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Comments by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and the Finnish NRI on the Report of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation
- We appreciate the panel’s devotion to strengthen multistakeholder involvement through different areas in the panel report concerning both current work and future developments in order to reflect current and future needs in the fast moving digital development. This would also mean complementing multilateral processes involved to take into consideration the necessary public policy needs to address different concerns through smart regulations.
- Our comprehensive view is to rely on the existing mechanisms, not to create unnecessary new institutions or mechanism and duplicate the work and institutions working already in this area. Instead, we should both strengthen and update them in the areas that are now lacking concrete and productive results. This would require a comprehensive analysis and description of the ongoing work. As one of the experts of internet governance described this: “Multistakeholderism is the language of the future but it still lacks a grammar”.
- We strongly recommend the idea to strengthen the already very productive work of the IGF. While doing so, one should recognize the very important and concrete achievements that the IGF has made this far in the digital cooperation – especially through important bottom up processes involving all the stakeholders and raising the digital awareness among the least developed countries and providing them opportunities to be involved. This is possible through extensive capacity building. For Finland, as a major funder and supporter of the IGF we are very satisfied for the progress achieved especially in the LDC countries progress for digital capacity building and support for their citizens’ awareness and building their digital inclusiveness.
- However, there is a growing need to do more in this area and we should make sure that the IGF has more and stable resources to focus on capacity building as well as other important topics. We support the idea to place the IGF Trust Fund directly under the Secretary-General’s office. We should come up with an arrangement that could provide stable funding and enable long-term planning of the IGF.
- We understand and support the need to develop IGF’s work, as described in the report, to produce even more concrete and well explained recommendations to follow up with actual decision making. All the different stakeholders, including governments and private sector should be able to turn recommendations into actual decisions implemented. That is why we support the appointment of the Technology Envoy as a special adviser to the Secretary-General, who would also hold responsibility on advising the IGF.
- We want to note that the panel report includes very important recommendations on interdependency of peace, sustainable development and human rights. We share the view that digital cooperation and harnessing the potential of new technologies are essential to reach the sustainable development goals. In particular, we agree that digital connectivity, while necessary, is not sufficient to attain the SDGs. It must be combined with a platform for sharing digital public goods, created through a multi-stakeholder alliance involving the UN. Such platform must be designed in an inclusive and human-centric manner, ensuring that the data created and used is managed in an ethical fashion.
- Finally, on child rights we want to note that in the digital societies they include safety, inclusiveness, privacy, learning, playing, free time and welfare, which must be secured both in developing and implementing digital solutions. We also highlight gender-sensitive approach in digital development.
- As a sign of its support to the report of the Panel, Finland will provide a substantial financial contribution to the “follow-up secretariat”, which will be established to consult with key stakeholders and to advise the Secretary-General on the most effective actions to follow.
Source: https://comment.eurodig.org/digital-cooperation-report/comments-by-email/hlpdc-report-comments-by-finland/
Recent Comments on this Site
3rd July 2023 at 2:58 pm
I agree with Michael’s comment.
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3rd July 2023 at 2:56 pm
This first message makes no sense. Please take into consideration the comment made by Torsen.
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3rd July 2023 at 2:37 pm
3 The Ukrainian Internet resilience is impossible without worldwide cooperation, help and support. There are very good examples of such cooperation, and not very good. These lessons also have to be documented and analysed.
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3rd July 2023 at 12:14 am
In responding to the points around the impact encryption, I would ask that the comments I made around the UK’s Online Safety Tech Challenge Fund and academic paper by Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson are added to the key messages.
I referenced a paper by Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson, two internationally respected cryptographers from the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, which set out possible solutions to detecting child sexual abuse within End-to-End Encrypted Environments that companies could be exploring to balance both the rights to privacy and the rights of children to grow up in a safe and secure environment free from child sexual abuse.
The link to the paper is copied below:
[2207.09506] Thoughts on child safety on commodity platforms (arxiv.org)
And the UK Safety Tech Challenge Fund:
Lessons from Innovation in Safety Tech: The Data Protection Perspective – Safety Tech (safetytechnetwork.org.uk)
It is important that we balance the concerns about the breaking of encryption, with the possibilities that should be being explored to prevent child sexual abuse from entering or leaving these environments.
Andrew Campling also made points about the right to privacy not being an absolute right and the need to balance this right, with other rights- another point I think that is worth reflecting in this final paragraph.
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3rd July 2023 at 12:00 am
I agree with the amendment Torsten has proposed to the initial text.
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2nd July 2023 at 11:58 pm
I would be careful about saying these images have been created consensually. Just because an image is “self-generated” it does not mean it has been created through “sexting”. Children are being “groomed” and “coerced” into creating these images as well.
I agree- however, with the rewritten text above regarding what companies currently do and what they will be required to do if the EU proposal becomes law and is clearer than what was written in the initial text.
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2nd July 2023 at 3:21 pm
The Internet has changed how war is fought, and how it is covered by media. At
the same time, the war has put “One world, one Internet” to a stress test. The foundations of global and interoperable Internet should not be affected by the deepening geopolitical divide, even though it has fragmented the content layer.
No one has the right to disrupt the global network that exists as a result of voluntary cooperation by thousands of networks. The mission of Internet actors is to promote and uphold the network, and to help restore it if destroyed by armed aggression.
The war has been accompanied by heightened weaponization of the content layer of the Internet. New EU legislation is expected to curb at least the role of very large platforms in spreading disinformation and hate speech.
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2nd July 2023 at 2:36 pm
I kindly suggest the following changes:
Please add these two important points that were said by the speakers/audience:
– There is an initiative on the Nordic level to protect children from the harms of the Internet, and this initiative has already been promulgated into legislation in Denmark.
– As the role of parents is crucial in educating children to use the Internet in a savvy way, also parents need education. That’s why we need adult education also from beyond the formal education system, just like the adult education system in Finland already provides training in basic digital skills.
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2nd July 2023 at 2:35 pm
I kindly suggest the following changes:
– governs => governments
– Replace this: ”Therefore, the contemporary political landscape requires three-level trust: political power; knowledge organisations; and individual.”
– By this:
– ”Therefore, the contemporary political landscape requires three levels of trust: trust in basic societal functions and structures of the society, trust in knowledge organizations, and trust between one another as individuals.”
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2nd July 2023 at 2:32 pm
I kindly suggest the following changes:
Replace this: ”Thus, one of the key priorities is to enhance citizens digital literacy and education going beyond only digital competencies and including cultural aspects.”
with this: ”Thus, one of the key priorities is to enhance citizens’ digital literacy and education by going beyond just digital competencies and including also ethical, social and cultural dimensions.”
Add this important point that was said by the speaker: Responsibility for digital information literacy education lies not only with the formal education system, but also cultural institutions, NGOs, youth work play a key role.
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