BRICS and the Internet

"BRICS has the potential to fundamentally change perceptions of the principles of global internet governance, as the number of users residing in its countries is extremely high," said Lucky Masilela, CEO of ZA Central Registry (the largest domain name registry in South Africa), addressing the 6th Russian Internet Governance Forum (RIGF-2015).

According to Mr. Masilela, the major challenge for all BRICS countries is the lack of a unified understanding of what can be considered internet governance and what model is the best fit. Still, he said, there is no doubt each issue should be addressed with a specific approach.

Oleg Demidov, Director of PIR Centre's International Information Security and Global Internet Governance Programme, said that BRICS was initially aimed at reforming existing institutions, primarily economic ones. And he believes the association should play a major role in reforming internet governance institutions as well.

According to Mr. Demidov, the tech community and private sector in the BRICS countries can help bridge gaps between the official positions of the five countries' governments on all key issues concerning internet governance.

Parminder Jeet Singh, Executive Director of the Indian non-governmental organisation IT for Change, believes that a digital economy committee should be established within BRICS to formulate shared economic goals and use them as a basis for developing internet governance principles that all the BRICS countries can agree on.

The forum participants agreed that the joint efforts of the BRICS countries in technology, infrastructure and cyber security will serve to align their positions more closely and will allow them to formulate common approaches to internet governance in the future.