over a third, and make them clearer and more accessible. It shows how governments can pair strong institutional processes with AI to modernize regulation and improve how it works for the public.

Millions of Americans miss out on health and food assistance benefits due to fragmented systems and complex enrollment processes. This piece explores how Link Health, in partnership with the AI for Impact program, is combining AI tools with human navigators to rethink how public benefits are delivered in healthcare settings. It argues that the next frontier is better evidence. States should fund research to compare enrollment approaches, portal design, and navigator support to determine which improve health outcomes and guide smarter public investment.

In what follows we highlight several examples of PeaceTech launched or updated in 2025 and explain how they are being applied before, during, and after a conflict. We conclude with cross-cutting takeaways across these examples.

Massachusetts municipalities are eligible for an estimated $17.5 billion in federal funding, but accessing it is often harder than securing it. In partnership with the Massachusetts Federal Funds and Infrastructure Office, the Burnes Center for Social Change is launching GrantWell, an AI-powered tool designed to reduce the friction that keeps many communities from applying. Anjith Prakash, lead engineer at GrantWell, explains how the tool helps users find opportunities, understand requirements, and move local needs into competitive applications, expanding access to funding.

The Healey-Driscoll Administration has launched GrantWell, a free AI-powered tool developed with Northeastern University’s Burnes Center for Social Change to help municipalities more easily access and apply for federal and state funding. GrantWell helps you summarize complex grant requirements, identify opportunities, and draft early-stage proposals, reducing administrative burden and expanding capacity to secure resources

This scan curates recent developments and maps them to the stages of the data life cycle where they are most relevant in practice: planning, collecting, processing, sharing, analyzing, and using data.

More than 50 practitioners, researchers, and civic technologists from 24 countries reviewed the draft curriculum for Designing Democratic Engagement for the AI Era, providing over 300 comments and suggestions. The feedback highlighted the need for clearer guidance on institutional readiness, trust, inclusion, and the risks and limits of AI in public participation. This post summarizes the key themes that emerged, explains how AI tools were used to synthesize the feedback, and outlines the next steps in developing the course.

In this commentary, originally published by InDaily South Australia, Matt Ryan argues that artificial intelligence can help governments deliver more effective, human-centered services, but only if it builds public trust and democratic legitimacy. Drawing on examples from Spain, San Francisco, and the UK, he outlines a path for South Australia to develop “sovereign AI capability.” His proposal focuses on three priorities: participatory AI governance, stronger public-sector AI skills, and reinvesting efficiency gains into public services, ensuring AI improves government while strengthening democracy.

We are pleased to launch DataStewards.net — dedicated to training and supporting data stewards.

Families are expected to advocate for their children using IEP documents that are dense, technical, and often inaccessible. Instead of treating AI as a black box that produces generic summaries, this project takes a different approach of "unboxing the prompt" and inviting parents into the system's core logic. This post traces how community feedback reshaped the tool at every stage, from moving beyond one-size-fits-all summaries to extracting legally meaningful details, to designing for privacy, to preserving meaning across languages, and to foregrounding student strengths.

This piece examines how the Commonwealth of Virginia is using artificial intelligence to modernize regulatory review, shifting the focus from regulating AI to governing with it. Drawing on recent reforms led by the Virginia Office of Regulatory Management under Governor Glenn Youngkin, the article outlines how AI tools are being applied to analyze regulations, reduce administrative burden, and improve transparency. The "Virginia Model" offers a practical model for other states exploring how AI can strengthen core government functions.

New Jersey’s Office of Innovation has received a Public Benefit Innovation Fund grant to expand its AI platform with tools that help residents access benefits faster and with fewer errors. In this conversation, Beth Simone Noveck and NJ Chief Innovation Officer Dave Cole discuss how document processing, eligibility matching, feedback analysis, and memo-generation tools are already improving programs such as Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, and Summer EBT, and what it takes to deploy AI responsibly within government.

Governments are increasingly using AI to identify redundant, outdated, and burdensome regulations. But efficiency alone is not reform: without public judgment, simplification can weaken essential protections. The Green Tape Challenge shows how pairing AI with collective intelligence can modernize regulation while preserving legitimacy, equity, and purpose.From Red Tape to Green Tape: Decluttering the State with AI and Collective Intelligence

The New York City subway would never accept an ad for a hitman-for-hire service, or for a pill that claimed to cure depression but wasn’t FDA-approved, or a social network designed exclusively to groom minors. Those would be illegal, unethical—and obviously dangerous. So why is the MTA running a massive ad campaign for friend.com, a product that, if not already illegal, certainly should be?

Seoul showed 25 years ago that transparency and accountability built into digital systems can blunt corruption. Albania’s chatbot minister will stand or fall on the same test: whether it reduces opportunities for bribery.

A report on a recent workshop cohosted by RAND, the Stimson Center, and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change explores how AI can support more effective policymaking. AI shows promise for automating routine tasks and democratizing access to analysis tools, but there are significant structural barriers to realizing AI's potential in policymaking. To move forward, we need more real-world case studies of AI use in governance and strategic adoption focused on maintaining human oversight and building the skills to deploy these tools responsibly.

