WSIS Action Line C3: Guaranteeing the online space for all

Experts convene at UNESCO session to discuss the evolution of information access ahead of WSIS review

During a UNESCO session on Action Line C3, experts convened to discuss the evolution of access to information over the last 20 years, in anticipation of the upcoming review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Moderator David Estorti from UNESCO opened the discussion by acknowledging the significant changes in the information space and the roles of institutions in information sharing and preservation.

Maria de Blas de Fer from IFLA emphasised the importance of libraries in providing public internet access, especially in underserved and remote communities. She reported that two-thirds of libraries now offer internet access, though access varies widely between regions. De Blas de Fer argued that public access should complement, not compete with, private access, and highlighted the role of libraries in digital literacy skills programs, which are more crucial than ever in combatting misinformation and the challenges brought by AI and emerging technologies.

Anthony Wong, president of IFIP, reflected on the organisation’s long history and its continued relevance in the digital age. He pointed out the maturation of the internet, data privacy regulations, and AI regulation, and raised concerns about the complexity of new challenges, such as the standardisation of morality and ethical considerations. Wong stressed the need for a multidisciplinary approach to address these challenges and protect cultural heritage against the rapid pace of digitisation.

Mona M’Bikay, the director of UPR Info, discussed the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council in promoting better access to information. She noted an increase in UPR recommendations related to access to information and freedom of expression, and highlighted the political commitment of states to implement these recommendations. M’Bikay also pointed out the challenges related to new technologies, privacy, data protection, and surveillance, and the need for more recommendations to ensure safe online access.

Fabio Senne from CETIC spoke about advancements in data collection on internet access and connectivity, including the partnership on measuring SET for development, a consortium of UN agencies coordinating data collection. Senne discussed the challenges in measuring digital skills and the impact of disinformation, as well as the need for new indicators to keep pace with rapidly changing fields like AI.

Audience contributions included concerns about cybersecurity awareness among children and adolescents, and the challenges of determining what is acceptable as open data. The importance of interconnecting different action lines to address the multifaceted challenges in access to information was emphasised.

In conclusion, the session called for a multidisciplinary approach to tackle the complex challenges presented by the evolving information space. The protection of cultural heritage was highlighted as a critical issue in the face of digitisation. The panel agreed on the importance of digital literacy and the need for standards in information sharing and preservation. The session underscored the ongoing need for collaboration and adaptation to ensure equitable access to information for all.

Moderator:
I’m David Estorti from UNESCO and we’re here for the Action Line C3 on access to information. And I’d like to thank, first of all, our speakers in terms of today, who came from the WSIS community with Maria de Blas de Fer, IFLA policy and advocacy officer, and Mr. Anthony Wong, president of the International Federation for Information Processing, IFIP. We have Mona Bikai from the executive director of UPR Info. And we have Fabio Sen, project coordinator at the Regional Centre for Studies on the Development of Information Society, CETIC, which is also a UNESCO Category 2 centre in Brazil. So, today, the goal of the session is to go through the evolution of access to information during the 20 years, because we are heading to the 20 years review of the WSIS. And we know there have been many changes, the space of information has changed dramatically in these 20 years. So, is the role of the institutions where information actually is being… shared and saved. There are also new systems. We just heard that the session very active on artificial intelligence and ethics, that they are again changing the way information is produced and shared. There are also been a lot of milestones in the space and we are sharing a few of them. Just want to remind you this information is also available in the WSIS website for review. There have been important milestones. But what are we going to discuss today? I hope with your help, it’s about achievement, yes, but also key challenges. What are today the barriers? We heard a lot about digital divides in the last couple of days. What are the threats to information producing, production and sharing, media freedom, and of course, one of the most dreadful for UNESCO, we identify on the misinformation and disinformation. I’d like to also hear from you, what are the, in your point of view, the emerging trends and what is the way forward, which is the most important thing because actually this session is an action line session, so we are meant to send some key messages for the results of the WSIS Forum 2024, and to send these messages to the Chair of the Forum, and then to the Summit of the Future, and the WSIS Plus 10 to review. So it’s a serious… So we already shared online in the WSIS website a few challenges which we identified in terms of this action line. So connectivity, raising challenges in terms of equitable access to information for all the citizens, the unprecedented release of public information with the volume of data exchange which is threatening of course, which is giving a lot of opportunities but also threats like privacy, the phenomena like the cloud computing, mobility, social media that also again complex security challenges but on the other hand also gave a lot of opportunities in terms of the deployment and development of services for citizens. So there are trends, these are a few of them that we’re trying to summarize. Access to information, access to data, these are increasingly part of the legislations through the ATI laws, access to information laws and more and more countries are trying to adopt these kind of frameworks that are framing these kind of things and also the trend is that of course through the internet development there is a power of the information as an enabler for the development is reaching the potential also for marginalized communities. So there are, what are the opportunities? There are many opportunities and information, access to information, actually it’s a super broad range of things. We have, for example, in IFIP with us, your broad scale of range of domains where information actually is making a difference. So we cite your science, for example, but there are many, many others. So I think this is, these are the basis of our conversation today. And I look forward to hear from you and the participants on the ideas for the key messages and trends that we want to pass on for the evolution of the actual NC3 in view of the OASIS-Plus-23 view and to keep it meaningful and up to the challenge of time, of course, within this new context of today. So I’d like to give maybe first the floor to Maria. Yes, thank you. It’s a conversation, so don’t, I don’t want this to be a presentation mode, so please.

