What is the format of the ICITS conference?

The conference is an in-person event, providing a direct forum for interaction and discussion.

International Conference on Internet Technologies and Society (ICITS) 2027

Name: International Conference on Internet Technologies and Society (ICITS) 2027
Start: 2027-01-15T00:00:00Z
End: 2027-01-16T00:00:00Z
Location: Beijing

Jan 15–16, 2027Beijing, ChinaIn-person

Registration open

The International Conference on Internet Technologies and Society (ICITS) convenes in Beijing, CHN, to explore the multifaceted relationship between internet technologies and societal structures. This event serves as a critical forum for academics, researchers, and practitioners to disseminate new research, discuss emerging trends, and foster collaborations in the rapidly evolving digital landscape. Participants will engage with cutting-edge developments and their implications for global society.

Committees & topics

Topics
e-Business and e-Commerce: Governance of Global Digital Trade · Internet Technologies: Standards, Infrastructure, and the Future of the Network · Information Management in the Age of Data Abundance · Digital Services in the e-Society: Inclusion, Trust, and Platform Responsibility · e-Government and e-Governance: From Service Delivery to Algorithmic Administration · e-Learning: Digital Education from MOOCs to AI Tutors

Why it matters

In an era defined by rapid technological advancement, understanding the societal impact of internet technologies is paramount. The ICITS conference provides a platform for rigorous academic discourse on topics ranging from digital governance and cybersecurity to the ethical considerations of artificial intelligence and data privacy. Such discussions are vital for shaping policies and practices that ensure technology serves human well-being and societal progress.

The insights generated at events like ICITS contribute directly to informed decision-making by policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society organizations. As internet technologies continue to reshape economies, cultures, and political systems worldwide, a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of their effects is indispensable. The conference's focus on diverse aspects of internet and society interaction underscores the complexity and interconnectedness of these issues, highlighting the need for interdisciplinary approaches to address contemporary challenges.

How to prepare

To effectively engage with the discussions at ICITS, delegates should undertake a thorough review of current literature on internet governance, digital ethics, and the socio-economic impacts of emerging technologies. Familiarity with the policy frameworks and technological landscape of CHN, as the host country, will provide valuable context for understanding regional perspectives and contributions. Consider how different national approaches to internet regulation and innovation might influence global trends.

Participants can enhance their contributions by preparing to discuss specific case studies or research findings that illustrate the practical implications of internet technologies on society. Engaging with lessons such as "Dynamic Analysis" and "Engagement Strategies" can provide frameworks for critically assessing technological developments and their broader societal ramifications. Furthermore, understanding the various stakeholders involved, as explored in "What Is Stakeholder Mapping?" and "Hidden Stakeholders," will be crucial for navigating the diverse perspectives presented at the conference.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

China

A leading nation in internet technology development and application, with a significant focus on digital governance and innovation.

Role in topic

As the host country, CHN plays a central role in shaping the discourse on internet technologies and society, particularly regarding its advancements in digital infrastructure, e-commerce, and artificial intelligence, alongside its unique approach to internet regulation and data management.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

e-Business and e-Commerce: Governance of Global Digital Trade

Electronic commerce emerged in the mid-1990s with the commercialization of the internet and the rise of platforms such as Amazon (1994), eBay (1995), and Alibaba (1999). By the 2010s, e-commerce had become a structural pillar of global trade, accelerated dramatically by the COVID-19 pandemic, which pushed online retail penetration past 20% in many developed economies. The WTO's 1998 moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, repeatedly renewed, has become a flashpoint, with India, Indonesia, and South Africa arguing it deprives developing economies of revenue, while the US, EU, and Japan defend it as essential to digital trade. The core disputes today concern cross-border data flows, platform taxation, consumer protection, and market concentration. The WTO Joint Statement Initiative on E-Commerce, launched in 2019 and reaching a stabilized text in 2024, attempts to set baseline rules on electronic contracts, e-signatures, and spam, but excludes contentious issues like data localization and source code disclosure. Parallel regional frameworks — the EU's Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, China's data security and cross-border data transfer regimes, and the US-led IPEF digital track — are fragmenting the global digital trade order. The issue now sits at the intersection of trade policy, competition law, and digital sovereignty. Developing countries seek capacity support and policy space, while large platform-hosting jurisdictions seek predictable rules for their firms. Whether a coherent multilateral framework can emerge before regulatory fragmentation hardens remains the central question.

