Proposal

APrIGF 2026 Session Proposal Submission Form
Part 1 - Lead Organizer
Contact Person
Prof. Masayuki Hatta
Email
Organization / Affiliation (Please state "Individual" if appropriate) *
Surugadai University / MIAU
Designation
Professor / Director
Gender
Male
Economy of Residence
Japan
Stakeholder Group
Academia
List Your Organizing Partners (if any)
Finding qualified speakers in such a niche field like encryption regulation is challenging, but we are still actively searching for collaborators to improve the diversity of the session.
Part 2 - Session Proposal
Session Title
Backdoors, Blackouts, and Big Tech: Mapping Encryption Rules Across the Asia Pacific -- and Filling the Southeast Asian Gap
Thematic Track of Your Session

  • Option

    • Primary: Digital Resilience and Building of Trust
    • Secondary: AI Governance for Good
Session Format
Showcase (30 minutes)
Where do you plan to organize your session?
Hybrid (with onsite moderator and speakers both online and offline, with online moderator for questions and comments from remote participants)
Specific Issues for Discussion
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is the technology that keeps messages on apps like Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and LINE readable only by the sender and the receiver. It has also become one of the most contested points in Internet governance, where privacy, public safety, and national sovereignty collide.

This Showcase shares findings from a new comparative study of E2EE regulation across 20 jurisdictions. It sorts national approaches into five types: permissive, conditional-access ("backdoor mandates"), hybrid, prohibitionist, and network-shutdown-dependent. Real cases anchor each type -- the UK's secret order to Apple over iCloud, the EU's "Chat Control" scanning debate, India's "traceability" rule challenged by WhatsApp, and election-time internet blackouts.

Two findings travel especially well to this region. First, governments keep demanding "secure backdoors" even though cryptographers have shown for 30 years that these cannot be built safely; we explain why the loop persists and what actually drives it. Second, big platforms increasingly act like "quasi-sovereign" players, resisting some states while complying with others depending on market size and pressure.

Here is the honest gap, and the reason we bring this to Kathmandu: the study's "Global South" cases were Brazil, India, South Africa, and a few African states -- Southeast Asia is almost entirely missing. For a region where messaging apps are how billions communicate, that blind spot matters.

So this is also an open invitation: we want to map Southeast Asian encryption rules together. Concretely, we will discuss:

1. Which of the five types fits your country — or do we need a new one?
2. Where do backdoor, traceability, or shutdown pressures show up across the region?
3. Who would like to co-build a shared, open Southeast Asia encryption-policy dataset?
Describe the Relevance of Your Session to APrIGF
This session sits squarely in the sub-theme "Digital Resilience and Building of Trust." Encryption is the foundation of security and privacy by design, and the issues we raise -- surveillance, platform governance and the role of digital actors, child-safety scanning, and digital sovereignty -- are named directly in that track. The "network-shutdown" type also speaks to resilience under fragmentation, disasters, and geopolitical conflict, while AI-based content scanning links to "AI Governance for Good."

It connects to the overarching theme in a direct way: trust in the Internet depends on communications people can rely on. Backdoors, mandatory scanning, and shutdowns are exactly the tools deployed "in times of crisis," and they often weaken the very resilience they claim to protect. A clear regional map helps the community tell good-faith safety measures from disproportionate ones.

Expected outcomes:

* A shared, plain-language map of how Asia Pacific governments treat encryption, grounded in concrete recent cases.
* The start of a Southeast Asia research collaboration: a working list of volunteers and a draft plan for an open, multi-country dataset that local experts, not outside observers, help build.
* Inputs to the APrIGF Synthesis Document on encryption, surveillance, and digital sovereignty.
Methodology / Agenda (Please add rows by clicking "+" on the right)
Time frame (e.g. 5 minutes, 20 minutes, should add up to the time limit of your selected session format) Description
5 mins Introduction and scene setting by the presenter
10 mins Presenting key findings with a simple visual
10 mins Open discussion around a live "where does your country fit?" prompt that on-site and remote participants answer together
5 mins Wrap-up and call for collaborators
Moderators & Speakers Info (Please complete where possible) - (Required)

  • Moderator (Primary)

    • Name: Masayuki Hatta
    • Organization: Surugadai University / MIAU
    • Designation: Professor / Director
    • Gender: Male
    • Economy / Country of Residence: Japan
    • Stakeholder Group: Academia
    • Expected Presence: In-person
    • Status of Confirmation: Confirmed
    • Link of Bio (URL only): www.linkedin.com/in/mhatta/

  • Moderator (Facilitator)

    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
    • Expected Presence: Select One
    • Status of Confirmation: Select One

  • Speaker 1

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    • Status of Confirmation: Select One

  • Speaker 2

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    • Expected Presence: Select One
    • Status of Confirmation: Select One

  • Speaker 3

    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
    • Expected Presence: Select One
    • Status of Confirmation: Select One

  • Speaker 4

    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
    • Expected Presence: Select One
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  • Speaker 5

    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
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    • Status of Confirmation: Select One
Please explain the rationale for choosing each of the above contributors to the session.
Masayuki Hatta is the organizer and presenter, and the author of the study behind this Showcase: a comparative analysis of E2EE regulation across 20 jurisdictions that builds the five-type framework presented here. The paper was accepted to ITS2026 Tokyo and presented in June 2026; a preprint is at https://ssrn.com/abstract=6861899.

As the author, he can answer technical, legal, and policy questions on every case, and explain in plain language why "secure backdoors" cannot be built safely. His work covers encryption policy, internet governance, and open-source governance.

He is also a board member of MIAU, a Japanese civil society group for internet users, and a steering committee member of the Japan IGF. As an academic from Japan, he brings an Asia Pacific view to a Western-dominated debate.

To strengthen diversity, the organizer is seeking additional speakers across gender, region, and stakeholder group, especially SE Asian collaborators to co-present and extend the study.
If you need assistance to find a suitable speaker to contribute to your session, or an onsite facilitator for your online-only session, please specify your request with details of what you are looking for.
Yes, we would welcome assistance on two fronts.

First, the session's core aim is to extend our 20-jurisdiction encryption study into Southeast Asia, so we would be especially glad to be connected with co-presenters from countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia. Speakers from government, civil society, the technical community, or academia who can speak to encryption, surveillance, or platform regulation in their country would add exactly the local, multi-stakeholder perspective the research currently lacks.

Second, if other proposals address encryption or surveillance policy, we would be very happy to join or support them rather than run a separate session, and are open to a merged session.

We are also flexible on format. We have proposed a Showcase, but would welcome turning it into a BoF or another more interactive format if the Program Committee thinks it would better serve discussion and collaboration.
Has AI been used to develop this proposal?
Yes
How:
Language editing and translation of the author's own Japanese drafts; all content and analysis are the author's own.
Please declare if you have any potential conflict of interest with the Program Committee 2026.
No
Are you or other session contributors planning to apply for the APrIGF Fellowship Program 2026?
No
Upon evaluation by the Program Committee, your session proposal may only be selected under the condition that you will accept the suggestion of merging with another proposal with similar topics. Please state your preference below:
Yes, I am willing to work with another session proposer on a suggested merger.
Number of Attendees (Please fill in numbers)
    Gender Balance in Moderators/Speakers (Please fill in numbers)
      Consent
      I agree that my data can be submitted to forms.for.asia and processed by APrIGF organizers for the program selection of APrIGF 2026.