Data commons (collaboratively governed data ecosystems) are providing critical infrastructure in the age of AI. When designed responsibly, they can help provide access to high quality, AI-ready datasets for use in the public interest. Yet: What data commons currently exist? Where are they being developed? What data commons are needed most?

Over the last six months, The GovLab’s Open Data Policy Lab (ODPL) has sought to answer these questions by curating and documenting examples of data commons for AI from across the globe. Our Data Commons for Generative AI Repository now contains 60 real-world examples from over 20 countries across 5 continents. 

Artificial intelligence can transform evidence-based policymaking by enabling policymakers to cast a wider net for evidence, synthesize evidence more rapidly, and incorporate better and deeper engagement with communities. However, this transformation also presents significant challenges from bias and transparency concerns to the risk of over-reliance on algorithmic outputs. By understanding the promise and the pitfalls of AI-enabled research tools, while keeping human expertise at the center of the process, we can harness these powerful tools to serve the public interest while preserving the democratic values of transparency, accountability, and inclusive governance.

A new white paper from The Institutional Architecture Lab argues that combating AI-generated deepfakes and synthetic content in elections requires purpose-built institutions. The authors propose Electoral Integrity Institutions that would coordinate across government, tech platforms, and civil society to scan, assess, and respond to synthetic content threats. But the paper also provokes a fundamental question: should we design institutions defensively to react to AI threats, or offensively to build better, more participatory and representative elections?

The Trump administration’s January 20 executive order rechristening the US Digital Service as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has effectively hijacked the civic tech movement. While the US Digital Service focused on life-saving and government improvement functions, DOGE has used AI and other advanced technologies to burrow deep into administrative datasets and monopolize control. It’s time to flip the script (again) and break the government’s stranglehold on information. Rather than centralize power, let’s use AI to distribute it.

In the news this week: A report from the Center for Democracy & Technology finds that civic tech organizations in Mexico & Taiwan effectively used AI tools to combat AI-driven information in last year’s elections while Cornell’s Frank Pasquale argues that AI poses a threat to democratic processes. Reversing course from the Biden Administration, the Trump administration instructs AI scientists to remove terms like "AI safety" and "fairness" in favor of "reducing ideological bias" and developing tools that “expand America’s global AI position.” Ivy leaguers are flooding Chinese AI company Deep Seek with applications. An NYU study finds that TikTok's algorithm skewed toward promoting Republican content during the 2024 election, and our partners at InnovateUS launch Spanish-language AI workshops. Read more in this week's AI News That Caught Our Eye.

Impacted by the layoffs in the federal government? We're here to help. Reboot Democracy and its partner projects Power at Work and InnovateUS have curated a set of free training resources designed to help you build new skills and knowledge to prepare for re-entering the job market, whether in the public sector or elsewhere.

In a major shift in U.S. AI policy, President Trump has issued an executive order repealing President Biden's previous AI safety regulations and announced the "Stargate" initiative, a $100 billion program aimed at strengthening U.S. AI infrastructure. Meanwhile, research into smart cities continues to advance, with new studies examining how Big Data analytics and “digital twin” technology could enhance efficiency and autonomy. The AI development landscape saw increased competition this week as Chinese tech company DeepSeek released its new open-source large language model, prompting U.S. companies to reassess their strategies to maintain their lead in the AI development race. Learn about these stories and more in this edition of AI News That Caught Our Eye.

This Week in AI News: The state of New Jersey is training 10,000 government employees in how to responsibly use AI to deliver better public services. The New Mexico AI Consortium, a collaboration between the state’s leading national laboratories, universities, and colleges, is working to position the state as a leader in AI for national security and workforce development. At the national level, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Testing Risks of AI for National Security (TRAINS) Taskforce is investigating AI’s risks for national security. Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s new restrictions on semiconductor exports to China aim to curb technological advancements with military implications, while Poland announced a $240 million AI investment to strengthen its economy and defense. This week's AI news highlights the growing intersection between artificial intelligence, national security, public engagement and public service delivery, as countries and states race to harness AI's potential while managing its risks.

Our news roundup this week explores how public institutions are using AI to support public defenders in Kentucky, bolster training for public servants in California, and help New York City improve services from transportation to education. Other stories look at what governments need to do to guard against the risks of AI’s applications in the UK’s healthcare system, Spain’s gender violence program, and to rein in election misinformation spread by Twitter's chatbot. Read these stories and more in our latest edition of News That Caught Our Eye.

A new resource from the Inter-Parliamentary Union collects AI use cases aimed at lawmaking bodies. While the collection showcases how AI can help parliaments complete existing administrative tasks more efficiently, it could be strengthened by adding ideas for how AI can support lawmakers in conducting large-scale online engagements with constituents, and examples of how legislative research services can leverage AI to improve evidence-gathering and evaluation.