Maria de Brasdefer:
Yeah, thank you. Well, I think first I would thank you for the brief presentation and I think for a start, at least from the side of libraries, in terms of achievements, a first thing that I would like to highlight is the fact that from the side of libraries is also very important, the issue of public access to the internet. So as you know, libraries are also considered public anchor institutions that over access to the internet, especially to be underserved and remote places and communities that really need it, or where perhaps access is complicated. So as of today, and Just to update on some things, as of today in IFLA we have two-thirds of the libraries for which we have data are offering internet access. Of course, there is a very strong variation in terms of access amongst countries, so it’s quite different between regions, but we have extensive data also on the positive impact of this public access to the internet, this private access, and this is one of the things that I would also like to highlight, because I think it’s also very important to keep in mind that there is no competition between public access and private access, so public access should be seen as a complement rather than something perhaps obsolete. So it doesn’t compete with private access, but rather complements it, and it offers a lot of possibilities also to particularly to the underserved and the most vulnerable. And I think another thing that I would like to highlight would be also the digital literacy skills, that I believe they’re also like, we can all agree that now they’re more important than ever, especially talking in terms of this information and all the information that is going around. So I think there are a lot of achievements, but also a lot of challenges in that area, unfortunately. So a lot of achievements, at least from our side, is that as of now, libraries are also undertaking a lot of digital literacy skills programs in different countries. They’re capacitating, their staff has a lot of experience dealing with knowledge and information, and so they’re also capacitated to conduct these types of trainings. So yeah, that is something to highlight on our side. But of course, we also have noticed the other not so positive side of the challenges, especially particularly now with the use of AI and emerging technologies. We see a lot of, even within the staff in the libraries, we see a lot of challenges, for example, trying to adopt new software. perhaps some libraries not want you to stay behind in terms of these emerging trends, but without being fully aware of the implications that adopting those new platforms might bring, and at the same time also them observing the effect of misinformation in the library target audiences, which are also very diverse, from very young children to senior citizens, and the fact that is they observe a lot of people not being able to discern what type of information is real and what isn’t, and there’s a lot of confusion on that side, and so those are some of the things that I would like to highlight for now, but I would also like to be the space for the speakers. Thank you, very interesting, I see Anthony is…

Anthony Wong:
Thank you, Davide, thank you UNESCO for inviting IFIP and myself, I’m the newest president of IFIP. As I reflect on the topic today, I just look at the name International Federation for Information Processing, and I just wondered why UNESCO created that name, so I’d just like to give you my observation as the newest president, even though the name as it sounds looks very old-fashioned, but if you think about what’s happening today with data analytics and processing, it is so relevant today, and I believe UNESCO created IFIP for exactly this open access to information collaboration. This is an opportunity for you to take part in 100 working groups from AI governance to cybersecurity, over 13 working groups on many fields of ICT and other. So as I reflect, IFIP was created in 1960 under the auspices of UNESCO, so it’s older than we said. So UNESCO is in the forefront of this thinking by at least 40 years. So I’m very glad to be here to contribute to look at what do we need to do for the next 20 years. You’ve got this organisation created by UNESCO, use it, because that’s why you created it. So that scientists, academics and industry from five continents and from all the different countries come together to collaborate to look at open access to information. And also in quite recent times, I believe UNESCO has worked with EMEA and IFIP to open a lot of our publications to digital library, which is openly accessible by anyone in the world. It’s hosted out of France by EMEA, the French scientific organisation. And that’s all available free of charge. So we have done our contribution over the 40 years. So let’s explore how you can use IFIP for the next 20. So I’m very glad to be here today.

