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: Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us today I am from avgt, I work with the Deputies there, and I will be moderating this panel.
The name of this panel is What are parliamentary priorities in the digital sphere today? An open exchange.
Basically, we have here five parliamentarians from different regions who coordinate or who are here representing their regional parliaments. Some have regional parliaments, some don't, but they still have initiatives and have been working through this year and several years in digital sphere.
So first of all, I would like to introduce them. And then we will pass to the questions. We will have two questions, and then I will open to the public.
So first, on my right, we have it was really hard. I have it, I have it.
Now, I know you are a senator. He is from Nigeria. Just his name, I practiceded this before.
>> SHUAIB AFOLABI SALISU: Let me help you. Shuaib Afolabi Salisu, in Nigeria.
>> MODERATOR: You can say your name, and I will say your bio.
Senator Salisu has been Chairman of the Committee on ICT and Cybersecurity and Vice Chairman of the Senate on Media and Publicity.
Martin? .
>> MODERATOR: He is a member of parliament in Argentina. This is going to be in Spanish.
(Speaking Spanish)
He is the National Deputy for one of the parties in Argentina. He is one of the authorities of the Science and Technology Commission. He has projects presented in the sandbox for, development of technologists, so the central bank in Argentina can operate and mine Bitcoin.
Then we have Muneer Soroor it's right; right? Member of parliament of Bahrain. He has more than 30 years of experience in management and training. He has been involved in development, delivery, and evaluation of professional and labour market programmes.
Then we have Lina Galvez Munoz, member of the European Parliament. In Spanish it's better. Lina is a member of the European Parliament since July 2019 and Vice President of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies. In the European Parliament, she is chair of Women's rights and gender equality Committee, member of the Committee on industry research and industry, and Vice Chair of the Panel for the future of science and technology.
And then we have Safr, member of parliament of Pakistan. He is Deputy Member of the Parliament and Law Committee.
So now I would like to start with a question to you all. Because I work at the Congress, and I also work in initiative with parliamentarians in Latin America and the Caribbean. And I know that sometimes it's hard to get all parliamentarians together, parliamentarians who come from different backgrounds, countries. And it's hard to get in the same or in the common agenda in these matters because sometimes they have different realities or priorities. So in this sense, I would like to ask you, how was your experience organizing regional summits or meetings in your respective areas? If you are able to identify common ground during these discussions? And on what type of agenda were you able to make progress? And if you could provide a brief overview of your countries' and regions' needs and priorities in the digital sphere. For this, you will have three minutes, and please try to respect the time. Thank you so much.
>> SHUAIB AFOLABI SALISU: Thank you so much. Let me start with expressing my congratulations for conducting this parliamentary track. The same way we were able to gather in Addis Ababa a few weeks ago for the African Continental IGF, and therefore bringing parliamentarians together here is something we will find extremely useful in order to create an Internet that works for all.
I am extremely delighted to recognise some of my colleagues. From Egypt and North Africa. I have Kathleen from East Africa, and I have Susan from Malawi. From West Africa, I have parliamentarians. All the countries in Africa are represented here to show the importance that the parliamentarians from Africa about Internet Governance. Also show the solidarity and cohesiveness with which we are vested in issues we believe are important to us.
Also in this awed yeps, we have min Trusteess of digital ministries of digital economy, from Nigeria. We have others just to give an indication that the African content is extremely dedicated to the issue of governance.
Parliamentarians already have a union at the continental level, and Africa, in addition to this body, we have regional bodies, including West African countries, similar in East Africa, we have a bloc in South Africa. We have it in the north part of Africa. So a lot to build on the system, platform, and infrastructure to build together.
I will give you two examples. Just a few weeks ago in Addis Ababa, we had the African Internet Governance Forum. And during that process, we are able to identify three issues very important to us in Africa. And I will group them into three baskets. If we have enough time, I will elaborate on them.
The first basket is access and issues on access.
The second one is education and capacity building. And the third one is regulatory and policy issues.
If I just run through them one by one, when we talk about access, infrastructure may be a challenge in other parts of the world, but in Africa, it's more challenging. It's not only challenging in terms of connectivity. It's also challenging in terms of support for infrastructure like power. So for us as parliamentarians in Africa, looking at connectivity, this lack of connectivity and the deficit in digital infrastructure has created underserved communities and digital divide.
