Transparency reporting by international ICT companies about the legal requests they receive, demanding disclosure of user data or takedowns of content, is quickly becoming common. Less common is transparency reporting by governments, although some countries are beginning to issue rudimentary data about their requests to companies.

The growing prevalence of transparency reports raises important questions about the role of such reporting in the future of Internet governance. What standards are developing around these reports, and how can those standards be internationalized and enforced? How effective are these reports as a governance mechanism for insuring accountability and respect for human rights online by both ICT companies and governments, and how could they be made more effective? How have policy makers and civil society advocates been making use of this new set of data to impact how the Internet is governed, and how could it be used better?

Join us for a panel discussion bringing together academics, advocates and ICT companies to lay out the state of the art in transparency reporting, identify its strengths and shortcomings as a tool for Internet governance, recount the experiences of companies and advocates that have developed or made use of transparency reports to promote human rights and inform Internet governance processes, and propose goals and best practices for the transparency reporting field that we hope to see fulfilled in the future.