Four Internets: Data, Geopolitics, and the Governance of Cyberspace

There is no doubt that the world is very dependent on the Internet these days. If it wasn’t obvious before, we certainly realised our dependency during the Covid-19 pandemic. Also, when the whole world piled onto the Internet in order to do anything during the lockdowns, it stayed up and running which is a huge testament to the foresight of the Internet pioneers in terms of its design and in built resilience and scalability. But the Internet has never been under such threat and it’s whole future as a globally interconnected system is in much doubt for many different reasons. In this talk, Dame Wendy Hall, will explore the future of the Internet through the perspective of geopolitics and data governance. She will argue that through this lens we see at least four internets, maybe more, rather than just one interconnected ecosystem. She will explore what aspects of the governance of cyberspace we must protect the most in order for us to continue to use the technical infrastructure of the Internet that we all rely on to support cloud and data services.

The talk will be followed by a dialogue session, moderated by NISTH Fellow, Assoc Prof YeeFen LIM, Hannah, from the Nanyang Business School at NTU.