The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: Welcome back to this parliamentarian round table that is, as I said, focusing this year on, in particular on shaping, strengthening, earning digital trust, which is even more fundamental with new technologies like using AI systems and also like using data where people only share data when they trust that nothing bad happens to their data and then also to themselves.
So having said this, I will not lose much time, and we will move on to introducing our first speakers. We start with Under Secretary‑General Junhua Li which will open up the panel with a few remarks. Under Secretary‑General from UN DESA.
>> JUNHUA LI: Thank you, moderator.
Good afternoon.
Dear parliamentarians, distinguished members, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, on behalf of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, it is my great honour and pleasure to welcome you to the parliamentary track round table this afternoon at the Internet Governance Forum 2023.
Your focus this year on shaping digital trust is very timely. The Internet and digital technologies increasingly shaping our economies and societies, it is crucially important that the policy makers help to shape the digital landscape that reflects people's aspirations and secures their rights including their respective privacy.
We cannot afford fragmented national approaches to data governance that leaves space for exclusion and misalignment with our global goals. With the growing digitization of the global economy and the with speed with which new technologies are solved in our daily lives, we need to ensure that technology is deployed following a human‑centric approach and according to our shared values. Policy, laws and regulations should facilitate a collaboration to develop the new and immersive technologies like artificial intelligence in a trusted way while continuing to foster innovations.
And we need to create a digital space that curbs the reach of the online misinformation and disinformation securing the Internet as a tool for individual and collective empowerment.
Distinguished parliamentarians, distinguished guests, Distinguished Delegates, as lawmakers in your various jurisdictions, you can take the key message and the recommendations from this global level discussions to the regional and the national levels and work with stakeholders to build a structure of the that uplifts and empowers all people.
You can also help to minimize the risks associated to the digitization to ensure that individuals can enjoy its benefits in an inclusive, safe and secure manner. I invite you to strengthen your engagement with IGF across its various sessions and the focused areas, and consider the work carried out in these forums as resources for your national parliamentary discussions and activities.
I wish you to continue to have fruitful exchanges and look forward to hearing your recommendations. I thank you.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Under Secretary‑General.
Next, we do have somebody connected online. It is Ms. Jeehan Mahmood, Minister of Parliament of Maldives and member of the Bureau of the Interparliamentarian Union Standing Committee on Democracy and Human Rights. I hope you are connected.
>> JEEHAN MAHMOOD: I hope you can hear me.
>> MODERATOR: Yes, welcome.
>> JEEHAN MAHMOOD: Distinguished members of Parliament, panelists, IGF participants, it often feels that trust is in short supply. Pulling data from all levels of trust in politics are not very high, yet in the political domain as elsewhere, trust is absolutely essential. People need to be able to trust that elections are free and fair. People need to be able to trust in their representatives to act responsibly on their behalf.
For Parliamentarians, public trust is a constant preoccupation. We know from firsthand experience that trust has to be built over time. Agreed rules, well-functioning institutions and ethical behavior are just some of the key ingredients to building this trust.
For this reason, it is very important that today we are focusing on a trusted Internet, a safe digital environment. I would like to draw attention to three areas that are of ongoing concerns to the IPU.
One is online violence, especially including violence towards women and children and also including in the political sphere. We simply cannot allow online violence to go unchallenged. We need to stand together to say that online violence is unacceptable, and to take the legal and technical measures to combat violence, take the legal and technical measures to combat violence online with as much vigor as we do offline. The Internet must be a safe space for everyone, including and especially children. Another area of concern is elections, of course, and specifically attempts to influence or interfere with the process. This is happening around the world, not only in the largest countries, even in really small countries such as Maldives where I come from.
The new ways in which information circulates and the new opportunities for micro targeting audiences challenges all. We must do more to safeguard the integrity of elections. The legitimacy of our Governments and our Parliaments, our elections depend upon it.
Lastly, artificial intelligence, which has emerged into the public consciousness with much force in recent months. The potential benefits are enormous. The potential risks are also. How do we as lawmakers, technical experts, civil society come together to build a framework for development and use artificial intelligence that the public can trust?
This is one of the key questions of our times, our age. Even as technology itself continues to evolve at a rapid pace. For Parliaments, it is very important to be present here at the Internet Governance Forum, and to be part of the ongoing exchange between stakeholders at national, regional and international levels. We bear heavy responsibility for creating the legal framework and as guardians of human rights of all citizens.
We need to ensure that all voices are heard so that we can take actions that will build a trusted Internet. I'm certain that the debates that are taking place at IGF this week will continue with the IPU, within the IPU, and in our national Parliaments. Thank you, wishing you all a very fruitful forum.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Next we have a member of Parliament of the host country of Japan, Tomoko Ukishima, please go to the lectern. Thank you.
(Applause).
>> TOMOKO UKISHIMA: Good afternoon, everyone. I am the chairperson of the House of Representatives General Affairs Committee, Tomoko Ukishima. On behalf of the members of Parliament of Japan and as the chairperson of the House of Representatives General Affairs Committee which handles policies on telecommunications ,let me say a few words. I would like to offer my heartfelt appreciation to the parliamentarians and distinguished guests for attending IGF Kyoto 2023.
And I welcome you to this parliamentary track. I also take this opportunity to thank the United Nations and the IPU, the Interparliamentary Union for your efforts in hosting this session and for all of your past efforts. Thank you so very much.
As the host country of IGF 2023, it is a pleasure to provide this opportunity to gather the multi‑stakeholders to discuss the promotion of open, free and trustworthy Internet. IGF has many sessions organized by diverse entities such as the high level sessions, workshops, day zero pre-events, and such others.
Among them this parliamentary track discusses important issues on the use and development of Internet Governance and associated digital technology by the members of Parliament of member countries and shares good practices and solutions.
