Accountability challenges confronting cyberspace governance

Abstract

Traditional, linear conceptions of account rendering bear little relevance in the realm of cyberspace governance, where accountability structures are often decentred. Building on existing accountability scholarship, this paper identifies key accountability challenges confronting cyberspace governance, including the problem of many hands, the profusion of issue areas, as well as the hybridity and malleability of institutional arrangements, and presents a set of policy recommendations geared towards addressing the latter. This paper holds that in order to address and mitigate the challenges identified, accountability relationships need to be consciously reframed and discursively constructed.

Ethics of Security

“…Today, individuals and collectives, including industries and governments, store data on computers and transmit it across networks to other computers. This global data system has vulnerabilities that can undermine the rights and well-being of individuals and damage the objectives of organisations (Eggenschwiler, 2017;Fichtner, 2018).…”

“…It is estimated that, on average, a data breach costs an affected organisation more than four million dollars. Therefore, it is essential that organisations and societies adopt and implement a strong cyber security policy (Eggenschwiler, 2017;Dutton, 2017).…”

“…strong antivirus software and good security habits such as using strong passwords and not using the same passwords) around a defined enviroment such an organisation's intranet or home. Recent developments like increasing remote work and portable devices have dissolved the digital environment, reduced physical presence and visibility into cyber activity and expanded the attack surface (Eggenschwiler, 2017;Fichtner, 2018;Pernice 2019).…”

Toward Future Internet Governance Research and Methods: Internet Governance Learning

“…They and Van Eeten (2017,433) find a "surprising amount" of voluntary activity. The expansion of Internet governance policy space to include private sector and even civil society actors also gives rise to accountability questions (Eggenschwiler 2017) and to power-differential questions related to learning processes.…”

Big crisis data: generality-singularity tensions

“…Apart from its dependence on Twitter, it also relies on a close human-machine interaction, which presents specific challenges, such as enabling timecritical crowd and volunteer mobilisation, retaining volunteers or reducing the corresponding articulation work (Castillo, 2016, p. 117;Burns, 2015;Al-Ani & Stumpp, 2016). At the same time, these actors -networked through a specific AI-powered platform -constitute a complex system with its own accountability (see also Eggenschwiler, 2017). Thus, the corresponding valuating data practices are embedded in the already existing crisis practices of humanitarian aid organisations, enhancing the cultural and context-sensitive tagging and classification of humans.…”