Key players

United States
Home to dominant e-commerce platforms; champions open data flows and the WTO moratorium.
China
World's largest e-commerce market; pursues data sovereignty alongside aggressive cross-border platform expansion.
EUU
Sets global regulatory standards via DMA, DSA, and GDPR, shaping platform conduct worldwide.
India
Leading voice against the e-commerce duties moratorium; pursues domestic digital commerce policy (ONDC).
Japan
Architect of 'Data Free Flow with Trust'; key bridge between Western and Asian digital trade approaches.
Singapore
Hub for digital economy agreements (DEPA, UK-SG DEA); model for plurilateral digital trade rule-making.

Internet Technologies: Standards, Infrastructure, and the Future of the Network

The internet's technical foundations — TCP/IP, the DNS, BGP routing, and the HTTP web stack — were largely developed in open, multi-stakeholder venues such as the IETF, W3C, and ICANN from the 1980s onward. This 'rough consensus and running code' model produced a globally interoperable network but has come under strain as the internet has become critical infrastructure for finance, governance, and security. Debates over IPv6 adoption, encrypted DNS (DoH/DoT), QUIC, and post-quantum cryptography illustrate how technical choices now carry significant geopolitical weight. A parallel contest has emerged at the ITU and other UN-affiliated bodies, where proposals such as the 2019 'New IP' submission by Chinese firms have raised concerns in Western capitals about state-driven redesign of core protocols. The 2022 ITU Plenipotentiary in Bucharest, where the American candidate Doreen Bogdan-Martin defeated Russia's Rashid Ismailov for Secretary-General, was widely read as a referendum on the multi-stakeholder model. Meanwhile, infrastructure questions — subsea cables, satellite constellations, content delivery networks, and the concentration of cloud capacity in a handful of hyperscalers — have become central to internet resilience. The topic now spans protocol governance, infrastructure security, and the integration of AI workloads into the network fabric. The unresolved question is whether the bottom-up, engineer-led model of internet evolution can coexist with rising state demands for control, traceability, and territorial data routing.

Key players

Information Management in the Age of Data Abundance

Information management as a discipline grew out of library science, records management, and early database systems in the 1960s–1970s, formalized by standards bodies such as ISO TC 46 and later ISO/IEC JTC 1. The explosion of unstructured data on the web, followed by the rise of big data analytics in the 2010s and generative AI in the 2020s, has fundamentally changed what 'managing information' means: from cataloguing fixed records to curating dynamic, machine-readable, and machine-generated content at planetary scale. Key disputes today center on data ownership and provenance, interoperability of metadata standards, the long-term preservation of digital records, and the governance of training data for AI systems. The EU's Data Act (2024) and Data Governance Act, China's Data Security Law (2021), and emerging US sectoral rules represent divergent philosophies on who controls data flows between firms, individuals, and the state. UNESCO's 2003 Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage remains a touchstone, but digital preservation has lagged badly as formats and platforms churn. The field now grapples with FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), the role of national data spaces, and the integrity of public information ecosystems in the face of synthetic content. Without trustworthy information management practices, downstream uses — from scientific research to e-government to AI training — inherit unreliable foundations.

