After the Cambridge Analytica issue, United Nations has woken up to address the cyber issues and take control of the technological development worldwide and aims to regulate the development that leads to security breaches and cyber warfare.
‘Precaution is better than cure’ which is very true in the case of technology. To be precise there is possibly no cure or rolling back in the internet era for cybercrime. The only way to ensure prosperity is to stay cautious, prevent and protect. Therefore the international body UN has taken an initiative to have a check on the dark side of ever-growing technology.
Technology like blockchain, Artificial intelligence and robotics are making progress every day. There is a definite need for a regulatory body to keep track and put some limitations to not harm people. I am sure we don’t want to see a day like ‘Terminator Genesis’ in real life.
UN’s High-Level Panel on Digital Co-operation
General Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary formed High-Level Panel on Digital Co-operation on July 12th, 2018 to have a check on the dark side of digital innovation and technology development like cyberwarfare and proliferation of hate speech roping in people from all over the world from the frontiers of technology.
Members of the Panel
The Executive Director of panel’s secretariat is Amandeep Gill, an Indian Diplomat and India’s the permanent representative at UN conference on Disarmament, Geneva. The 20 membered panel include Jack Ma, the Chinese tech revolutionist and the founder of Alibaba (e-commerce platform), Melinda Gates, wife of bill gates, co-founder of Microsoft and co-chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Objectives of the Panel as announced by UN Secretary
After the declaration of the panel and its members, he said the panel will map digital trends, find gaps and come up with proposals for better international co-operation among all countries. He also added to the vast growth of technology and digital innovation, we have addressed only a very minor part of raising issues like the violation of privacy and cybersecurity threats. The first meeting of the Panel is scheduled for September and a nine-month report is to be submitted on the objectives during then.
Here are the key objectives of the panel,
- General Antonio Guterres said the panel has to seize the importance of technology and safeguard against unintended consequences and risks.
- The panel should contribute to the broader open debate on cooperative and interdisciplinary to the digital challenges faced and expected to be faced.
- A senior member at UN added the scope of the panel’s work is to promote the use of digital technologies across regions to maximize productivity and transformative potential and also safeguarding against risks and hazards.
- The committee is also responsible to address inequalities among countries and societies which is to be done by adopting technological innovations without turning to the dark side.
Conclusion
The panel is designed to face the other side of the newest technological changes and improvements. Though it does not share the responsibility of any other existing institution they tend to keep track of them to know the upcoming issues and get prepared to prevent them beforehand.