Moderator:
Thank you very much. Mona.

Mona M’Bikay:
Yes. Good morning, everyone. So I’m Mona M’Bikay, the director of UPR Info. So my angle will be really to discuss about how we can promote better access to information through this mechanism of the Universal Periodic Review. This is one of the mechanisms of the UN Human Rights Council to promote human rights. What is interesting when we look at the UPR recommendation related to access information, they often also relate to other rights, for example, freedom of expression or the protection or so of the safety of journalists. So over the years, we have seen since the first cycle of the UPR, an increased numbers of recommendations related to access to information and also freedom of expression. So, for example, it has moved from one thousand four hundred twenty four recommendations in the second cycle to 1,889 recommendation in the first second, really an increase of 32%. And the same really related to the specific recommendation on access to information, there’s a really a trend of increasing recommendation over the cycle. So what is important is that when those recommendation for those who are not familiar with this mechanism, what happens that the human right record of every UN member state is reviewed, and state received a recommendation to improve the human rights equation on the ground. So related to freedom of expression, access to information to receive a number of recommendation, which most of them, the state have accepted, meaning they have taken the political commitment to implement them. And for instance, the type of recommendation received is to ensure better access to information, to enact or review specific legislation on access to information. So to promote transparency in the algorithm, to ensure that also it address issue concerning the group living in vulnerable situation or marginalized, to promote transparency, to promote accountability, because access to information is really key to, for example, access address this issue of corruption. Just want to give you, for example, concrete example of states having taken action following recommendation. They have received this, for example, Sierra Leone, that has received a recommendation in the second cycle. And following those recommendation, they have repealed one of their legislation and granted journalists more freedom to carry out their professional duties. The same for Gambia, that have also received a recommendation in the UPR cycle to bring legal provision into line with international standards of freedom of expression. have again taken action to review media rules. So now I think in terms of challenges, what we see is that there’s many challenges related to new technology. Despite all the opportunities that they offer, we see that a threat in terms of ensuring a safe digital space. And in particular in relation to the right privacy, data protection, surveillance technologies. And so we believe that we see very still few. There’s a trend increasing. But over the free cycle, there has been only 4,083 recommendations out of the whole global recommendation. If you look at the whole recommendation that has been addressed to member states during the UPR, we have more than 90,000 recommendations. So there’s really still a space, in fact, to ensure that recommendations are formulated during the UPR working group session to ensure a safe access online. And especially it will have a big concrete impact on many human rights, access to information, freedom of expression, the right to privacy, and child protection. Because that is really a key point that we see that is really critical to ensure child protection in terms of access and in all this digital space. So going forward, I think that will be really interesting to raise more awareness about how the UPR as a mechanism can be better used to improve, in fact, access to information, address the challenges in terms of digital space. Yes, I will leave it for that. And after, we may have some discussion together. Thank you.

Moderator:
Yes, thank you. Very interesting. the Human Rights side with recommendations, the libraries as spaces and also tools for that, for the support and the media information literacy you mentioned, the professional side of information with the IFIP. I’ll turn now to Fabio. I’ll use you Fabio, you work in gathering data, so what are the data telling us for the future?

Fabio Senne:
Yes. Thank you, David. Thank you for the contributions. Well, I’m from CETIC.br, which is a UNESCO center based in Brazil since 2005, and we were producing statistics and data on the access and use of the internet in different sectors. What we see from this 20 years is that we advanced a lot in having data at least on the access side and connectivity. We have the partnership on measuring SET for development, which is a consortium of UN agencies that coordinates the data collection on different topics, and Brazil is also participating in this process. We will celebrate this year the 20th anniversary of the partnership in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Lots of indicators we have today are due to this process of collaboration between these different UN agencies, including UNESCO. We also are following the SDGs targets and indicators, and this is an important process also for having ICT and internet related indicators to monitor. And of course, UNESCO has also good instruments to this. We had in the past the development of the media development indicators, and then since five years ago, we supported UNESCO in the creation of the Internet Universality Indicators, which is a very broad concept and framework for measuring. We will discuss the IUI revision in a session on Friday. If I can divide it in parts, I think we advanced a lot in the discussion on access. So we have, for instance, in the case of Brazil, we have a survey on libraries, for instance, and we have a very good understanding on how libraries can be spread in the territory and serve as a public access point to the Internet. So we can have experience of measurement in schools and healthcare facilities. So this is much more advanced nowadays than it used to be 20 years ago. We have a second layer of analysis that is more connected to skills, that Maria also mentioned, that are more difficult to measure. We already have some recommendations from ITU, from UNESCO, from other, from Eurostat in how to measure skills. But this is still an ongoing discussion on how to really measure how people have digital skills related to those aspects, including informational skills, which are relevant for access to information. And finally, I think there are very new challenges for measurement and for the agenda. One of them is the information integrity or how to measure this information or how to understand the impact of this data. type of information in societies, and of course, AI, which is also an ongoing field, we are trying to develop new indicators and new ways of measuring AI adoption into companies, government, but this is still, I think, a third layer of indicators that are, at this point, need to be developed fast because the agenda is moving very fast. So we have advanced in these 20 years, but we do have new challenges to face now, so I think this is my…

