https://tech.newstatesman.com/guest-opinion/priti-patel-facebook-global-governance

This week US, UK and Australian governments have written an open letter to Facebook urging the company to create a backdoor into its new messaging encryption system, ostensibly to aid their criminal and anti-terrorism investigations. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the request, which critics argue would be a breach of our fundamental right to privacy, I find it alarming that governments are resorting to writing open letters, urging, almost begging, technology companies to meet them in the middle when it comes to issues of digital governance.

It is another sign, as if more were needed, that we urgently need to upgrade our mechanisms of global governance and cooperation – the spaces where private sector technology giants, national governments and civil society can interface – if we’re to meet the challenges of a digitally transformed world.