Ms Dorothy K. Gordon, Director-General of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE), has attended the meeting of the Global Commission on Internet Governance at The Hague, in Holland.

Currently, she is one of two African women on the 25-member Commission chaired by Carl Bildt Sweden's former Prime Minister and current Foreign Affairs Minister.

Ms Gordon's membership on the Global Commission is in recognition of her instrumental role in ICT development in Africa; and she currently leads Africa's first Advance Information Institute, AITI-KACE.

The Global Commission on Internet Governance (GCIG) was established in January 2014 to articulate and advance a strategic vision for the future of internet governance.

At the meeting, the Commission discussed the potential for a damaging erosion of trust in the absence of a broad social agreement on norms for digital privacy and security for the internet.

A statement signed by Nana Fosu Nyante, the Business Liaison Officer AITI-KACE, and made available to the Ghana News Agency on Monday said, for the internet to remain a global engine of social and economic progress, confidence must be restored in its management as trust is eroding.

“The internet should be open, freely available to all, secure and safe. The Commission thus agrees that all stakeholders must collaborate together to adopt norms for responsible behaviour on the Internet,” it said.

On the occasion of the April 2015 Global Conference on Cyberspace meeting in The Hague, the Commission urged the global community to build a new social compact between citizens and their elected representatives, the judiciary, law enforcement and intelligence agencies, business, civil society and the Internet technical community, with the goal of restoring trust and enhancing confidence in the Internet.

The statement said it was now essential that governments in collaborating with all other stakeholders, took steps to build confidence that the right to privacy of all people was respected on the internet.

It noted that a social compact must be built on a shared commitment by all stakeholders in developed and less-developed countries to take concrete action in their own jurisdictions to build trust and confidence in the Internet.

The statement said a commitment to the concept of collaborative security and to privacy must replace lengthy and over-politicized negotiations and conferences.

It urged governments to act in nine key areas such as building the new social compact, fundamental human rights, including privacy and personal data protection, must be protected online.

The statement said threats to these core human rights should be addressed by governments and other stakeholders acting both within their own jurisdiction and in cooperation.

It said the interception of communications, collection, analysis and use of data over the internet by law enforcement and government intelligence agencies should be for purposes that are openly specified in advance, authorized by law; including international human rights law and consistent with the principles of necessity and proportionality.

The statement said governments, working in collaboration with technologists, businesses and civil society, must help educate their public in good cyber-security practices.

It said they must also collaborate to enhance the training and development of the software workforce globally to encourage creation of more secure and stable networks around the world.

It said the trans-border nature of many significant forms of cyber intrusion curtails the ability of the target state to interdict, investigate and prosecute the individuals or organizations responsible for that intrusion.