Moderator:
Thank you.

Panelist 1:
Good morning. Thank you for having me here as well. I’m from Qatar, representing Qatar, so a lot of countries I heard in this whole session is that we are pushing towards digital literacy, but however, we are not emphasizing on the awareness of digital literacy, how, in terms of the safety of safe browsing, in terms of sharing what kind of information online, because I believe that is also one of the very important element in terms of protecting the people that we are pushing towards digital literacy. And it should not be a supplement in terms of government pushing a part of digital literacy, it should be an element on its own self that the government should emphasize on in terms of awareness, in terms of cybersecurity element and all that. And one of the thing that Qatar is right now focusing on is providing awareness to school kids, to adolescents, and also to emphasizing in terms of from primary school to graduates and all that, in terms of the awareness of how to use internet properly, the kind of information you want to share on the internet, because we know that people can use now defakes to create a lot of videos of yourself and everything. So this kind of emphasizing is very important and with the project that we have currently exploring in Qatar, we have reached almost 90% of the index of student in terms of digital literacy, in terms of providing them the right kind of information, the right kind of tool. We also have a project where we emphasize on kids using tools like games and computer softwares and all that to enhance their literacy in terms of awareness, in terms of cybersecurity. So I believe that it is a thing that other governments should also look into as an emphasizer, emphasizing on its own besides digital literacy.

Moderator:
Thank you. How do you measure this access to information in general? So I spoke about, of course, one way is access to information laws. So there are many dimensions in this action line.

Anthony Wong:
I’d just like to pick up my colleague what she said about fake and e-safety information. So if I can draw on just a recent case by our e-safety commissioner in terms of protecting juveniles and young people on the Internet. She’s just taken a lot of master tasks for providing videos of a juvenile attacking someone in the church and although they managed to get injunctioned for not being able to access in Australia, that is not able to do for the international worldwide. So that video is still available worldwide. So the question is, what sort of material can we be allowed to put on the Internet? Because now it’s widely accessible. For the last 20 years, we’ve seen the maturity of the Internet and the World Wide Web. We’ve seen the maturity of data privacy regulation concerns and protection laws. Now we’ve seen the maturization of AI regulation with the Council of Europe Treaty on AI, European Union Artificial Intelligence Act, and many guidelines and principles across the world. So they’re all getting mature, but then we always have gaps, whether it is the use of traditional knowledge in patents and copyright and materials and protecting them and provide benefit to the indigenous community, whether it’s in Africa, Latin America, Borneo, or the Amazon. So now we’re facing new challenges which are much, much complex than we used to face before. And it’s across many segments of our population, because now access to information is more widely accessible than it used to be, so that we have now exposure to small groups of communities across the globe, from the Amazon to the Borneo rainforest, to Africa, the Eskimo, you name it. It’s all there. In terms of the challenges, talking as a lawyer, as a president of IFIP and a technologist, we now have complex challenges to resolve. If the information is banned in one country, should it be allowed in other countries? Do we have a standard? What’s the standard of morality? What’s the standard of ethical consideration? Would the UNESCO AI principles cover those things? Because they are evolving as we speak. So those are great challenges I see moving forward for the next 20 years. We also saw in the last 20 years, maturity of the digital platforms, the X, the Meta, the Facebook, the Google. What’s the next frontier? And I can see with AI. just coming on the plane from Sydney with AI, we’re going to develop for ourselves personal teacher assistant. You wake up in the morning, the assistant will be talking to you about the weather, how to get to work, traffic, whose appointment you’ve got to have today, everything. We will have a personal assistant, and that will be trained using information from the world, as well as our personal information, our preferences, the videos that we watch, the movies we go to, the books we read. We actually got to have a very personalized information thing. I call it thing because I’m not sure how we describe AI as a thing or a human sentient combination. But definitely, those are the challenges. I don’t want to keep hammering on, but I think we can explore that in the next few minutes too.