In the news this week: New research insights on how we can better understand and address democratic backsliding, how scientists are using AI to improve weather forecasting and the detection of wildfires, Brazil’s $4 billion plan to build the nation’s AI industry, and much more. It’s our weekly news download, where we highlight the stories, research, and innovations that illuminate how AI is impacting governance and democracy.

This week, The GovLab and the Burnes Center for Social Change published two new resources aimed at leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and collective intelligence to tackle pressing public challenges. 

Co-authored with Citizens Foundation, the report describes a novel problem solving method that combines the collective wisdom of human experts and the computational power of AI agents to enhance and scale up public problem-solving processes.

The free online course from our partner project equips learners with skills for getting smarter, faster from data from documents and people – while also providing hands-on advice for using generative AI to improve the learning process.

Danish researchers conducted a large-scale experiment with 80k people during the country’s general election in 2022. Algorithmic sorters on news websites impacted both the quality, exposure, and diversity of news presented, raising concerns about political agenda-setting.

GovTech's Julia Edinger writes: "Building an AI program is a daunting proposition, but government has to start somewhere. From strengthening cybersecurity to improving 311, a handful of early adopters are finding safe and practical uses."

The Burnes Center’s Jay Kemp announces Bot Beat, an independent podcast tracking the stories of journalists harnessing AI in their reporting. They’ll keep you updated on possibilities & pitfalls for AI in reporting – keying you in on how these emerging tools could affect your work.

The Supreme Court of Singapore and Supreme Court of India hold a joint conference on technology, with fascinating speeches on AI and the rule of law. Also, everyone from the federal government to journalists to private organizations tries to figure out how to detect audio deep fakes – and public sector workers struggle to use AI in service delivery. In the 12th edition of our weekly news download, we continue to highlight the stories, research, and innovations that illuminate how AI is impacting governance and democracy.

Is human oversight the antidote to technology overreliance that it's made out to be? Potentially, but the Horizon scandal plastering British headlines right now illuminates the dangers of misaligned human priorities.

Despite having funded the creation of the Internet, the public sector lagged in its adoption. Now government can lead in the use of artificial intelligence for public good. Because of its power to sort, organize, and summarize vast amounts of data and text, AI has the potential to make government more effective, efficient, and responsive.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not just transforming economies and industries; it holds the key to revolutionizing public engagement with the federal government.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not just transforming economies and industries; it holds the key to revolutionizing public engagement with the federal government.

Today, The GovLab is proud to announce the release of the “PeaceTech Topic Map: A Research Base for an Emerging Field,” an overview of the key themes and challenges of technologies used by and created for peace efforts. 

Implementing public policy is only one part of the policymaking cycle. The Accountability and Oversight blog refers to the use of AI to ensure the laws, policies, and other governance methods are held accountable and consistently monitored for effective use.

AI must be used responsibly and must strive towards eliminating rather than reinforcing discrimination and deep-rooted structural biases. The Laws and Policies Blog focuses on policies that maximize the benefits of AI and mitigate its inevitable risks.

Early last year, The GovLab’s Stefaan Verhulst and Mona Sloane coined the term “AI localism” to describe how local governments have stepped up to regulate AI policies, design governance frameworks, and monitor AI use in the public sector. 

El día 11 de Diciembre de 2020, diez equipos compuestos por ciudadanos y servidores públicos de los municipios de Hermosillo, Reynosa, San Pedro Garza García, San Nicolás de los Garza y Torreón presentaron diez propuestas co-creadas para resolver problemas claves de sus ciudades.

El Multi-City Challenge México 2020 es una iniciativa del Laboratorio de Gobernanza (The GovLab) de la Universidad de Nueva York apoyada por la Fundación Tinker y el Consejo de Nuevo León.  El  objetivo es trabajar con cinco municipios del Norte de México elegidos en el marco de una convocatoria competitiva para fomentar el uso de la experiencia y el conocimiento de los residentes de Hermosillo, Reynosa, San Nicolás, San Pedro, y Torreón para la elaboración de políticas públicas innovadoras que permitan superar retos urbanos complejos, persistentes y muchas veces compartidos.

Los cinco municipios del norte de México trabajarán durante tres meses con el Laboratorio de Gobernanza de la Universidad de Nueva York (The GovLab) en definir problemas urbanos complejos, identificar posibles soluciones propuestas por la comunidad y en desarrollar estas ideas en planes de acción que más adelante podrán ser validados a través de la implementación de pilotos.

Adolescence is a unique stage of life. The brain undergoes rapid development; individuals face new experiences, relationships, and environments. These events can be exciting, but they can also be a source of instability and hardship.