The session is also an opportunity to implement effective and efficient policies through dialogue with other stakeholders. The results of discussions here will contribute widely to the Internet policies of various countries. The main topic of this year's parliamentary track is shaping a trust for The Internet We Want.
In particular we will discuss three important topics for the international community which are, one, data governance, two, AI, and three, disinformation. These were discussed at the G7 digital and tech Ministers meeting hosted by Japan this year.
These topics include the broader discussions on guaranteeing a trusted connectivity to address the digital divide by reducing risks of AI to society and economy, and maximizing the benefits to humanity. Regarding AI, based on the results of G7 Hiroshima summit, we started the Hiroshima AI process in May.
Toward the end of this year through this process, we will embark on the development of international guiding principles for all AI actors.
All of the G7 members share awareness on the importance of exchanging opinions by multi‑stakeholders in that process. I believe that IGF and a parliamentary track will offer a valuable opportunity to hear voices of broader stakeholder community. I'm looking forward to an active discussion on these important topics. In closing, I am praying for the great success of this meeting. Thank you very much.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Tomoko. Next, I have somebody that is not a parliamentarian, as you know, but somebody that has been around probably to all of the 18 IGFs, so something we have in common, he has had several roles, I'm just mentioning his latest and important one he is the Chairman of the Leadership Panel of the IGF, Vint Cerf, you have the floor.
>> VINT CERF: I'm always nervous when people clap before you have said anything. You should probably just sit down, because it won't get any better than that. Well, I address you as a technologist in awe of the parliamentarians who have been given the impossible task of discovering productive rules for bringing discipline to the complex technologies and applications of the Internet and computer‑based systems.
I do not envy you your task, but I hope I can help it. One of the key features of the Internet and computer‑based systems is their ability to amplify whatever it is we do, and we see this in rapid distribution of content around the world, access to materials a megaphone to people whose voices might otherwise not be heard which is very important, but then they also voices that we don't want to listen to are equally amplified, and that is a challenge, how do we discipline that?
I must warn the legislators that you can make laws, but you are not allowed to revise the laws of physics. So if you ask the engineers to double the speed of light in aid of your legislation, we will have to disappoint you. However, the legislators are trying to fashion the rules of what I will say is at the time 21st century social contract.
As citizens of each country and citizens of the word and Netizens in the Internet, we wish for a social contract in which the rules of behavior allow us to feel safe and secure in this online environment.
So it's very important for the parliamentarians to appreciate both the capabilities and the weaknesses of computer‑based applications so the technologists have an obligation to the parliamentarians to help them understand in some fundamental way how these systems work and how they don't work.
What the experts should do is help inform the thinking of the parliamentarians in fashioning rules that will achieve the objectives of the social contract. So our targets generally are trust and safety and security and privacy and accountability and agency, and a long list of other desirable properties of legislation.
One thing I would urge the parliamentarians to do is to focus on outcomes rather than on specific technologies just at the moment we are mesmerized by artificial intelligence and machine learning and large language models, but I believe that that is in some sense a distraction.
What we should be most concerned about is how these systems are being used. What are the effects and side effects of their use? Are there harms we need to defend against.
Mr. Moderator, with your permission I would like to open up one other topic which you probably may not be expecting, but this is to give the parliamentarians fair warning that you have an open territory that is upon us within the next couple of years to consider, and that is the expansion of the Internet into interplanetary space.
It is well under way. The head of the interplanetary networking chapter of the Internet Society is here with us who is part of the Japanese space agency. He has just released on our behalf a report describing what an interplanetary Internet would look like and what its implications are. I want you to think about the return to the moon, which involve the cooperative efforts of the Japanese, Korean, and, of course, NASA in the U.S. when the return to the moon happens which is coming within the next two years, there will be commercial activity on the moon.
There are all kinds of implications of that commercial activity which have only been considered in very modest terms, like the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. Now, I realize, Mr. Moderator, this is super far out, but the problem is it's only two years away, and so I want to make sure that you are conscious of the fact that we will have to cope with questions like can you own property on the moon. If NASA is willing to purchase the results of mining on the moon, then the question is do you get to own the mine? What if there is a dispute about ownership? Where does that get resolved? What if there is a claim jumper?
Do we have a space police force? These are all questions that are going to come up in the context of the expansion into space, and the Internet will be there along with it, and it will bring its own set of challenges. So if it weren't enough to deal with a terrestrial Internet, by the time that we have the 2024 and 2025 IGFs, I suspect this that topic will be on the agenda as well.
So thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. I turn this back to you.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Vint. Thank you for telling us that our lives will become even more complicated, but at least that means that when the IGF will be prolonged by the UN General Assembly in '25, we will have IGF's 26, 27, 28 on Mars, on Venus and on Jupiter, and we will need to find out who will host the IGFs there. But we will definitely look, we will be looking forward to meet you again on Jupiter in '27.
>> VINT CERF: I'm sure the Martian delegation will be in touch with us soon.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for the enlightening remarks by the four of you. I would now like to invite you to make way for the three parliamentarians that will come up that will try and interact with me and with you on three questions that we think are in the core or at least some relevant questions when it comes to, and we have heard about the challenges, but at the same time, the important role of parliamentarians.
So we have honorable Sumana Shrestha. We have honorable Latifa Al‑Abdulkarim, Council member from Saudi Arabia, and we have honorable Brando Benifei, member of the European Parliament. Welcome. Thank you.
So maybe we start with a question to the outer space regulation that is under way in your countries, but I really tend to think that Vint is right because we have seen, of course, lots more activities within around satellites and I guess this is an issue that will keep us busy in many years in the years to come. So, yes, we are looking forward to that.