Moderator:
Thank you. I think that you’re touching also upon very complex issues. That’s why we’re here, I think, and why the WSIS is looking at this as one of the action lines. We worked a lot on, let’s say in terms of the SDG, also 16 in terms of public domain information, and what is the role of the government also to be the custodian of reaching out to the SDG, and how this can ensure that access to information is recognized as important, and what are the implications, let’s say, for good governance, for economic welfare, or for development itself. There are so many layers, and I am happy that we have been able to work on that. of exchanges on this. So to identify these challenges, because we’re not going to solve this in the minutes, but it’s important to flag things out, please.

Maria de Brasdefer:
Yeah, perhaps like if I may, like you say, there’s a lot of challenges, of course, and we’re not gonna be able to solve everything in this space, but I see two topics that are emerging in this conversation, and that I think everyone has talked a little bit about them. And one of them is the challenge of, well, measuring already, which is also very tied to data. So the fact that on one side, the fact that perhaps we cannot measure properly if we don’t have good data, if we don’t have that information available. But also, like in the case of what Fabio mentioned, sometimes even if you have the data available, there’s still the issue of how to measure, what to measure, and how to depart from that. So I think that is probably, like to me, that looks like an emerging topic in the conversation. And attached to that, there’s also the issue of safety, and that is also linked to what we mentioned on digital literacy skills, regulation, and increasing awareness. So I think these are two things that I see that are also very relevant for all of us here.

Moderator:
Please participate in the conversation if you wish so. Is there anybody who would like to take the floor on this? Do you have a reaction?

Panelist 2:
Yes, I thought it was very interesting. I think it’s actually my colleague from Qatar, but I think it’s a very good initiative. In fact, when speaking about ensuring that children have really this digital literacy, because I think it’s one aspect that going beyond legislation, I really see that to ensure an effective protection of the rights, we have to go beyond having a legislation. the legal framework, but I think working in terms of raising awareness and building digital literacy to ensure that children and young adolescents and young adults are aware about how to use deep fake information or all the threats related to AI. I see this a lot in China, we have this scandal around video that are transformed and that do not represent the person, but the image of the person is used, so I think, and we had to remember during one of the pre-sessions, that the platform that you’re caring for has, that we provide to human right defenders, we have really a testimony from a young adult that have shared with us, you know, how she has been personally self-affected by the spread of information on her, that has really impacted all her life, so I think there’s really, I think for me it’s really critical that we need to build this digital literacy and so that, you know, young adult children and adolescents can protect themselves and know how to navigate, because really if it’s the digital world, but how to put safety for guidelines, legislation, but so that also them said they’re aware about how to protect themselves and how to use this digital space safely.

Moderator:
That’s interesting also, I want to mention that you may know, or not, for example, on the UNESCO recently issued guidelines for the digital platform, exactly for addressing some of these issues, so there’s also one other thing that comes into my mind when I hear from you is also the, you know, access to information, the sense of, let’s say, endangered communities, and I’m talking particularly about endangered languages, was one, something which came also on in a couple of days, Mrs, about, you know, how the technology is also enabling to give the voice to those who have less voice because maybe there is not, you know, enough, let’s say, digitization or language, language is white, but also this is something which is not yet done because actually every day languages are dying, unfortunately, and even the UNESCO has put now on an observatory of indigenous languages, but technology is not yet up to the point in terms of ensuring that the languages can be actually, all languages can participate in the internet. So, if you have an opinion about that.

Anthony Wong:
Well, two years ago, WSIS, I was surprised to see a holographic of the ITU General Secretary at the Convention Center here and I think that’s given me inspiration to think that’s one way of preserving indigenous languages around the world by capturing in holographic form the conversation, the narration of their history, the indigenous community, the culture, the identity, all is holographic and that can be passed on for many, many generations. So, I say the next 20 years that we’re evolving, so it’s something we need to be watching out for, the technology will come down in price and in development, it will be easy just like we use Google browsers to create things or tools that we have now to create pictures and movies with voice overlays and everything, preserving the voice, the language. So, I think maybe that’s an initiative that UNESCO should look at.

Moderator:
Which brings also another challenge as well, which is a format of because in order to preserve information, in order to access information that today is accessible, maybe in 20 years is no longer accessible, because simply the format of that information is no longer usable, available, or whatever happened. So that’s also important. So standards for information capturing and sharing are also very much important. From the library side, for example, you do have standards for the bibliographic information, so to ensure that this information is captured and transmitted, which is most important worldwide.