The second issue on access is also that of affordability. Sometimes you see the rate of buying data is 2 cents, it's one dollar. You may think it's a little sum of money. But when you translate into African indigenous currency and the power of the citizens, you know even when it is available, it is unaffordable.
Lastly, of course, under access as well, some of the issues that have created a digital divide, particularly women and some vulnerable communities, these ineye qualities are going to be amplified on the Internet. If women are underserved in the terrestrial plane, they are further underserved and under included in the Internet.
I want to clarify on Internet and capacity building. Someone may be connected, but what does he use that Internet connection for? Is he using it for social media or for meaningful connections? In terms of empowerment, what are the small and medium scale enterprises for capacity building? So sometimes we are connected.
We, as a continent, we want to change the narrative of being a continent of downloaders. We want to upload things that will be a benefit to the rest of the Internet community. That's why when you look at the Internet, download it in Africa, you usually have more a higher downloading capacity. So we need to build capacity so the population, 70%, 60% of Africans are youth. What do they use this for? And empowering capacity building, also the parliamentarians, what you don't have, you cannot give. If the parliamentarians don't understand about Internet, what will be able to regulatory.
Finally, under regulatory issues, we have a challenge in Africa, as most of the world, our laws and our regulations are trailing behind the realities of our technology. And this are further exacerbated by the advent of challenges. The process of making law sometimes can be more elaborate such that better you conclude the process of making one law, the realities and the laws have being obsolete.
When I have more time, these are the three access, capacity building, regulatory and policy use. When I have more time, I will come back to talk about some things I consider to be important in Africa. I pause for now.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. It was really good. I am so sorry that I have to keep with the three minutes time, but we are five panelists, and I guess there are a lot of questions, so Martin, yes.
>> Thank you very much for this invitation. My name is Martin Yeza from Argentina. I was a major in a city. When we have four million people, visitors, tourist destination, I was 29 years old, experience in Congress in particular, as many of you probably experienced, we faced a challenge that sometimes certain organisations are designed 200 years ago. So their ideology is based in the past, and so those organisations, they were not oriented on results. Just in law creation.
Now we are studying in public administration in Argentina is a review of actual outputs. Luckily, thanks to people who have supported us, we created some meetings in Latin America, a continent with certain specific situations. For example, this morning there was a presentation in the main hall about people who have no access to Internet, which is about 35%. And in our subcontinent, goes up to 50%. For those who have created public law or studied this topic, they know one of the issues we have when we consider law in economics is the infrastructure. And there are public investments that in certain areas have a return of investment that is very high or higher than areas that have no population. In countries like Argentina, in particular, we have 50% of the population located in less than 20 parse of the territory. And then we can see that basically, the 50% of the rest of the population is spread elsewhere. So the work with them was related with three layers of issues.
The first one was the legitimacy of the State when trying to create regulations for a society that's moving really fast but that doesn't consider itself as State. Is the bureaucratic the same, policy making the same, but also institutions.
The next layer or issue is the strengthening of the infrastructure, which obviously requires funds and regional plans and collaboration. In particular, in our case in South America and in Central America, we have specific situations with interruption or disruption of democratic governments, instability because of corruption, and you know, in certain countries this is very prominent. And this makes it hard to create national strategies.
Another problem is the gender gap. In the case of women, there is certain numbers in the world, but in our country, Latin America, it's even less the number of women who are part of the technological and educational system. Finally, something we were very focused on and that certainly is one of the central topics for next year, is how to create rules or dynamic institutions or laws that are alive, as I like to call them. Where we remember Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson when they started the American Constitution, they were debating, the law should go across time and create security. But they were saying that if the law is not revised every 20 years, then we have government ruled by the dead. So this is a central topic for us.
So I created a series of projects around this topic, so if anybody's interested in this, we can talk about it. And in particular, in countries like Argentina, where the challenges we have in the face of AI, we are really working on this. These are some of the central topics in IGF in Latin America.
>> MODERATOR: Now member of parliament, Muneer Soroor. Thank you.
>> MUNEER SOROOR: It's become a significant issue for all countries around the world. Some regardless of race or country, information is important, and there are challenges these countries are facing. Such as the technology, emerging technologies, and also this legal transformation, we need to raise the capacities, build the capacities of the people dealing with such technology.