The piece is supplemented by a crowdsourced listing of Data-Driven Efforts to Address Racial Inequality. NOTES The GovLab developed this living reflection document with diverse input from our network to help identify the opportunities, risks, challenges, and lessons about the use of data to make racial inequalities more visible and the ways it may be […]

By Prianka Srinivasan, Andrew Young and Stefaan Verhulst As part of an ongoing effort to build a knowledge base for the field of opening governance by organizing and disseminating its learnings, the GovLab Selected Readings series provides an annotated and curated collection of recommended works on key opening governance topics. In this edition, we explore […]

During the GovLab’s most recent Ideas Lunch, Mark Latonero, Fellow at the Data & Society Research Institute, spoke about the numerous tensions that result from data collection in human rights issues, emphasizing both its potential for good and the dilemmas it provokes. In the past decade, a growing group of innovators began finding solutions in […]

This is our 80th edition of The SCAN – Selected Curation of Articles on Net-Governance. Feel free to share your suggestions with us at [email protected]. Highlights: The fallout from the United States Office of Personnel Management data breach continued this week, with the revelation that the original hack took place a full year ago. Russian lawmakers […]

By Beth Noveck Over 2000 delegates from around the world, including government officials, civil society organizations, and business leaders, arrived in Ottawa, Canada for the Third International Open Data Conference (IODC) on May 28th and 29. Although there is no single, universally accepted definition of open data, generally speaking, open data is publicly available data structured for […]

Last week, the GovLab participated in the Conference on Internet Governance and Cyber-Security, held at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in collaboration with The Global Commission on Internet Governance (GCIG). The event spanned two days and covered several pressing topics in Internet governance, including privacy, freedom of expression, cross-border data flows, and […]

The world of Internet Governance is complex and dynamic. To help navigate the Internet Governance ecosystem, the NETmundial Solutions Map seeks to provide a platform to exchange and document what responses exist to what issues and who is involved in the space. The design of the map was informed by a set of user interviews. […]

The Federal District Court for the Northern District of California ruled this week that the IRS must turn over the original, machine-readable versions of nine tax returns filed with the IRS to Plaintiff PublicResource.org. (Disclosure: I filed affidavits in the case on behalf of PublicResource and its demand to make these returns available). By law, non-profit tax […]

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: ICANN, the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br), and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have launched the NETmundial Initiative, whose purpose is to “provide an open, generative, and collaborative space, inviting permission-less innovation to build and deliver distributed Internet governance enablers and solutions”.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Meeting is ongoing in Busan, South Korea. Countries are now negotiating specific resolutions, for example around cybersecurity, the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, and the institutional mandate of the ITU; The Hungarian government recently proposed the taxation of Internet access, drawing tens of thousands of protestors in Hungary.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is currently holding its Plenipotentiary Meeting in Busan, South Korea. See the live webcast here. The ITU meeting will be held from October 20 – November 7; topics of significance include ITU’s role in Internet governance and cybersecurity, ITU’s constitution and transparency, and the selection of a new Secretary-General for the ITU.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker made opening remarks at the Opening Ceremony of ICANN’s 51st meeting in Los Angeles this week, highlighting the importance of current Internet governance discussions to the U.S. government; The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is holding its Plenipotentiary Meeting in Busan, South Korea, next week. The meeting will discuss issues that may significantly impact the Internet, as well as the way organizations coordinate the governance of the Internet.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: ICANN’s 51st meeting will begin next week in Los Angeles, California. Topics of particular significance include the IANA Stewardship Transition, and the Enhancing ICANN Accountability Process; U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has argued that increased encryption can make it harder for law enforcement to collect evidence; The European Union may soon have two new digital commissioners – Andrus Ansip and Günther Oettinger – replacing Neelie Kroes, whose term as EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda is ending.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: The Global Network of Interdisciplinary Internet & Society Research Centers (NoC) this week held the Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem event (the Torino Symposium), bringing together academics to “examin[e] existing and potential models of distributed and collaborative governance with the goal of informing the evolution of – and current debate around – the Internet governance ecosystem in light of the NETmundial Roadmap and the work of various forums, panels, and committees”.

It is common knowledge that as we traverse the Internet, we leave a digital trail behind us, full of personal information about who we are, what we like, where we are, and where we’ve been. We know because we see evidence of ourselves everywhere we go online, through targeted advertisements that seem to know us better […]

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: 16 European member states have issued a joint declaration calling on European officials to adopt a legislative package reforming personal data protection by 2015; The bipartisan Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad Act (LEADS Act) introduced last week proposes that if the U.S. government wanted to access non-U.S. citizens’ data stored overseas, it “would have to follow the legal process of the nation where the servers reside”.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: The International Telecommunications Unions (ITU)’s Plenipotentiary Conference is fast approaching (October 20 – November 7, 2014). This is a key event in which ITU Member States decide on the future role of the organization –including the ITU’s remit regarding Internet governance; The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has received a record 3 million comments in response to its Open Internet ruling (regulating net neutrality and “paid prioritization”).