Maria de Brasdefer:
Yes, some of the things we identified lately is also that besides having the standards and certain tools and platforms, we also are starting to think in terms of effective mechanisms for technology transfer and capacity building, so that perhaps now that there’s emerging technologies, and like Fabio said, also we’re trying to catch up with the regulations, so that the processes don’t necessarily get left behind because of the adaptation of new technologies. So perhaps it’s also focusing a lot about the mechanism that we’re going to use to transfer that knowledge.

Moderator:
So I’d just like to pick up too on what you said about digital skills and literacy.

Anthony Wong:
Just last week before I came here, I went to a bookshop and I saw a young kid, lady, sitting on the floor conversing with Siri when her mum is browsing the bookshop, talking and asking questions with Siri. And she must be just about less than a year old, right, conversing with that. So you can see she has a personal tutor there, usually Siri. Yeah, the question then with a lot of misinformation, is that safe? Because the mother was not observing, she was busy browsing the bookstore while the kid was sitting on the floor having a great time conversing with Siri or Amazon Echo for that matter. So my question is, if the kids are now growing up with all these tools and devices, do we still need to worry about digital literacy, or are we worrying about it because we are in the older age group and the disadvantage, but we’re not going to be here forever. The new generation will be coming on fast and speed. They grew up with those things as part of them, and AI will be part of them. So the question is, I think, how do we make sure the safety of the information, the accuracy, the privacy aspects, to make sure when they’re conversing with those tools, that privacy information is not captured and used elsewhere, protecting people’s voices, yeah.

Moderator:
Question taken.

Audience:
Oh, just to add to your point, sorry, thank you all for this wonderful session. My name is Rio. I’m from ABRINCH, the Brazilian Association of Internet Service Providers. Getting on your point about the importance of digital skills, I think we have some data also from Brazil that shows the two main issues from those who are still unconnected. The two main issues are, one, digital skills, what we believe are digital skills, because they say they don’t have any interest of being online. So I believe, surely you have some interest, or maybe you don’t understand how to use it. And the other one is price. So it’s the financial affordability. So I do believe that we still have a gap on the digital skills side that we need to… to tackle, especially not only with the youngest one, but also teenagers and on, because maybe they didn’t have access to this technology growing up, so they need to catch up to have full advantage of it. Okay, my name is Grace. I’m from Cape Town. Just listening to the conversation, it’s very In 2011, Kenya hosted the Global Internet Governance Forum, and I was new in the area, so I was given the task to take Vint Cerf to some site events to meet the youth, to meet some business people, so I really didn’t know, like, who he was, you know, in terms of if you know who he is. So we had conversations, and one of the things he told me is that his fridge, which now I understand is AI, used to send him signals. I think he was in Brazil, and it would send him signals to tell him that the temperature, temperature has changed. His wine cellar, you know, like summer, you get a message, oh, you know, it’s getting warm here, and the wine, blah, blah, blah. So I couldn’t figure out what that was. Just like when I was young, somebody tried to explain to me what an ATM was, and, you know, we didn’t understand, but somebody said, you know, in America, there are these machines that read your name and give you money, and I grew up wanting to go to America where I get free money. So anyway, what am I saying is that what the Internet has done is it has provided us with so much information, and like he has raised, are we worried because we didn’t grow up in that era? is that element because I see kids with tablets and, you know, Africa learning things don’t consider cultural rights and we are in the cartoons. And so my question is, UNESCO is UNESCO is the body that provides those of us in the information area some guidelines. And I’m just wondering, are we thinking ahead? How are we going to provide guidelines in this ever-emerging tech world so that we define some boundaries? Because even in access to information, we do know that freedom of expression is not absolute. There are boundaries. So are we thinking of those boundaries considering the challenge that technology is presenting us or is going to present us?

Moderator:
Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. I think from a UNESCO point of view, yes, digital literacy or media and information literacy, as we call it, is certainly more relevant than because we are actually discussing with a little bit of fear sometimes about this rapid evolution of technology. So the best way to confront that is to understand. If you understand, if you master the technology, if you master this all information, it means that you may as So actually comprehend the threats, also the opportunities, and also the value of that, and be able to make a judgment of yourself, of the information that you are actually looking at, or be able to, yeah, make an assessment on that. So it’s a very important project that you mentioned.