Let's stay with traditional things like artificial intelligence and so on for the time being because this is easy enough for us all to try and cope with. So my first question to you would be knowing that legislators are key actors developing the legislation that should contribute to a trustworthy digital space as well as it does to trustworthy analog space, the question is how can we improve regulatory capacity and how can we develop and this is one of the key words, agile governance measures to keep up with the rapid pace of technology?
So maybe we start just, we can switch order in the next questions, but we start with you, Latifa Al‑Abdulkarim.
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: Thank you. Thank you, Thomas and I'm happy to be here today, and, yes, let's come from the space maybe now to the earth and prepare for the space. I personally strongly believe that technology shouldn't be regulated in the same legacy regulatory practice that we are used to. We can't have a rigid regulation. So definitely we need to prepare for innovative regulation methodologies.
Regulators should be in the loop of developing the systems. They shouldn't work in isolation from the practice that we are having today. In order to have successful, I would say.
We stay in the office and write some ideas and don’t really know what's happening in the practice. . That makes it really effective and efficient. Then we need iterative multi‑stakeholder agile, innovative regulation.
What do I mean by this? Taking into consideration economic dimension in order to bring responsible innovation, we need to address all the uncertainty, the gaps between the regulations, and making sure that the new regulation is adaptable to the new standards that we will face where the technology is developing.
And also these kind of approaches will bring out the trust that we are really targeting for the users and for the businesses. If I have time, I would like to elaborate as a parliamentarian. What are the parliamentarian two main roles that we have, writing proposals or proposing new laws and new regulations, reviewing and amending laws, how can that be happening within the parliamentarian.
Definitely we need a strategy, as parliamentarians we need to prepare a multi‑stakeholder group between different Committees with different backgrounds and prepare a roadmap starting from the priorities and starting from asking ourself the questions like what exact technology that we need to regulate and how to regulate it and why do we need to regulate it.
And make sure from answering these questions that we are reaching coherence between the regulations we are planning to have. Maybe the other role is the oversight, so oversighting the responsible bodies, the responsible like one or more bodies to make sure that they are also moving in parallel with the long‑term regulation that we are targeting.
So we have short term work and long‑term work. So the short‑term work is making sure that in the practice we have regulatory sand boxes, we are monitoring the adoption of the principles and the data policies, the cybersecurity and monitoring the compliance of all of these, and in addition maybe something that I want to highlight is we need new approach in order to know the standards of those new technologies.
So having the call for policy labs within the innovation centers so we can monitor the progress of the development of the new use cases that entrepreneurs and other companies are really developing. I think I exceeded my time, so I will move to you.
>> SUMANA SHRESTHA: Thank you very much, great to be here, good afternoon, everyone.
I think there are four folds to understanding or answering your question. First is to recognize the last part, which is technology really is developing at a very rapid pace, and regulators or policy makers end up somehow catching up most of the time, which means we need to have a resourceful, what I mean by that is a knowledge pool of academia, of researchers, of early adopters who can quickly identify here are the risks you need to step in and regulate.
I think that is the first part. And then really having plan A, B, C, D, E, F, all the way, however, long it takes to iteratively then come up with policies that truly keeps it safe. The second is to recognize and really advocate for the unique conditions our countries are in, and really to ask for support from, in platforms like this to come up with global frameworks that then can be contextualized to our specific needs.
The third would be, again, recognizing the constraints under which our countries operate. For example, do we really, does Nepal really have the platform to monitor or regulate really large tech companies? What would be some of the best ways to keep everybody safe? So then it would really be coming up with basic minimum standards across the world, across the boundaries to keep children safe, to have basic literacy programmes like a pop up that comes up when somebody is trying to interact with technology or in digital space.
And finally the third would be sessions like this where we learn from each other and we replicate the best practices. We learn from each other's mistakes, therefore, not reinventing the wheels. Thank you.
(Applause).
>> BRANDO BENIFEI: Well, the question has been largely answered, but I can add a few points. We can say that there is always attention ‑‑ a tension between trying to co‑‑legislate talking and taking into account that I can say that by looking at this place and this Conference, these context we are in by involving all of the stakeholders and trying to be able to deliver our legislation, keep the pace with the technological change by being strongly connected with those that do act on the market on the development of the technological products. If we talk specifically about that.
And I think that however, this needs to be done with the care of the fact that there are vested interests, there are also elements of power, especially when we look at, again, the technology and the technological legislation, and we need to consider the imbalances of power that are there, and so we need to be able to maintain enough autonomy and also understand in the various contexts which are the strong points we can say of each context. For example, if you can use also your market power or some forms of soft power to build a stronger position when you try to implement legislation, because the point is we cannot just, especially in this area, we cannot just say we want to approve legislative texts or rules.
We need to be sure that they can be implemented. So you need to look at the governance and the enforcement. And this means also that you need to understand the best way not to be obsolete when you work on this area. So I really, and I just conclude on this, I keep it brief, the, I think it was very, very punctual, very correct what we heard before by Mr. Cerf about the need to concentrate on the use of the technology, the areas where they are used in the case of the artificial intelligence, for example, on which I'm working especially, the so‑called use cases rather than the technology itself.
In my opinion, it's not always possible, but it needs to be rather an exception than the rule. The rule should be to look at how concretely each technology impacts in its use so that in this way already we know we can be more future‑proof in our work.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, very much. So what I'm hearing from all of you is the need for interdisciplinary, multi‑stakeholder interaction, exchange, learning from each other, which makes a lot of sense because also parliamentarians are not necessarily experts in all of the technology when they are elected, but, of course, you have to gather knowledge if you try to develop reasonable legislation that is supposed to deliver on many fronts.
The question is actually the next one is adding up to this is given that we all want to strengthen the cooperation across different stakeholders, Governments, industry, experts from civil society, academia and the Parliament, but how do you do this? How do you do this in your country?