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: The 9th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) concluded last week, spurring much subsequent commentary about the current state of global Internet governance. This year, the usual discussion topics and participants at the IGF “leaked” into other fora –for example, the World Economic Forum/NETmundial Initiative and the Internet Ungovernance Forum– and some have observed that these leaks undermine the role of the IGF as a global discussion forum for Internet governance; Google is holding a series of meetings in European legislators in European capitals to discuss the implications of the EU “Right to be Forgotten” ruling; IFEX has released a glossary of Internet governance terms; The U.S. State Department has launched an Open Internet campaign.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: The 9th annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) took place in Istanbul, Turkey this week; The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is focusing on reducing anti-competition policies this week in what is viewed as a significant position statement with regards to net neutrality debates; The U.S. Congress will deliberate on two privacy bills when Congress resumes on September 8: The USA FREEDOM Act –currently holding widespread support- and CISA (Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act) –a bill that is currently very controversial.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: This week the NETmundial Initiative launched at the World Economic Forum in Geneva. The Initiative is intended to “contribute to the broader international effort to advance multistakeholder Internet governance on the basis of the NETmundial principles”; The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) begins next week (September 2 – 5). The 2014 IGF will focus on many topics, including the IANA Stewardship Transition, the purpose and goals of the NETmundial Initiative, and issues such as privacy, security, access, and Internet technologies.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: The ninth annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will take place from September 2 – 5, 2014; ICANN has released a proposed revision to its Bylaws that would require a two-thirds majority vote for the ICANN Board to reject Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) advice.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: Several articles this week discuss the possibility of “fundamentally redesigning the Internet”. This is in response to continuous incidents of Internet technologies used for purposes that were originally unintended and potentially harmful to Internet users; ICANN has released a draft organizational structure for its “Strengthening ICANN Governance and Accountability track” (the “accountability update”). The proposed structure has been criticized for lacking transparency in its development and for the “Board-appointed advisors” which are part of the proposed structure.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: A U.S. federal judge has ruled that Microsoft must give U.S. law enforcement access to data it holds overseas in Ireland; A new proposal by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) articulates principles for an enhanced ICANN accountability framework.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: ICANN’s response to a situation involving the transference of country-code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) –specifically those of Iran, Syria, and North Korea—sheds light on the idea of TLDs as “property” and poses interesting questions for domain name registries; Following disclosures of U.S. surveillance practices, the European Union is re-thinking the Safe Harbor Agreement, which enables U.S. and EU companies to transfer data between each other’s borders without running afoul of data protection laws; There is a new version of the USA FREEDOM Act that the U.S. Senate will vote on –the Act has significant implications for privacy and surveillance in the U.S.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: The IANA Transition Stewardship Coordination Group held its first meeting in London on July 17 – 19. The group released its Draft Charter which describes its single deliverable as “a proposal to the U.S. Commerce Department National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) regarding the transition of NTIA’s stewardship of the IANA functions to the Internet community” and its mission as “the development of a proposal among the communities affected by the IANA functions”.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: Two significant legal developments in the privacy and surveillance sphere are being debated this week –the Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA) within the United States, and the Data Retention and Invesigations Powers (DRIP) Act within the United Kingdom. Critics fear both expand the surveillance powers of the state; ICANN’s accountability is under global scrutiny with a proposal by the civil society Just Net Coalition for the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) to come up with a “new model for Internet governance”, and the French Senate publishing a proposal for a remodeled Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and a remodeled ICANN.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: Digital Venice is a conference focused on digital development in Europe held this week in Venice, Italy. Focus topics include how to invest in ICT infrastructure in Europe using both public and private funds, and particularly how to leverage the European Single Market to promote digital competition and innovation in Europe.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: ICANN’s 50th public meeting concluded this week. Topics of particular focus included the transition of the NTIA’s stewardship of the IANA functions; ICANN’s accountability update; and issues arising from the new gTLD program; Issues of privacy and cybersecurity have led to a shift in the global data services marketplace, with a trend away from using U.S.-based companies; The World Summit on the Information Society +10 High-Level Event concluded this week, producing two outcome documents –one reviewing ICT developments in the past decade, and one laying out a vision for ICT development in the next decade.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: ICANN’s 50th public meeting is underway in London; In privacy developments, Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that the voluntary sharing of Internet service provider subscriber information is unconstitutional; and a U.S. appeals court has ruled that law enforcement agencies must obtain warrants to collect cellphone location data; In the U.S., the House Judiciary Committee has passed a bill permanently banning the taxation of Internet access; meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission will study the impact on consumers of how Internet service providers exchange traffic with other networks.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: The World Summit on the Information Society +10 High-Level Event took place this week in Geneva, Switzerland. The event took stock of Internet communications technology (ICT) development in the past decade and will develop a vision for ICT development in the next decade, with a particular focus on bridging the digital divide; ICANN’s 50th public meeting takes place June 22nd to 26th in London, England. The meeting will cover a wide range of topics, including the NTIA-IANA stewardship transition and the ICANN “accountability update”, as well as the new gTLD program; Privacy issues continue to gain great attention worldwide, with the release of Vodafone’s transparency report this week, the European Court of Justice’s ruling that copies of webpages made during web-browsing do not infringe copyright law, and ICANN’s recent report on Whois and gTLD directory systems regarding domain name registrant data