Mona M’Bikay:
Based on what Mr. Anthony said earlier about the small kit, I follow this girl on Instagram. She’s about four to five years old, and she speaks to Siri every time. And she provides all kind of information to Siri to the point that, you know, my parents are not at home, Siri, what should I do, and all that. And there’s some things that her mom posts on Instagram. So, you know, what are the guideline that we’re providing that on the kind of information that these kids are posting online that can be used by people, you know, by hackers and all that? And I think the older generation is not afraid of digital literacy in whole. Probably it’s the kind of information that the youngsters are projecting that they are providing to the internet is what probably scares us. That, you know, where do we draw the line in terms of what can we post, what we can’t post, what we should share, what we should not share. So I think that is a bit of the gap that the older generation has in mind, saying that what are the kind of information that they are sharing? Is it safe, you know, for me to go online to share those?

Moderator:
But this also is a very rapidly evolving. So the moment that you did this, I mean, it’s difficult to have a firm, let’s say, moment in time where you decide. Is there a boundary? Also, the threats are evolving. So that’s why there is, in Indian school, we have a curricula for media information literacy for schools. Now we are adapted to this, to the AI world. And exactly, to be always the one step, let’s say. not behind, but trying to be ahead of this because we need this kind of skills in order to be able to have a generation that can actually not become, let’s say, the mere users of somebody else’s tool, like talking about assistance, but the famous participation in the information society is also, is certainly going through this literacy, these literary skills.

Anthony Wong:
And I think, Davide, that’s correct. I think that’s where the education now going forward for the next 20 years is about sustaining relevant, digital, inclusive education for young people. So last year I started a task force, I fit just exactly that because we have an education arm that works closely with UNESCO. How do we have a curriculum that adapts itself as fast as technology moves with the age group from very young to the teenagers to cope with some of those concerns? Because I think in the next 20 years, it’s not about access to information, it’s about what information and what you use the information for and so forth. So it’s about knowing what’s okay and what’s not okay. What’s relevant, what’s not relevant. This afternoon, I’m running a time with UNESCO, we’re doing a session on AI for judges, and that’s going to come up. It’s not about children or kids using information. We’re talking about mature professionals who have been trained as lawyers using inappropriate information with AI and then not knowing about it. That’s a common sense thing because you’re mature, you’re not a teenager or a baby. So that conversation will come at four o’clock today.

Moderator:
That’s good. I think we may have to consider interruption, but I think there’s nobody after. if we continue this discussion if you want. This is very interesting because it gives a bridge to the fact that we are talking about, let’s say, kids or parents or this kind of setting. But yeah, I mean, judges, the judiciary is also one very much impacted world. You said something, I will ask you a question about the librarians. We are also very much interested in the capacity building for public civil servants because also there you have multiple levels. If policy is a level, you need to know what are you going to make the policy for. If you’re not aware of what’s going on, if you don’t have this digital literacy, digital competence yourself, how can we expect you to make a policy work? And for libraries, you mentioned, I think, for the impact of AI for both the users and the librarians itself.

Maria de Brasdefer:
Yeah, that was also something interesting that we received because at the beginning, across libraries in different countries, there were efforts in trying to do some capacity building also for AI, just trying to spread more knowledge or more awareness about it. But they also identified that at the same time, something we noticed is that AI is a hot topic now. And people want to adopt new systems and new platforms. They want to be able to integrate it into their working processes. And they’re finding ways of doing that. And in libraries, we realized that they are already inviting some libraries in certain regions in the world. They’re inviting these systems or processes without having full awareness of how it deals with their personal data. And some of them do it because also they don’t want to be left behind because others aren’t doing it perhaps. But of course, it poses a lot of safety. security risks. So yeah, that is also something that we noticed. And also adding up to the digital literacy conversation that I also, just to share a story also on something that happened in our network. I also had some colleagues who were precisely doing some trainings on AI and large language models, just some overall training to explain how they work. And while they were doing the training, they realized that actually most of the people were not even aware of how the internet works in itself, or like the physical nature of the internet, how these platforms are also capitalizing or their attention. So actually they pinpointed other problems that they had not noticed even before when they did the training. And that was also very interesting for us to see that they were not actually aware at all of how the internet works, what it is, and what they were using every day. So for maybe, perhaps for all of us in this room is something very common, something we talk about frequently, but we tend to forget that a lot of people don’t, and that being aware of it might be actually helpful for them to move forward.

