IGF2012- WS 194- Localization of Data and its Implications for Economic Development
Channel: Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
Date: 02/01/2013

The US, EU, India and many other Countries are looking into laws and regulations designed to implement new codes or strengthen existing ones covering the storage, security and use of personal information about their citizens. In our digital age an individual's name, photo, e-mail address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, all of this personal information and much, much more passes effortlessly around the globe at the speed of light. This information often resides in a network of data centers, server farms, Network Operation Centers (NOCs) and similar "core" facilities all under the generic name "BIG DATA" deployed all over the globe that ARE the essential facilities that manage internet traffic.
Recent years has witnessed an explosion of "smart" devices servicing the "edge" of the internet. The reality is that the "smart" in the new phones, tablets and other devices resides not in the phone or devise but in the facilities deployed at the "core" of the internet. It is in these "core" facilities that your information is often "cashed" or stored for quick retrieval. The efficiency, processing power and storage available through "cloud computing" has profoundly changed the way information is handled and stored. Your smart devise or set top box is programed to fetch the movie or application you have request form where it is "cashed" or stored which is in a data center or server farm.
Establishing and enforcing an individual's rights regarding all aspects of their personal data in these new global digital delivery and storage systems presents many new challenges. Our workshop will host a number of experts. We will host an expert who will discuss and site examples of how developing countires "get started" building localized data using IXPs. We will also have a network expert who will cover the new internet architecture, a hub and spoke arrangement with huge data centers "BIG DATA" at the hub pushing information out to smaller regional data centers and server farms that are located close to urban centers to ensure prompt data deliver. We will have government official who are tasked with the responsibility of responding to citizen's concerns regarding the security and use of their personal information. We will also have senior officials from the major global broadband platform companies, tech companies and consumer interest groups. Finally we will have a senior economist who will address the economic impact the proposed laws and regulations on data use and storage will have on businesses (their compliance costs) etc., on citizens (potential added costs to credit), and the costs that will incur to the overall economies of the countries impacted by these laws. 
  We will provide ample time for audience participation.

http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/content/no194-localization-data-and-its-implications-economic-development