As part of an ongoing effort to build a knowledge base for the field of opening governance by organizing and disseminating its learnings, the GovLab Selected Readings series provides an annotated and curated collection of recommended works on key opening governance topics. In this edition, we explore the literature on Crowdsourcing Tasks and Peer Production. To suggest […]

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: This week marks one year since the Snowden revelations of mass surveillance practices by the National Security Agency (NSA) were first disclosed; The Reset the Net campaign launched on June 5th; Google has released a form in response to the EU ruling on the “right to forget” –the right for EU citizens to have search results removed if they are deemed in violation of their privacy.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: International Internet technology companies face conflicting jurisdictional issues that can act as obstacles to the growth of the Internet and its potential to connect people. For example EU data protection regulations may contradict certain ICANN registrar/registry policies, creating legal challenges for companies that operate in both regions; The global supply of IPv4 addresses is steadily declining and ICANN is therefore pushing for Internet companies to quickly coordinate the global transition to using IPv6 addresses; The Stockholm Internet Forum –whose theme was “Internet – privacy, transparency, surveillance, and control” has just concluded. The World Summit on the Information Society +10 High-Level Event (WSIS +10) takes place from June 10 – 13 in the International Telecommunications Union headquarters in Geneva.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the USA Freedom Act, intended to reform government surveillance practices –especially the practice of bulk collection of phone records. However, technology companies and advocacy groups originally in support of the bill have retracted their support because of changes to the bill’s language that could maintain bulk data collection practices; The Global Panel on Internet Cooperation and Governance Mechanisms has published its final report, titled “Towards a Collaborative, Decentralized Internet Governance Ecosystem”.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted to move forward with new proposed “Open Internet” rules; In Europe, the European Court of Justice has ruled that individuals have the right to ask search engines such as Google to remove search results to information about them that they do not want to have found; ICANN has closed the public comment period for the proposed IANA transition process and accompanying scoping document; The U.S. House Energy and Commerce committee has approved the Domain Openness through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: ICANN has launched two interrelated processes –one which will examine ICANN’s accountability structures, and the other which is to develop a proposal for transitioning stewardship of the IANA functions to the “global multistakeholder community”; The White House last week published two reports concerning big data. Both are significant for raising privacy protections concerns around how data is collected, stored, and used, and for adding further momentum to larger discussions of online freedom in the U.S. and elsewhere; Following the outcome document –the Multistakeholder Statement of São Paulo—of the NETmundial meeting, many Internet governance actors are in the process of developing more concrete plans for action, especially with regards to a “roadmap for the future of Internet governance”.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: Following the NETmundial Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance held in São Paulo, Brazil last week, a range of participants and Internet stakeholders have published their opinions regarding the outcomes of the meeting; There is a great deal of public backlash against the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) new Open Internet proposal (following a strike-down of its previous Open Internet proposal by a federal appeals court in January); ICANN has launched an “accountability update” process as a parallel and interdependent process to the process of creating the IANA transition proposal.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: The NETmundial Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance took place this week in São Paulo, Brazil. Thousands of different individuals from all over the world contributed to the meeting’s organization and planning; the meeting’s draft outcome documents received 1370 comments online; and 1480 stakeholders from the private, governmental, technical, academic, and civil society communities of 97 nations came together during the meeting, joined by remote participants from 30 remote participation hubs. The meeting produced a non-binding outcome document that is meant to inform all upcoming Internet governance discussions […]

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: The NETMundial Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance will take place next week in São Paulo, Brazil (April 23 – 24). The meeting’s Executive Multistakeholder Committee (EMC) has released a draft outcomes document for the meeting, which is open for public comment; ICANN has released a draft proposal for the process of creating a transition plan for the oversight of the IANA functions. U.S. Republicans have brought the issue to the fore with several proposed bills that seek to delay or deny the transition.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: ICANN 49 had as one of its focus topics the IANA transition, for which ICANN presented a framework of each of the IANA functions, as well as the actors who create policy for those functions, as well as the actors that actually implement those function, and finally the actors that ensure the accountability and oversight for those functions. This transition framework has prompted a wide range of discussion regarding the roles of different actors around the IANA functions, and in particular the role of ICANN; With the NETMundial Meeting in Brazil fast approaching (it begins on April 23rd), a variety of commentators have published reports calling for specific topics and issues to be focused on in the meeting agenda. In particular, there is a widespread desire to separate principles from practice, so that discussions are not just theoretical but also focus on the real concerns of real actors.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: The U.S. government announcement regarding transitioning oversight structures for ICANN and for the IANA functions continues to generate a great deal of coverage and discussion around the world. Notably, there is a marked divide in opinion around the transition –for example, leaders of most technical organizations have embraced the announcement, while U.S. republicans are actively seeking ways to prevent the transition from happening too quickly, or from happening at all; ICANN held its 49th meeting this week in Singapore. Important topics included the design of a transition plan for the oversight of ICANN and the IANA functions; the outputs of the ICANN Strategy Panels and how these will inform ICANN’s 5-Year Strategic Plan; and various issues related to ICANN’s new gTLD program.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: Last week, the United States government, through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the Department of Commerce, released an official announcement declaring its intention to transition away from being the steward of the Domain Name System through contract with ICANN. The NTIA has called on ICANN to “convene the global multistakeholder community in crafting a transition plan. The GovLab has compiled a special side-issue of the SCAN that deals exclusively with this announcement; ICANN49 in Singapore will begin this Sunday (March 23). The agenda includes general Supporting Organization/Advisory Committee policy-development activities, although there is also a heavy focus on global Internet governance (the crafting of a transition plan), ICANN’s strategic planning process and the Strategy Panels, and also ICANN’s global stakeholder engagement activities.