How do you get your personal networks together? How do you get the knowledge that you need in order to legislate? How does it work in your specific surroundings? And what can be done to be improved. Let's start from the other end.
>> BRANDO BENIFEI: I have to say that the model of the European Parliament in this sense is interesting because we build a lot of vocations to discuss and to prepare our work.
I give you an example, on artificial intelligence we have been preparing the legislative work we are doing now on which I know many, also looking with interest I was talking with colleagues before the debate, we got there to do legislation after more than one year of a special Committee that was studying the subject from many different perspectives, and it was an occasion and a place of debate with academia, with stakeholders of all kinds of representatives of various also international organisations, et cetera.
It has been extremely useful, because it gave also the parliamentarians the necessary perspective to work on such complex matters on a legislative form. So I think the experiences could be different, but I think it's very important that there is some programming and some investment in the time we have. What do I mean? I will be brief on this point.
I mean that you know that parliamentary terms have a certain length and it's important that there is enough time used to get deeper into the subject before decisions are taken. Unfortunately sometimes there is a pressure due to electoral reasons or due to urgencies that happen, but most of the time if we do not reflect in the correct timing before we take the decisions, and we involve all of the stakeholders in our discussions, then we take the wrong decisions and we need to correct after.
So I think this is something that is very important to invest in, to have the right timing for each phase to prepare and then enact, and also make it effective when we talk about certain pieces of legislation.
>> SUMANA SHRESTHA: I think you have hit the jackpot of the question is how do you elaborate and implement on the policies that you make? I feel if every developing country could implement everything that's written, I don't think there would be a term called Developing Countries to begin with. I think that's where the rubber hits the road.
I think before we start the conversation of cooperation, it starts with this topic of trust. How do you build trust across all of these stakeholders that then truly enables an open‑hearted cooperation and maybe even collaboration.
So I think it's, the first step is the recognition that when everybody is working towards optimally using digital technologies to interact in a digitally safe space, that is the utopia we are all aiming for. That is the time when our elections are truly fair. That is the time when a lot of what duplications are removed and we are optimally allocating resources.
The second is to really realize that in order to elaborate and implement these policies that we can make the best and best policies, is this question of capacity. Do we have the human capacity to actually get this done? And then comes this fundamental question that I believe ails a lot of Developing Countries, including Nepal which is this mass migration of really educated people which then leaves us with really good policies, but no ability to set up regulatory bodies that can then implement or set up a vibrant ecosystem where things are institutionalized.
And finally, I think the cornerstone of strengthening would be institutionalizing the effort we have started such that, again, it goes a bit towards what I said earlier is then building onto the network that we have, building onto the knowledge that we've accumulated, and then responding very fast with the knowledge pool that we can collectively tap on to really strengthen the cooperation. Thank you.
(Applause).
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: Thanks a lot, and I would like to add on the top of my colleagues' points. They mentioned the stakeholders, they mentioned the need of collaboration, so I would like to add something else. I will not repeat what they have already said.
The power of using the AI tools in the Parliament, this is something that we didn't tackle before, and it's really very helpful. Taking from my, talking from my experience, I'm a Professor in AI and law, so I really working on those kind of legal analysis using some AI tools. So we need to apply those tools and to help us in summarizing those laws to help in finding times, and when you have very limited time to understand many things, summarizing those legal legislations in general and comparing between them.
And on the top of the other side of the question when you said the collaboration between the Government, so in the Parliament as a council member we have very strong collaboration with Governments, I'm sorry, with Parliaments, and across like 150 countries within our friendship Committees. So we are meeting those Parliaments and discussing and sharing practices and collaborate on the level of the economic impact and social impacts of cybersecurity on the data flow, free flow, and on the AI risks and data policies and principles.
So these kinds of collaboration and meetings and dialogues helps us a lot in sharing, like, best practices, and helping each other in order to forming those new regulations. Also as a member of Parliament, as a member of the IPU, of course, and we are always engaging in the dialogues, the global dialogues.
A few weeks ago we are in Uruguay discussing the second World Summit of future Committees, and mainly we were focusing on the AI governance and AI regulations, the challenges including the discussions with the representatives from the business and civil society and academia.
So what I would like to recommend on this side is increasing this kind of parliamentary track within different venues of technology, especially in AI now. This is what we mean by regulatory in the loop. We have to be a parliamentary track in those loops and I have heard yesterday from the parliamentary session the need for the Developing Countries to really exchange the practice.
Maybe this is something for IPU to help in having or providing those resources or access to those row sources regarding data principles, data policies and AI governance standards and other frameworks that will help to also sharing knowledge between the countries. One thing more that we need to consider is to bring out the AI readiness between the countries and we are talking about the AI readiness, we are talking about the balance between the regulation side and the business side. So these are some of the things that I would like to see in the future of this work. Thank you.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.
So, again, I think cooperation is the key, relying on experts is one element, talking to each other across nations is another element, and actually that hooks to the next question. Talking to each other is fine, but then the question is to what extent is it necessary or possible to align safety standards across regions, countries and industries to build trust in let's say through interoperability or harmonization knowing that you are elected by people in one country that do not necessarily care about what happens in another country, but so how do you think we can strengthen shared standards, not only legal standards, but also technical and other standards so that we have a certain level on the global level of harmonization with standards with minimal requirements for safety and security and other values regarding digital technologies not only AI, but, and also since data is something that does not necessarily stay within borders but can be easily moved.
How do you, what is needed in terms of cooperation across country borders from a parliamentarian point of view in order to build the trust in digital technology through Parliaments as well? Thank you.
>> SUMANA SHRESTHA: I think the key really is in realizing what I said earlier which is when the digital space is safe for everyone, then we truly are better off, then it's a win/win situation for every country, every person in the world. So starting from that view, then I think there is a lot that's possible. One of the key areas that I would like to highlight is in being generous with sharing knowledge and technology.