We are talking about considering this rapid transformation. Countries need to develop their legislations in a very flexible way such to keep up with the developments to ensure digital privacy and also the priorities. It requires to improve the cybersecurity protection or digital infrastructure from attacks and to bridge the digital gap by providing accessibility for all. And to figure out what these countries might need and to deal with the digital transformation. To enact legislations that balance between innovation, promote cybersecurity to combat attacks and protect the digital infrastructure. Train parliamentarians and lawmakers to adopt digital transformation. And so to focus more on Bahrain, at the national level, there are legislative body in the Bahrain, being a country of a vision for the future, it is very important to protect the digital rights and protect the users and parliamentarians to promote cybersecurity. For the protection of privacy.
And the Bahraini parliament in cooperation with other organisations to enact such laws in a very effective way to strike a balance between innovation and preserving the rights of individuals. So this is the situation of the kingdom of Bahrain, at a leading position of the legal framework, enhancing
>> Ours is not working, the English. Okay, okay. Sorry. Sorry to interrupt you.
>> MUNEER SOROOR: Okay. At the national level, there is the rule of the regulatory authority. It has foresight for the digital future. And Bahrain pays huge attention to create a safe digital infrastructure and enhancing digital regulatory mechanisms to protect the data privacy. And it has facilitated ease and strikes a balance between innovation and preserving and protecting individual rights in the cybersecurity space.
I am going to talk about some laws and regulations. We have a draft of laws and regulations, including cybersecurity crimes and data protection law. And an electronical transactions law. And we execute and we implement such projects to provide legal protection for the usage of digital services and digital technologies. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.
(Non English interpretation is coming through the English channel.)
(Non English interpretation is coming through the English channel)
but I will move now to the agenda and the problems we mainly have. Obviously, we have also some problems with inclusivity. In our case, it's more regarding connectivity in rural areas. But also some divides, like age divide, in our case, and regarding gender, which we have also gender divide, but it is more linked to the cybersecurity or the online violence that women are especially targeted online and especially targeted with a sexual content. So in our gender based violence Directive, the first we passed in May, we have included cyber violence for the first time. And we have included some new crimes regarding cyber violence against women. Obviously, the digital literacy is also a problem for us. It's in the agenda. Skills. Of course, the union for skills is to be developed now, and obviously, all the digital part will be important.
The innovation gap is also a problem, of course. And also it has dis information and polarization. This is very important because, obviously, algorithms amplify everything that is hate, everything that is polarizing, and we have a great programme with that. Also with disinformation, especially we are receiving more cyber attacks. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this is clear, and we have development of what we call a democratic shield in order to protect ourselves.
Obviously, we have also and I am finishing with that in our agenda to solve some conflicted problems, like privacy and freedom of speech from one side and transparency and security on the other.
Probably, the directive in which we are seeing this conflict, it is with a child abuse, child sexual abuse directive that is now going on. We are debating now. And there is this urgency for security for child abuse. We know that they are especially vulnerable children in the digital area, but on the other hand, to end up the it is something many people don't want to say.
This discussion is going on right now. So as well, if there are any advances in this area in other regions of the world, we will be more than happy to discuss.
So thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Now Shuaib Afolabi Salisu.
(Captioner is receiving non English translation on the English channel)
(Captioner is receiving non English translation on the English channel)
>> MODERATOR: Wow. Amazing. Thank you so, so much for respecting the time, first.
And the second question I would like to ask you is, because from what I heard, there are obviously different realities depending on the region. Now we have the European region who has a parliament, so it's completely different from the reality from Latin America or maybe Asia, so what I would like to ask you is what approaches do you believe would lead to a more effective regional and global because since we are talking about Internet, it's not only regional, but also global cooperation on digital governance?
So would what approaches do you believe would lead to a more effective regional and global cooperation on digital governance?
So Senator Afolabi Salisu, please.
>> SHUAIB AFOLABI SALISU: Thank you. I will make it very brief. I think for me, would require three levels. You need national approach. You need a regional strategy. I will use Africa as an example. Africa has many countries. These have their own realities. Must need a strategy on each considering global perspectives.
If you take the Budapest Convention that has inspired a number of cybersecurity laws in different countries. But also do know that there are nuances within each country and within each region that will make some of the elements of Budapest Convention to be modified to suit the local particularities.