Moderator:
Thank you. That’s very interesting because now, I mean, we are very well aware that most people don’t know how the internet works. It’s a very good example of, we’re talking about large language models, but we don’t even know how the information goes from… Maybe a last point on, I mentioned these guidelines for digital platforms. And that’s also another side of the same problems we’ve been discussing. right now, to produce information, reshare information, et cetera. Because at some point, we are in a space which is free, nice. But it’s given by a private service. And at some point, we had a lot of examples where who is responsible for what is the case of disinformation, misinformation, or worse. So where are the boundaries exactly? And let’s say, how do you protect at the same time freedom of expression, human rights, and at the same time, you create a little bit of consciousness that it’s not a land of nobody. But it is something that has to be a part of the societal sphere. So how do you govern? What is the governance process of digital platforms? And where this becomes an enabler environment and not just a place where everything can just go on. So these guidelines are an attempt which were developed in a very large multi-takeholder consultation. It’s not the final solution, but it’s indications. So I don’t know if you have a, Casper, or if you have, yes, please.

Audience:
I’m Sofia from Tanzania, the regulatory authority. And. I would just like to add more on the concept of what is acceptable to be as open data. I think we have that challenge, especially for the government organizations on what is acceptable. So there is a lot of information that could be helpful to the public, to researchers, to people developing solutions, but the information is not being shared just because there is no standard of what is acceptable and just somebody decides that this is not acceptable, this is acceptable. We just share between government organizations, but if it’s from a private or from someone, a normal citizen, it’s not accessible to you. So we should look into how we can standardize that. And also, in sharing the data to all, I think there’s a risk of some sectors being left behind. You find most of the information is maybe from these sectors. Other sectors, the information is not digitized or cannot be easily put into these digital platforms. So we need to look into how we can make all the sectors from agriculture, health, education, all other sectors included in information sharing. Thank you.

Moderator:
Thank you so much. I think we have exhausted our time, but please, I thank you first, all of you, for your participation. We’ll try to wrap up, completing maybe the presentation that we already shared as a contribution to the report of this forum, trying to include some of the elements. that you discussed.

Anthony Wong:
Can I pose the last challenge for this panel? And that’s directly to what you said, what is acceptable. And because I hosted with UNESCO in October, how AI is using indigenous knowledge and data for AI, and what is acceptable. That’s exactly that question. Because different indigenous groups have different types of what’s acceptable. And if you have a standard, the risk is you’re trying to conform them into one level, what’s good and what’s right. And you actually expose their uniqueness around the world. So that is a challenge, and I’m not sure how we’re going to balance that. But that’s one of the things we need to look at as we move forward. Now that WIPO has a treaty for making sure people use traditional knowledge, we have to declare who those communities are. So they actually name in the patent application. By having that answer, the next question is what’s acceptable to the norms of that community. Because currently we are far from a standard of what a community standard should be across the world. And that’s directly in UNESCO’s area of culture.

Moderator:
Actually, there is an action line on culture diversity. So these issues included language diversities, et cetera, which is, I think, I don’t remember the other plan. I think it’s tomorrow, if I’m not mistaken. It’s action line C8. Of course, it would be impossible to raise everything in one hour, but I invite you also to participate in that. I think the cultural aspect, I mean, my personal feeling is that this cultural part in WISIS is not, has to be developed, further developed. So it’s a good. opportunity and I think there is a much more also consciousness from UNESCO too, because also the cultural sector maybe was a bit, how to say, in French it’s figé, it was like a set for some time, but now digital is prominently coming into the picture, especially with AI and especially with all the disruptions that is provoking to the you know, the creation, the creators of cultural things, you know, you talked about the strike for the movie, writers, etc. So it’s now something that cannot be left behind, so it’s a very interesting conversation which is also a matter of access information, privacy of data, the reuse of information which is available online and clearly what you mentioned is also that point very relevant also for that sector. So yes, I think it’s a discourse for many sectors, so maybe there is one suggestion could be to have action lines of which is maybe more, try to make in the next years more interaction between the different action lines because you can’t really frame access to information separately from the rest, so I think it’s a very relevant comment. So this could be one suggestion if you agree and we can make to say that the interconnection between the different action lines should be maybe, you know, made more clear or maybe sustained.

Anthony Wong:
I think we need to look at the challenges with a multidisciplinary lens, because trying to solve a problem with a vertical look is not going to work anymore. It’s a good look at the whole ecosystem from a different perspective, because that’s what we are, a collective of humanity, which have many perspectives, which cannot be standardized and unify in 10 days, 10 days or 10 years. But digitization will make that happen gradually by next century, and that’s why we need to protect the cultural heritage used at the rate we’re going. Digitization will phase out the uniqueness of culture, because by digitization we are adopting a new value system.

Moderator:
Thank you. And we’ll see you in some other sessions. So it’s more important than ever that you participate also in the other Action Line sessions. All these things are fit.