For example, I'm sure there are some organisations, some corporations, some companies, some academia, some researchers in some part of the world, most likely developed part of the world, that are coming up with algorithms to detect deep fakes. So technology or knowledge like that would then, if it's available in low resource setting, those are the times we can truly collectively tackle misinformation, disinformation, that separates us, that divides us.
So a generous view that we need to share our knowledge, share technology to keep everyone safe would be, I think, instrumental. The second would be to realize while there are common minimum standards that we can agree to when it comes to writing codes, how we store work with digital public goods, I think the other one is to realize that every technology needs to be adapted to different country to even within different country to different locality.
So it's very important to contextualize technology. To give a very simple example, the digital literacy, no matter what kind of technology you build, if the human being interacting with the technology, it's just like saying it doesn't matter how complicated password you use if you write it on a piece of paper and stick it to your computer it does not work.
So I think it's important to recognize the level of digital literacy that is in a spectrum. So it's very important that we work on helping each other, also contextualize. It could be as simple as a popup that comes up whenever we interact with large tech that says, all right, do not believe everything you read, you see in the Internet, as simple as that. So those are some of the, we need to agree to certain minimum standards that we hold all of us accountable to. It could be questions like what are some of the non‑negotiables when it comes to keeping the minors protected and EU has done a fantastic job that we can learn from.
So once those minimum standards are set and we agree to, I'm hoping globally every company, every organisation that's working in this space will also adhere to the minimum standards, and then on top of that, we really contextualize on these, for every locality and we contextualize to make sure our technologies are really people centric for whom it's designed to be. Thank you.
(Applause).
>> BRANDO BENIFEI: I think if we talk about trustful Internet and an open space and if we look at AI or other technologies that we are discussing in this context, it's clear that cooperation is crucial because simply some issues cannot be dealt with domestically.
They need to find a global cooperation space. However, I think it's important not to confuse the levels of what we are talking about because there are issues, there are risks, there are problems, and the relative opportunities if risks are confronted that are inherently domestic.
They are linked to daily lives of people, and they need to be dealt with legislation that is protecting safety, fundamental rights by looking at concrete daily use of technologies. While for sure the global cooperation is fundamental and inevitable, if we look at more larger, we can say systematic risks of cybersecurity, of, even of geopolitical kind, but also of the need to have common definitions, common standards, common understanding of what we are doing, international organisations are crucial, like where we are and with the UN, but also other fora where this is being discussed.
We heard Prime Minister Kishida talking about the Hiroshima process that is very important on the Generative AI, but this can be applied to the Internet and to much more. And in fact we have seen that we can learn from each other. We can see that on some decisions, for example, on data protection or on what we ask the platforms to do, we see that we learn from each other.
I have seen that something we have done in Europe was discussed and partially adopted in other places and we could also learn by the new versions of what has been decided also how to do better where it has originally thought of in the first place.
We are seeing this happening, and I think this is very important, that we work in this direction. And to be honest, I think that parliamentarians are especially able to do this well and to orient and push in the right directions the executive branches, which are less apt to look at the need of the individual person because they have another perspective necessarily. While the parliamentarian is able to look at the impact on the individual, which I think is very important in this moment when we look at the developments of new technologies, both in the area of the Internet in general and in AI that has been a lot discussed in this context. Thank you.
(Applause).
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: I would like to add on the top of Brando's point when he mentioned that it is there. So global digital trust is there. We have already discussed that with global bodies like the UN and OECD, for example, with IEEE, with the UNESCO and there was one of those members in the ad hoc expert groups for the UNESCO recommendation ethics on AI, which is the first, I would say, global standards on AI, and we were like around 24 multi‑stakeholder group, and from different regions, from different backgrounds, and you could expect the conflicts and the opinions, the conflict in choosing the principles, the conflict in choosing the values, distinguish between both the values and principles.
So within those discussions and arguments and negotiations we reached those common, I would say principles and policy actions and when it comes to policy actions, also there is a lot of approaches that you could do to tackle certain principles.
And as you know UNESCO's recommendation ethics on AI has been adopted by 193 Member States. So it is possible to bring out those global thinking and apply it to your own country or to your national measures. How to apply it to your national measures, we have to consider your own principles, your own values, your own cultural norms and reflect on the global principles and select from those global principles what is exactly important to you and important to your existing legislations.
And in Saudi Arabia, for example, we are one of those first countries who implemented the UNESCO's recommendation ethics on AI. We have selected those principles. That is very important to us. We are making sure that the implementation of those principles are tackled throughout the development lifecycle. We have selected the governance body who will really look after those principles within the other Government entities, and providing incentives also for those Government entities to work on that.
Before two months in July, the Prime Minister also called for the international AI research and ethics centre that will be in Saudi Arabia to keep on those global dialogues and global discussions around AI research, risks and ethical directions.
So, yes, it is possible, and you can normalize it to your own needs, and move on and keep on exchanging of the knowledge and practices.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. We do still have a little bit of time, so maybe we can expand on a few questions. As somebody that works for a Government, we are following participating in quite a large number of intergovernmental organisations and also other organisations that develop guidance, or regulators and the interparliamentary Union is a useful body but it's not specialized in particular issues like other international organisations, so how would, would it be useful to you if the ITU, UNESCO, but also others like OECD or other specialized entities that deal with particular issues, or those dealing with climate or dealing with health issues where you have data and AI and WHO and so on, if they would be more in close contact not just with the states and Governments and regulators but also with the parliamentarians. Would you think that that is something that would be useful for you? That's one question that I'm asking myself as I listen to you.
And, yes, I will let it be for this one. What is the guidance that you would, because the EU is a big construct. You can hire many experts to look into issues, but maybe smaller countries or Developing Countries have less resources to task and pay experts. What is the guidance that you would ask from the UN system and other intergovernmental or international institutions?