On Friday March 14th, the United States government, through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the Department of Commerce, issued a formal announcement that it intends to transition key Internet domain name functions to the “global multistakeholder community.” The NTIA has historically contracted with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to […]

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: The World Wide Web turned 25 this week. A proliferation of articles have been published describing the invention, historical development, and contemporary issues with the Web. Sir Tim-Berners Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, also launched the “web we want” campaign as well as the “web at 25” website, and has made calls for an “Internet bill of rights” to enshrine principles such as openness, freedom of expression online, and net neutrality; Several Internet stakeholder communities and individuals –including the “technical community”, various stakeholder groups in ICANN, and various governmental bodies (including the European Commission) have submitted position papers and recommendations (“content contributions”) leading up to NetMundial Brazil Meeting. Many of these contributions are available for reading online.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: A proposal has been made for how to globalize the IANA function. This is significant given the European Commission two weeks ago called for a roadmap of IANA function globalization; Several important meetings took place this week with regards to Internet governance. The Internet Engineering Task Force held its 89th meeting in London, discussing technical standards development. RightsCon was held in Silicon Valley, discussing digital rights and ICT sector risk.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: Various activities are underway or wrapping up at ICANN as the next ICANN meeting – ICANN 49 in Singapore – gets closer. For example, a Cross-Community Working Group on Internet Governance will be taking contributions leading up to the Brazil meeting; the ICANN Strategy Panels have released their reports; and ICANN has set up it’s President’s Globalization Advisory Groups. The ICANN Policy Staff will also be holding a Webinar before the Singapore meeting.

As part of an ongoing effort to build a knowledge base for the field of opening governance by organizing and disseminating its learnings, the GovLab Selected Readings series provides an annotated and curated collection of recommended works on key opening governance topics. In this edition, we explore the literature on Mapping the Internet Governance Ecosystem. To suggest […]

This is the twelfth of a series of 16 draft proposals developed by the ICANN Strategy Panel on Multistakeholder Innovation in conjunction with the Governance Lab @ NYU  for how to design an effective, legitimate and evolving 21st century Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN).  Please share your comments/reactions/questions on this proposal in the comments section of […]

This week’s highlights:
ICANN has set up six “Globalization Advisory Groups” which will address the following areas: the “Affirmation of Commitments (“AOC”), policy structures, legal structure, root server system, the IANA multistakeholder accountability, and Internet governance.” This is particularly relevant in light of recent European Commission requests to establish a “timeline for the globalization of ICANN.”

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance scan: The European Commission called for an acceleration of the globalization of ICANN and its functions, and in particular seeks to establish a timeline for this globalization; In the midst of national positioning around Internet governance, several “camps” have emerged, including the “multistakeholder camp,” the “multilateral camp,” and the “in-between camp.” Many warn that “intergovernmental” in these contexts means “for governments only.” The European Commission has also explicitly expressed that a new international legal instrument should not be instituted for Internet governance.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: Several countries, including Turkey, and groups of countries, such as the African Union, are in the process of developing rules and laws around cybersecurity and privacy. These proposed rules are being met with heavy criticism, particularly for being underdeveloped or for not accounting for the perspectives of all the relevant stakeholders; The Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance in Brazil is coming up in April and pre-registration is now open. The High Level Panel on Global Internet Cooperation and Governance Mechanisms will review its draft report this month, and the report will be presented at the Brazil Meeting and at the World Economic Forum in Dubai this coming May.

Highlights from this week’s Internet governance SCAN: The gradual roll-out of ICANN’s new generic top-level domains program (new gTLD program) is increasingly visible globally, as more and more new gTLDs open for end-user registration. Associated with the new gTLD program are a variety of new and difficult questions, such as how contentions between gTLD applicants can be resolved, and how various TLDs should be used (for example, what the guidelines should be when ccTLDs are “commercialized”).

A 21st century organization responsible for coordinating a global, public good such as the Domain Name System (DNS) that ensures the operability, stability and security of one global Internet has to abide by key principles embodied by the type of governance institutions to which we aspire, and which are possible in an era of ubiquitous information and communications technologies.

Highlights from this week’s Internet Governance SCAN: Global leaders are meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This year’s theme is “The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business” and Internet governance is a high priority item on the agenda; Boston Consulting Group has released a report (commissioned by ICANN) on the sources of “e-friction” that impede economic growth through the Internet: infrastructure friction; industry friction; individual friction; and information friction.