At the same time, even when you get to Africa, the reality of Cameroon is different from Egypt. Malawi is different from Nigeria. And if you adopt a multi stakeholder approach, it does mean that in Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, do things that will meet the requirements of your region.
Because we are talking about something that is global, that cuts across, so you have, for example, Africa has a strategy for development from now to 2063, and part of that is to have Africa free trade area. How do you do free trade area if you do not harmonize laws on crossborder data transfer as an example? So you need a regional collaboration.
And because United Nations and other organisations are also coming up with things that are global, so you require all of these three tiers. And you need engagement, and this process of engagement, including that of the parliamentarians, you need capacity building, both for the use of the technology and for legislation.
And third and finally, you also need to be able to have inter jurisdictional collaboration. If an element of crime is committed in Egypt, as an example, all the elements that will establish that, residents in Egypt if it is physical. But if somebody commits cyber bullying, it's in Malawi, the person is in one country, and the victim is in another country. It requires the collaboration of three jurisdictions. Where the suspect resides, where the all of these three elements, both national, regional, and global, are required in order to have effective Internet Governance, and you must do multi stakeholder approach, engagement, capacity building, and collaboration across jurisdictions.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. It's true. It's a challenge, huge challenge.
Deputy Yeza?
>> MARTIN YEZA: If I had to define it in a negative manner, I would say that the question is about how to avoid the regulatory arbitrage. And positively, how can we boost our common intelligence so that the artificial intelligence becomes a tool to serve progress?
Regarding the first matter, we let's focus on Latin America. Today, in the government in Argentina, one of the action points is that no regulation is better than the other. We also have Chile, on the other hand, Uruguay and Colombia there are people from Colombia as well who have different regulatory system. Even in the case of Chile, they have a wide and ample regulatory system in the context of the Latin America. And the neoliberalism manual could say that the country that invests more in AI is Argentina. However, the one that receives more investments is Chile, followed by Uruguay, and then, of course, we can exclude Brazil, which is a massive country. Then we have Colombia.
Then we are talking about the main part, which is this conflict that happened 12 years ago, which is this issue about economic growth. It is useless if we talk about the private sector, these unstable regulations that aren't stable in time, if they are different than those that are agreed in a democratic manner that can be timely. And they should be agreed among all of us, which is not common in our continent.
Regarding these regulatory arbitration, we have all these layers, and we have the issue that we are seeing now in the last months in the different world democracies, especially in our continent. This is why I think that it is very complicated, and this is something that we are working here in the IGF. And I think that is very important that we should work in these common regulatory framework that is are common in a region. Because maybe one country may have the best regulatory designs, but in the country next door, there is no type of regulation. In the future as we are more agile and these companies, especially big tech companies and all these data centres companies, could be affected. And this could also affect all the digital and economic sovereignty of the different countries.
Secondly, we need to talk about how we can develop different collaborative forums among us. I think we could do this much more and much better. We should have more honest conversations.
Recently we were talking about the digitization of the State. And what happens, poorly, often, is that we digitize a paradigm. We don't digitize to bring the best services for the citizens. We digitize, which is to be an lodge analogic, but now I think there is an opportunity related to the fact that we should not only digitize the State which obviously we should do it because that's trendy but we should make sure that this digitization of the State should mean the best services possible for the citizens. And the citizens should be at the centre of the public decision making.
Secondly, these regulatory sandboxes are something that we are also working with, not only at a governmental level, but also towards the societies. In Colombia, they have a very nice regulatory sandbox model, also in Brazil. And in other countries, we are also trying to develop these. I know that the European Union has a programme, an initiative towards 2026. And naturally, these will entail a good experience between the public sector, but this is going to demand some flexibility from the private sector.
Also, we need to reinforce international cooperation since we have very different political matters. Sometimes these judicial systems are not compatible. We need so is see that all the federal states, we are often finding issues in terms of judicial competition within our countries. Developing a lot of intelligence, but in conclusion, I believe that we need to come from people being good and intelligent to be less cared about artificial intelligence, while the bad guys are having fun with AI. But no, it should be the good and intelligent people, those that are having fun with AI so that they can support the citizens with diverse services and that they wouldn't be scared anymore.
(Applause)
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Mr. Muneer Soroor.