>> SUMANA SHRESTHA: Definitely. I think it would be very useful if the UN body and a lot of other platforms would work a lot more closely with the parliamentarians. At least in Nepal, we have Government that changes quite frequently, so what's really stable are the parliamentarians that you have in position for five years.
So that is a decent time to work on something and institutionalize it so that gives it continuity, number one. Number two, similar to what you said, in law setting it's very important to have access to what I said earlier, knowledge pots in terms of what has been done, what are different frameworks that different countries have applied and to learn from them and see which one can be taken and contextualized for our countries. So I think it will be very useful to have a much stronger parliamentarian track and parliamentarian interactions with various platforms and with the UN organisations.
And I think it's, the third thing to add onto what I said earlier is we need to step a little bit back from a very sectoral approach, right, health, WHO, this, that organisation, and have a lot more collective conversations so we remove duplications from within the UN system as well, and then there is a lot more cohesive approach to data in general. How do we think about data in general instead of just thinking health data or climate change data.
So that would create uniformity and this minimum standard which can then be contextualized for each sector. I think that will be useful. Thanks.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Do you all agree or is there something you would like to add?
>> BRANDO BENIFEI: I think it's our experience also, I think I agree, but maybe it would be important also to learn a bit one from another in the sense that there are very well advanced forms of cooperation with some of these organisations while others also among the ones you listed, there is more sparse, more seldom consultation.
So I think we can also learn from the best examples, and I have seen these also working on AI, and I think that we can, we can, again, try to get it more streamlined to some extent.
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: I think I have answered this question before maybe. I mentioned some ideas for the IPU to work on, and something else I would like to add when those global bodies like UN or UNESCO or others who is working on forming global direction, it is very important to consider parliamentarian here. It's not like parliamentarian track that brings all of the IPU members for discussion. It's also for providing insights for the recommendations or any documents that or any governance, global governance direction that certain organisation is working on.
Here the involvement of parliamentarians will be very important as well.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Maybe another question that is, you have answered, but only to some extent in the first question, given that we are facing really rapid change in technology but also that we don't have, like, all of the new technologies like cars or other things that you buy something and it remains stable for years, it doesn't change. Given that the software that AI systems change almost daily, and, for instance, in my country, like working out the law in Switzerland normally takes about five years and if some people don't like it they can challenge it, it goes to a referendum and if people say no, it takes another five years for another version.
So if legislating takes several years and technology keeps changing and we have new applications that palm up, and we have, we never have a like a finished product. We are living in a better version world.
How do we reflect this in legislation? Of course, you said we should not legislate the technology or regulate technology, but it's impact if the technology changes how can we go also to kind of creating better version laws that you can constantly adapt instead of having laws that take five or even more years to elaborate? What is your vision? What do you discuss among parliamentarians how this very lengthy process can be speeded up?
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: It's not only in Switzerland. It's everywhere. It depends on the type of law, especially when you are talking about technology, and data. We spend almost ten years in just providing the PTPL for, in our country. So the idea is, I will go back again, we need to move in parallel. We should have this long term that will take the ten years or ten years plus draft, and while we are building this draft and everyone should work on the draft so from today, all of the Parliaments, if you didn't start writing the draft, you have to, because you don't know whenever you will need it, and when you need to enforce it.
So it should be there. However, on the short‑term track, regulatory sandboxes, it's very important. The following up from those regulatory sandboxes in order to draft the law is very important, otherwise we don't know how to really cover our, tackle all of those aspects from the technology that is changing while we didn't actually finish the first draft of the law.
>> MODERATOR: So you need to work on several layers or time spends, one is the longer term, more sustainable regulation and the other one is more allowing for experimenting in defined areas that help you to gain experience. Yes.
>> BRANDO BENIFEI: I go a bit along the lines in the sense that I think it's, as it was said, time spent, but the kind of instruments we use. We do not have just laws. We can also think of more kind of soft legislation and frameworks that can be adapted gradually. It depends on what you need to do.
Clearly I give you an example. When you need to, I mean, to overcome fragmentation of rules and that's a typical thing looking at the European Union, the fragmentation of the internal market, you need a legislation that is solid because it needs to avoid the fact that you fragment the internal market, but on other aspects, you can also rely on more executive actions with some degree of scrutiny from Parliament.
This is something that could be applied also to other contexts and I think we need to be flexible in this sense because the issue of timing is crucial. As I believe in democracy, I think that for it to be appreciated by people, it needs to work, and it needs to work, it needs to be in time with challenges, and this is not always the case.
>> SUMANA SHRESTHA: Adding to what Brando said, we have different toolkits in Nepal an executive can bring a law that is active for 60 days for Parliament to bring a replacement law. So for something that is threatening to the national security, if it's pertaining to technology, we can definitely bring a law that's active for 60 days. It is also possible to bring regulations, regulations are quite powerful.
For example, when cryptocurrency really was taking off, and Nepal is a closed loop economy when it comes to foreign currency, the Government basically banned it, right, because we didn't understand what it was. We didn't understand its volatility. We didn't understand what was behind it. We didn't understand Blockchain technology.
So there are a lot of tools available to deal with rapidly changing technology, but I think the key really is to be proactive and to remain connected with researchers, with academia, with the innovators to understand what is coming up in the horizon, and that is the key to remaining not too far behind new innovations. Thank you.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I don't know if we do have a few minutes left, so if you agree, we could also since there are mics, give the floor to people in the audience if they have questions or issues they would like to address to you as parliamentarians, there may be an occasion that some people would want to seize? Yes. Please introduce yourself, and then make your comment or ask your question.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. My name is Sam, Honorable Sam George, member of Parliament from Ghana. I think the statements that have been made and the sentiments that have been shared are things we agree largely but as a member of Parliament from Africa, I think I can associate closer with Nepal on the platform. Saudi Arabia is not a developing economy, and they have got the wealth to push the agenda. The European Parliament has got the strength of Europe.