Key players

Digital Services in the e-Society: Inclusion, Trust, and Platform Responsibility

The notion of an 'e-society' took shape in the early 2000s through EU eEurope action plans and the 2003/2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which framed access to digital services as a development and rights issue. Over the following two decades, digital services have come to mediate banking, health, education, transport, civic participation, and identity. Estonia's e-Residency and X-Road platform (launched 2001) and India's Aadhaar-enabled digital public infrastructure (from 2009) have become reference models, while the EU's eIDAS framework and forthcoming European Digital Identity Wallet aim to standardize trusted services across the bloc. The central disputes concern accessibility and the digital divide, platform liability for harms ranging from disinformation to child safety, the balance between convenience and surveillance in digital ID systems, and the obligations of very large online platforms. The EU's Digital Services Act (in force 2024) imposes systemic risk obligations on the largest platforms; the UK Online Safety Act (2023) and Australia's online safety regime represent parallel approaches. Civil society groups warn that some national digital ID rollouts have excluded marginalized populations or enabled surveillance. Today's agenda also includes age-appropriate design, algorithmic transparency, and the integration of generative AI into public-facing services. The unresolved tension is between making digital services universal and frictionless, and ensuring they remain rights-respecting, inclusive, and resilient.

Key players

Estonia
Pioneer of comprehensive e-government and digital identity; reference model for the digital state.
India
Operator of the world's largest digital public infrastructure stack (Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker).
EUU
Sets the global benchmark for platform regulation via the DSA and digital identity wallet.
United States
Home to most major consumer platforms; debates Section 230 reform and child online safety.
United Kingdom
Implementer of the Online Safety Act; influential on duty-of-care models.
Singapore
Operator of Singpass and an advanced national digital services stack widely studied as a model.

e-Government and e-Governance: From Service Delivery to Algorithmic Administration

Modern e-government traces to late-1990s initiatives in countries like the United States ('Access America', 1997), Singapore, and the Nordic states, formalized internationally by the UN E-Government Survey first issued in 2001. The OECD's later work on 'digital government maturity' shifted the frame from putting forms online to redesigning public administration around data and user needs. Estonia, South Korea, Denmark, and Singapore have consistently topped global rankings, while many developing states have leapfrogged via mobile-first service delivery. Current disputes center on the use of automated decision-making in welfare, immigration, and tax administration; high-profile failures such as the Dutch childcare benefits scandal (toeslagenaffaire) and Australia's Robodebt program have prompted calls for stronger safeguards. Interoperability between agencies, cybersecurity of public systems (highlighted by repeated ransomware attacks on municipalities and hospitals), and the procurement of AI tools by governments are now central concerns. The OECD AI Principles (2019, updated 2024) and the Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI (2024) include public-sector specific provisions. e-Governance — the use of digital tools for participation, transparency, and oversight — adds a further dimension, from open data portals to participatory budgeting platforms. The open question is how to modernize public administration at speed while preserving due process, equity, and democratic accountability.

Key players

e-Learning: Digital Education from MOOCs to AI Tutors

Computer-assisted learning dates to the 1960s (PLATO system), but e-learning at scale began with the spread of broadband and learning management systems such as Blackboard and Moodle in the late 1990s. The MOOC wave of 2012 — Coursera, edX, Udacity — promised universal access to elite instruction, with mixed results: completion rates remained low, and the most active users were already well-educated. The COVID-19 pandemic forced an unprecedented global shift to remote learning in 2020, affecting roughly 1.6 billion learners according to UNESCO, and exposing severe digital divides in connectivity, devices, and teacher readiness. The post-pandemic agenda focuses on learning loss recovery, the integration of generative AI tools (with both productivity and academic-integrity implications), and the regulation of education technology vendors handling sensitive student data. UNESCO's 2023 Guidance for Generative AI in Education and the OECD's work on AI in education frame emerging norms, while concerns persist over commercial surveillance of minors and the displacement of teacher judgement by opaque algorithms. Key unresolved questions include how to certify learning achieved through informal digital channels, how to ensure equitable access in low-connectivity environments (including via offline-first solutions), and how to preserve the social and developmental functions of in-person schooling alongside digital tools. e-Learning is no longer a niche supplement but a structural component of education systems worldwide.

Key players