Barcelona Digital City

The Cities Coalition for Digital Rights (CC4DR) held its first policy meeting on 14-15 October in Amsterdam. Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bordeaux, London, Milan, Berlin, Brussels, Sofia, Tirana, Utrecht and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) all met to consolidate ambitions concerning digital rights, and to establish the Coalition’s strategy for the future.

During the meeting, the Coalition members began work on the Digital Rights Governance Framework, which will provide tools for cities that wish to develop policies related to digital rights.  The first version of this document will be published on 10 December, International Human Rights Day, and will be implemented in different cities from January 2022 onwards.

Touria Meliani, Deputy Mayor for Arts and Culture and the driving force behind Amsterdam’s ‘the digital city’ framework said at this first conference that “we need to organise ourselves with the public interest in mind, above all at a time when the tech giants are so powerful, and when digitalisation is affecting every area of our lives”. “Given the international and EU agenda, now is the time to make our voices heard”.

Laia Bonet, Deputy Mayor for the 2030 Agenda, Digital Transition, Sport, and the Territorial and Metropolitan Coordination of Barcelona, described the meeting as a “key point at which to look back and learn from what we’ve experienced over the last year and a half, and also for looking ahead and building an updated common agenda for the Coalition”. She also stressed the need to “devise a strategy to make the Coalition more effective when it comes to defining the digital agenda both within Europe and further afield in order to protect digital rights” and to “move the Coalition forwards by strengthening the human dimension”.

In recent years the cities that are members of the coalition have collaborated, shared knowledge and reached agreements on the defence and protection of digital rights both locally and internationally. For example, the Coalition has promoted the Algorithm Registry, the Citizens’ Voice project, the Applied Digital Rights Initiative and the Global Observatory on Artificial Intelligence. The conclusions and learnings from these projects will be reflected and developed in the Digital Rights Governance Framework.

For more information on CC4DR projects, see the Coalition’s digital magazine. To contact the Coalition, email pboet@bcn.cat or milou.jansen@amsterdam.nl.