I'm beginning to ask myself, most of the platforms that we deal with, that we want to have the trusted Internet on are based either in Europe or America. Since 2019 when we have been having this parliamentary track, I haven't seen a U.S. Congressman attend any of the IGF sessions, and they pass the legislations for their platforms that creates the distrust and mistrust that we have on the continent.
So I want to find out, for example, and yesterday in the parliamentary track session I talked about the U.S. cloud act. That was passed by the U.S. Congress. That puts African parliamentarians and African users at risk because we run on these U.S.‑based platforms. So if we want to have a trusted Internet and we want to build global standards, we want to find out how the African perspective comes into building of this platforms when the legislations that are passed don't look at us and taking into consideration our local values, our norms and our culture.
It's also important for us to understand that in building a trusted platform or Internet we need to just not look at non‑state actors, but non‑state actors that are linked with state actors, especially looking at 2024 which is a critical year on the African continent. It's the year of elections, the year of democracy. My country, Ghana, will be running elections in 2024 and about 70 other democracies across the world. If you look at non‑state actors linked to countries like Republic of Korea, China, Russia and the U.S. and the issues of disinformation and misinformation, and the fact that many of our political parties are going to be picking election operatives from these countries to help us run elections and the other ones who are going to be pushing this disinformation, we need to begin to have conversations and being able to call out non‑state actors that are linked to state actors and saying to them to have a safer Internet, this players have to take up the responsibility of ensuring that we fight disinformation.
I don't see any African Government getting actively or having the capacity to execute this information without help from these big players. And these platforms need to have a responsibility, but that said, I'm not going to end without putting some responsibility on African parliamentarians and Africa as a continent. I look at Europe and Europe does it as a collective, not as individual Member States. So we need to see more action from the Pan African Parliament and the African Union, taking collective stand on African Union data policy frameworks to ensure that as a continent, we have a collective voice to then bring the big tech players to the table to have a conversation. Thank you.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Since you are a member of the parliamentarian track you may ask the organizers of the parliamentarian track that she should try and do more to get Congress people or parliamentarians from the United States and maybe other countries in too. So I don't think we can answer the question, but feel free to react, of course.
>> SUMANA SHRESTHA: I like to echo and I completely understand, small countries, Developing Countries, we don't have the collective bargaining that EU has to put in place a lot of regulations that it has. But if Nepal is unsafe, so is a lot of other countries. We truly are boundary‑less when it comes to Internet. So I think it is a legislative conversation we need to have about how do we manage, how do we tackle these common social evils of misinformation, disinformation, and vital going fake news?
I think that is what I feel we need to advocate for is what are some of the minimum standards that we all need to abide by? What are some of the content moderation regulation we need to place wherever all of these large tech platforms operate? How do we bring about parity, so especially small companies that are trying to innovate in this space are already far behind. They don't have access to as much data that has been mine in all of these years. What are some things we can do to truly enable innovations in countries like ours?
So completely echo with you, and I feel like what we need to do is collectively advocate for some minimum standards that are going to keep citizens in low resource settings also safe. Thank you.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Yes, we can take one more.
>> AUDIENCE: This is Vivek from Nepal for the record. So this is a very interesting session from the honorable NPs, a lot is being done and a lot is needed to be done in coming days to make the Internet more open and accessible. But my very is as a parliamentarian, as a policy makers how do you plan to indulge youth in this process that you multiply the effect of creating the trust? So with that my question is to each MPs how in your region you are engaging the youths or you plan to engage in coming days to have this Internet more secure and more trustable? Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. That's a very good question. How do you bring in youth, you as parliamentarians?
>> BRANDO BENIFEI: Well, I try to connect this specific area of interest to a larger issue for younger people, and so potentially young voters, but also in general young people that could be engaged in political social discussions.
I try to give a clear message that if they do not engage, they do not care and it's also the duty of the institutions and society to give them the instruments to be involved, but if they refuse to do it, then others will do in their place. All of the political forces, all of the institutions fill their mouths with words about the centrality of young people, that they are not the future, not the future, the present. They even say but it's unfortunately often fake because if you have a system where for elections, for existing power, everything is in the hands of the older generations and it's also some physiological aspect. In some situations it's pathological, but to some extent it is physiological.
You need to convince them that they need to be part of the process, because otherwise there will be a lot of good words about young people because who would ever say I don't care about young people, I care only about the older generations. No politician will say that. But this doesn't matter.
If the ones that decide are only the older people, young people will be with their interest, with their needs, they will be expelled by the public discourse, and everything will be just rhetoric and images, but not reality.
So I try to be a bit brutal with them on this fact because I see that on such a big topic like the climate change, young people were able to unite globally and shake politics, shake institutions. I think it's very important that they do the same and they are doing it partially, but with less, I can say momentum. They build more momentum around digital citizenship, digital rights and the development of a global understanding on the Internet, on AI. I think young generations can really contribute much, and we need to push them to be more engaged.
>> SUMANA SHRESTHA: Completely echo what you are saying in terms of there is not, so my personal story is I'm a first time parliamentarian, I have been in Parliament for eight months. Before that I was completely in private sector. I joined formal politics because I no longer believed that the older generation is going to do anything substantial when it comes to climate change, when it comes to a lot of vices that exist that there is inherent interest to not act on these aspects.
So I think it's very important to act, and that's one of the things that I try to do to inspire people who are not actively engaging in this dialogue to do that. There are two ways in which I've tried to do that. One is breaking down, I think it's the jargons that really put off.
