Multistakeholder conversations around Internet governance often do not adequately include disability related concerns within their ambit. This omission becomes more concerning when discrimination against persons with disabilities is furthered by artificial intelligence and automated decision-making technologies (ADM). These technologies can process personal data in a manner that makes unfair decisions about Persons with Disabilities, preventing them from using the Internet to achieve economic growth and holistic development. This collaborative workshop (classroom format) initiates a multistakeholder conversation to advance human rights by securing digital inclusion through data protection frameworks for persons with disabilities. Using innovative approaches, speakers and participants will collaboratively design best practices to achieve an inclusive Internet for persons with disabilities. This will be accomplished by: 1) exploring the interplay between digital accessibility, data protection and ADM; and 2) examining how data protection frameworks can address technology-facilitated inequalities faced by persons with disabilities, in alignment with SDGs. Relying on the Centre for Communication Governance’s ongoing research on centring disability in India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the workshop will be bolstered with insights based on CCG’s continuous engagement with diverse stakeholders from the disability and technology ecosystem. The workshop will collaboratively facilitate the design of ‘Our Shared Vision’: a multistakeholder code of best practices toward digital inclusion for persons with disabilities. These best practices will emerge from the exchange of ideas between the participants and the diverse speakers from various stakeholder groups - across industry, civil society and academia, and inter-governmental organisations. Our diverse panel comprises persons with disabilities. Their experiences and expertise will serve as representation of heterogeneity in persons with disabilities on the Internet. Addressing that disability is not a monolith, and that persons with different disabilities face discrimination through technology differently, is crucial to achieving digital inclusion, autonomy and user choice for persons with disabilities.
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