UK and US reject global telecoms treaty over internet 'power grab'

Anti-spam and other 'out of scope' measures in draft telecoms treaty rejected by UK, US and other governments

The UK, the US, Australia and a number of other countries have refused to sign a new international telecommunications treaty after the final text was pushed through in a "forced" vote.

They claim that the final text would extend a measure of oversight of the internet to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which is part of the United Nations. At best, argue opponents, that would put the internet under progressively more bureaucratic regulation. At worst, they say, it would enable the internet to be controlled by repressive governments as the ITU is governed by majority votes.

"It's with a heavy heart and a sense of missed opportunities that the United States must communicate that it's not able to sign the agreement in the current form," said US delegation leader, Ambassador Terry Kramer, at a special press conference on Thursday evening.

"Other administrations have continually filed out-of-scope proposals that ultimately altered the nature of the discussions and the ITRs [international telecommunication regulations]... The internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years. All without UN regulation," he added.

Kramer had warned earlier in the week that the US might walk out if a number of governments, led by Russia and China, sought to use the ITRs to bring the internet under any form of UN/ITU control.

The US was formally supported by the UK, Costa Rica, Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and Poland in opposition to the draft treaty.

The issue, though, was forced by a bloc of African nations' governments' attempt to have a "right" to access telecoms network written into the treaty. Specialist Australian communications newsletter Commsday had a journalist at the event:

"The crisis erupted... when the African bloc attempted to have its preferred form of words over the rights of member states to access telecommunications networks accepted in the treaty. The US and other allies saw the language as an unambiguous attempt to open the ITRs up to governance and content regulation.

"Iran took the unprecedented step of calling for a vote, against the oft-stated intentions of the ITU to forge a consensus on the ITRs. The vote was won 77-33 by the African bloc with six abstentions. This caused instant backlash from the US and its allies."

"The US then immediately declared it would not sign the treaty."

While the draft treaty did not contain direct references to the internet, the final drafts did prioritise "government communications", and contain measures to prevent the propagation of spam. Activists had feared that any such measures would hand a de facto grounds for repressive governments to interfere in the running of the internet within their geographic boundaries.

UK and US reject global telecoms treaty over internet 'power grab'

Anti-spam and other 'out of scope' measures in draft telecoms treaty rejected by UK, US and other governments

Anti-spam measures, for example, would effectively authorise national governments' surveillance of internet traffic, especially following an earlier agreement on deep packet inspection (DPI) that might endanger internet users' privacy.

"If the ITU claims somewhere that DPI operations will respect privacy, it's either clueless or recklessly dishonest," professor Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, told Outlaw.com. "DPI kit is used by repressive governments for the purposes of repression."

The fact that "implementers and users" of DPI would have to comply with the law "does not contradict that at all", he added. "Repressive regimes often have laws making repression legal," Anderson said, but also noted that in the UK the use of DPI might be legally problematic as Section 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights doesn't allow warrantless, "suspicionless" mass surveillance.

It might, though, be able to effectively privatise such activity by requiring internet service providers to conduct the surveillance, as the UK government plans to do under the much-criticised Communications Data Bill.

The revised ITRs is the first global telecoms treaty since 1988. A number of governments had sought to use the new treaty to encompass the internet in the new regulations under the guise of extending access to every corner of the world.

This push was strongly resisted by civil society, internet and privacy groups, as well as a number of national governments, led by the US. Campaigners also noted that the more authoritarian a government is, the more likely it was to support the draft treaty.

ITU secretary general Doctor Hamadoun Touré rejected claims that the ITU was seeking to extend its governance to the internet. In a statement, Touré said that the final text did not include any provisions for the internet in the treaty.

However, his statement contained explicit reference to the internet and how the contested article will "set the framework for increased investment and rollout of broadband and mobile broadband, bringing vital services to populations that are currently disconnected".

He added: "I have been saying in the run-up to this conference that this conference is not about governing the internet. I repeat that the conference did NOT include provisions on the internet in the treaty text.

"Annexed to the treaty is a non-binding resolution which aims at fostering the development and growth of the internet – a task that ITU has contributed significantly to since the beginning of the internet era, and a task that is central to the ITU's mandate to connect the world, a world that today still has two-thirds of its population without internet access."