Highlights from this week’s Internet Governance SCAN: Internet governance and digital rights organizations are preparing agendas and statements to be made at a series of upcoming high-level Internet governance meetings, including the Brazil Meeting and the next meeting of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU); Today, President Obama has announced reforms to strengthen oversight of U.S. intelligence activities.

Highlights from this edition’s Internet Governance SCAN: ICANN’s new gTLD program continues to produce a variety of disputes, the details of which remain under discussion. In particular, Whois registration services will need to evolve and decisions need to be made regarding how to handle funds received from the program’s “last resort auctions”; A multitude of high-level meetings around Internet governance are taking place in the next two years. Specifically, the Brazil Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance will take place April 23 – 24, 2014

Highlights from this week’s Internet Governance SCAN: The High Level Panel on Global Internet Cooperation met this week in London and expressed support for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance; Panel conversation will soon move to 1Net; The UN General Assembly Human Rights Committee issued a resolution protecting people’s right to privacy in cyberspace.

Highlights from this week’s Internet Governance SCAN: Global trust in the Internet and in privacy/neutrality continues to erode, raising suspicion that many are documenting in the form of new content, e.g., video; Countries are getting serious about greater governmental involvement in Internet governance and conversations around “multilateralism” are emerging from the European Union to India to China.

This Internet governance SCAN includes highlights from the past two weeks due to the Thanksgiving holiday: ICANN held its ICANN48 meeting in Buenos Aires last week. The meeting focused largely on the following themes – ICANN’s role in the swelling international Internet governance debate; Implementing the new gTLD program; and How ICANN can best to take advantage of several initiatives, such as the upcoming Brazil Meeting and the 1Net initiative.

Highlights from this week’s Internet Governance SCAN: The ICANN community met in Buenos Aires, Argentina for ICANN48, where much discussion centered on clarifying ICANN’s role in recent Internet governance initiatives, including the Brazilian Internet Summit planned for April 23-24, 2014 in São Paulo; ICANN announced the membership of a fifth, high-level strategy panel on the “Future of Global Internet Cooperation,” which will be chaired by President Toomas Ilves of Estonia and will hold its first convening on December 12-13, 2013 in London.

Moderators: Fadi Chehadé, Theresa Swineheart  Panel Chairs: Vint Cerf, Paul Mockapetris, Beth Noveck, Nii Quaynor Members of The GovLab team are in Buenos Aires, Argentina this week for ICANN 48 – an international meeting bringing together the ICANN board, staff, community members and Internet stakeholders to discuss and develop policies for the Internet‘s naming systems. The […]

Highlights from this week’s Internet Governance SCAN: ICANN’s new gTLD program moves forward with the release of 9 new gTLDs, including the first in the Latin alphabet; Recapping the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 88 meeting in Vancouver – attendees discussed post-Snowden Internet security protocols and the need to strengthen encryption.

Highlights from this week’s Internet Governance SCAN: A free and open online forum about the future of Internet governance – 1Net – launched this week; ICANN has launched a new Whois database beta to test the one-stop shop approach to opening registered domain name data to the public in an effort to improve data accuracy and increase transparency and accountability.

The GovLab Index: Trust in Institutions, (Updated) Please find below the next installment in The GovLab Index series inspired by the Harper’s Index. ‘The GovLab Index: Trust in Institutions — November 2013’ provides an update on our previous Trust in Institutions installment, in light of developments in the past few months including the U.S. government […]

Highlights from this week’s Internet Governance SCAN: The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) wrapped up last Friday in Bali. From this year’s event emerged uncertainty for the future of Internet governance and a lack of clarity among stakeholders on how many issues, such as surveillance and privacy, should be addressed going forward; Concerns and excitement around the upcoming April 2014 Brazil “Internet Summit” have emerged, though many questions on the details of the event remain.

Highlights from this week’s Internet Governance SCAN: The majority of this week’s coverage focuses on defining and prioritizing challenges in Internet governance, and on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF 2013), which ends today in Bali, Indonesia; The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) also made strides in the implementation of its new generic top-level domain name (gTLD) program.

The GovLab Senior Advisor Joel Gurin: “Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported the results of an ambitious investigation: The paper reviewed more than 100 thousand Freedom of Information Act requests from the last five years and found that a large number have been coming from investment firms and hedge funds. In what one […]

Christina Rogawski and Andrew Young also contributed to this blog. “Open government” is a central concept to the work at the GovLab, and one where we try to follow developments closely. Even a quick scan of our GovLab Digest over the past several months shows a range of posts on what open government means – […]

Beth Simone Noveck and Stefaan Verhulst in Forbes: “The core task for Danny Werfel, the new acting commissioner of the IRS, is to repair the agency’s tarnished reputation and achieve greater efficacy and fairness in IRS investigations. Mr. Werfel can show true leadership by restructuring how the IRS handles its tax-exempt enforcement processes. One of […]