At the 13th Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APRIGF) conference held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Singapore, Bangladesh expressed the opinion that global tech giants like Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are being deprived of local quality services as they do not set up offices in Bangladesh. At the same time, it has been brought to the attention of the Global Internet Administration that the people of this region are suffering due to lack of concerted efforts in internet governance.
APRIGF is a multi-stakeholder forum on internet policy in the Asia Pacific region’.
In the closing session on Wednesday, Bangladesh Internet Governance Forum (BIGF) has proposed to make BIGF a part of the regional alliance ‘Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) to govern the internet administration in the field of software localization and local language services as the tech giants are not settled locally. At the same time, the delegation of Bangladesh called for the organization of BIGF-AIC dialogue to ensure the participation of stakeholders in the formulation of universal laws while keeping the sovereignty of the Internet intact nationally.
It is to be noted that the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) seeks to promote the understanding of Internet policy issues in the Asia-Pacific region. AIC is the only association that exclusively represents leading Asian internet companies on matters of public policy. As like Apple, Meta, Facebook, Google etc.
The proposal was presented in the meeting by BIGF Chairperson and, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Hasanul Haque Inu. At that time, the secretary general of the organization Mohammad Abdul Haque Anu was present with him.
Taisha Grace Antony, Policy Communication Manager of the organization and Mark Chan, Government Relations Analyst of Global Government Relations Pte. Ltd. were present in the meeting on behalf of AIC.
Regarding the discussion of the meeting, BIGF Chairperson Hasanul Haque Inu told DigiBangla that amendments to the Telecommunication Act, ICT Act 2006, and Digital Security Act 2018 have been started in our country due to the need of time. Evidence Act 2022, Digital Services Act, Digital Currency Act, Data Protection Act, OTT Policy/Act have also been drafted. Broadband policy is also being reviewed. As a result, BIGF has expressed its interest in holding a dialogue with AIIC with an emphasis on international experience and coordination through stakeholder participation to make laws more people-friendly. It will be easy to work in this global village of the Internet as well as in the international environment.