It's a lot of really big statements that put off younger generation, so breaking it down for them, what this particular policy would mean in their day‑to‑day life, what the lack of this policy would mean for them in their day‑to‑day life, I think that is the first way to, way in which I have tried to engage. We call is legalese, legal Nepali, so breaking down legalese to common day‑to‑day sentences.
The second thing is to really try to encourage them, just like Brando, you said, if you don't set the narrative now, somebody else will and it will be so difficult to change that narrative 15 years down the line when it would really, really start to hurt. So those two ways.
Thank you.
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: Thank you. Plus one to all of them. They have already mentioned what I want to clarify, and I think the case is also different because the majority is the youth or the majority are under the age of 30. So everything we are working on is working for them, and with them.
So and this case from all of the sectors, we are tackling all of the requirements for the youth and absolutely considering their opinions and all of the directions.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, and I must say these three parliamentarians are probably below the average age of a parliamentarian. We know this from big countries also in the west where you see parliamentarians that are way older but also in Europe, you have sometimes. But, of course, Saudi Arabia has a different age distribution than other countries.
Let's take one final comment or question, and one final round of comments.
>> AUDIENCE: This is Murjan from Pakistan. I have a question for the lady sitting next to the moderator as she belonged to a lobby ground I belong to a lobby ground. My question is IGF is all about the access to Internet, but if you can see sometimes the Governments or the state just for the political benefits blackout or shut down the Internet. So when we say axis to Internet is one of the fundamental rights of every human, so just blackout of the Internet for the political gains, what Internet Governance can do, what regulation can we bring by the Internet Governance, by this platform just to tackle the issue with the concerned Governments like in my country this year there was a complete blackout for at least three to four days just for political gains.
Or taking those rights from the people who are educated digitally. So what IGF can really do in this regard. What regulation can we bring and how can it be implemented?
>> MODERATOR: I'm not sure what the question is.
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: What is your question exactly.
>> AUDIENCE: If we say that access to Internet is a human rights.
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: Access to Internet.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes, then access to Internet then blackout of the Internet by the state for political gains, what regulations, laws can be brought by the IGF, or what implementation can be done in this regard when we say access to Internet it one of the rights of humans.
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: We are as parliamentarians consider the access to the Internet for all.
>> AUDIENCE: Short shutdown, I'm asking for the Internet shutdown by the state.
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: By the state? So, in our case, we don't have the issues of having the Internet shut down. Your question is what can the parliamentarians in general do when it comes to Internet shutdown?
>> AUDIENCE: Yes, in case of the political instability in the country, the state or the Government acting in the state just for the political gains in order to put the opposition or the people so they just, they shut down in Pakistan last year. So what regulation or rules or laws can be brought in this regard for the state to not cut the people from access of Internet?
>> LATIFA AL-ABDULKARIM: I think questions should be answered by IPU with countries with similar problems. For that interest, you can take the best practices of what can others do and in order to not to control the accessibility of the Internet no matter what.
>> MODERATOR: If I can add to this, I think there are several aspects to the question of this is my 18th IGF and the early IGFs the question whether there should be a right to be connected to the Internet and to telecom, it has disappeared somehow. It has at some point in time there should be a right to be disconnected but that is something else. If you take the human rights in terms of right to freedom of expression and freedom to information, that is something that is widely accepted, but then the question is is there right to have access, to have free access in the sense for not having to pay for it. There is also an economic question, what is the right, is it the right to communicate, but do you have the right to choose every means for free? You may have to pay for newspapers, you may have to pay for television? So this is one of the elements.
The other one is in different regions, there are different provisions, different let's say restrictions that you can apply to freedom of expression or Freedom of Information. For instance, in Europe, you can restrict freedom of expression, Freedom of Information under certain conditions that need to be laid out Bylaws on national level that need to be in conformity with the human rights Convention, but there are moments under certain conditions where you can restrict certain communications in emergency situations, but they need to be clearly defined and visible and there is normally discussion around was this the right measure appropriate, was it really an emergency situation? So there is a review on whether or not these laws have been applied.
But this is European approach that I'm familiar with and it may be different in other areas.
>> SUMANA SHRESTHA: The executive body usually have a lot of resources and they are able to make the decision, the executive body, but once they do that, then I think it's a job of parliamentarians and you should expect that of your parliamentarian to hold Government accountable to ask precisely the questions was it absolutely necessary? Does you have an alternative? If you had an alternative, why did you go from that and let the democratic process kick in it if fundamental rights were encroached and the wiping clear of the slate during elections. I would say the standard that you should hold your parliamentarians accountable is to hold the Government accountable for its action.
>> BRANDO BENIFEI: I agree with what was just said. I think that's the point. I mean, could it be done differently? Was that proportionate to the objective that was maybe a legitimate objective, but was that proportionate, because sometimes this is the way you start degrading the freedom of access to Internet, that you use some excuse linking it to some legitimate issue, and in the end it's like you said, a political gain, a political gain or game even to that in the end is at the detriment of a principle that I think we should try to build some common understanding that limiting the freedom of the Internet should be proportionate to really significant reasons that could also justify in general limits to freedom of expression which seems to me really, really delicate topic where there should be some work to build common understanding, and today we see the efforts to separate Internet in some cases, to talk about the division of the Internet.
But I think that this context where we are is instead going in the opposite direction, that we should have a united Internet for a more united world that can work together.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: I think these are the perfect words to end the session. I'm sorry, the time is over, but I'm sure that you have a chance to meet and talk to the parliamentarians present at the IGF here, and this is definitely a value added for the IGF, but also for the parliamentarians and I hope that we can expand it and I hope that next time we have also people from the U.S. Congresses, parliamentarians from the U.S. Parliaments here to exchange with them. So thank you all for the very interesting debate and I have been learning a lot about, well, what is important for parliamentarians. Thank you very much.
(Applause).