>> MUNEER SOROOR: The digital governance or digital government, this requires multi sectoral approach and multidisciplinary approach. Because this requires the cooperation and synergy of different stakeholders. Regional cooperation, enhance comprehensive policy, come up with accelerated development of the digital transformation, engaging academia, including university and private sector can provide innovative solutions and enhanced responsibility.
Now we are talking about the most important points, reinforcing and fostering international cooperation with international organisation and building up a partnership with the different UN agencies. And set joint actions to implement international authorities and agreements.
In this regard, in Bahrain, Bahrain is a leading country in executing Internet Governance. The Bahrain Kingdom has endorsed the international agreement and convention in this regard. And Bahrain is the first country to introduce this agreement which is enhancing the emergence of new sectors in the digital economy. And this underscores the importance of cooperation of different international organisations and regional and national cooperation between the government agencies and private sector to implement and enforce the digital laws, which strike the balance between innovation and protection of the rights of individuals.
And Bahrain has invested in infrastructure which enhances digital transformation. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.
Parliamentarian, Lina?
>> LINA GALVEZ MUNOZ: Thank you so much. I am going to make a wish list and then to make two more reflections.
So on my wish list would be clear goals, principles, including, obviously, human rights, innovation, cybersecurity. The good ones, the good ones really driving artificial intelligence.
Obviously, multi stakeholder engagement, including this space we are is a good institutional framework. Obviously, capacity building, but capacity building and also regarding regional cooperation, we really need also to avoid brain drain. This is very important. Very, very important. We are seeing that inside Europe, but it is also happening globally. And yes, we cooperate much with each other, but that could happen, too. And this is the mobility is good, but also we really need to avoid a brain drain.
Obviously, global standards and norms, open communication and transparency, flexibility and adaptability, evaluation and review mechanism. It could be kind of this wish list I was taking.
However, I would like to make two more reflections, if you allow me. One is after hearing my Argentinean colleague, being myself an economic institutions professor and to see the institutional economist, obviously, it's a very interesting reflection you were making about at the end, which countries are receiving more investment or not? And at the end, it's security what businesses are looking for. And if you have a good relation, and if this relation is as much harmonized and possible and the market is bigger, then it is better in the end for business. So this idea that oh, no, it's not good, that you have too much regulation in the European Union, then when you talk to business, you say what we want is that regulation that we announced. Because for us, it's much easier for us to deal with one directive for 27 countries than with 27 directives. So this makes security, the GDPR, that it is kind of a standard now, is becoming the standard, it was very clearly decided at the very beginning. And at the end, everybody is more or less happy with the GDPR. So we really need to advance this common standard. Obviously knowing that the different realities are different, but this is something we really need to make clear and not to allow this neoliberal narrative, really.
Another very small reflection. It is that we cannot responsiblize or make the digital regulation to fix what is not a consequence of the digital regulation. I will explain myself. If there is lack of democracy, probably it is that we really need to improve democracy also in the digitized space. But it is a question. Or inequalities, the divide, the different divides. Obviously, we have a system that is increasing inequality. So we have to tackle these inequalities, probably also with our economic policies and other policies.
So what I would like to say about that is we need also this digital regulation being more holistic and also solving what can be solved and trying to solve with other regulations in other fields, mainly economic fields or in the better democratic institutions, what can be solved in other places. So don't take the digital regulation as a panacea, but just try to link with the rest of the regulation in order to make a better world and better democratic institutions for everybody. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.
(Captioner is standing by for English translation.)
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(Applause)
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Maybe later you can share with us the guidelines that you have, that we can share with everybody here.
So now I would like to open the floor. I don't know if anyone has a question. Over there. We will take two or three questions.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you very much for very informative talks. Thank you to all of the speakers. Firstle awe I want to say welcome again to Saudi Arabia. My name is (?) I am professor of artificial intelligence. I am a member of Saudi parliament. So I have only one question for the speaker from the European Union.
Regarding AI, artificial intelligence, I think one of the first parts of the world who made the AI regulations firmly, I think they were applied by 2026 or so. So my question would be, you know, the world is still working on it, and there are maybe two parts of it. One part, saying we have to wait until we see what's going on with AI later and give a chance to the companies, as the gentleman here also, the other speaker. I see also in the United States, they did not make it yet, so maybe they are working on it in a different way. And even in Saudi Arabia, we have the special agency of AI here in Saudi Arabia. They already made big steps. And also in our parliament regarding this issue, AI, it's very critical issue or field.
So my question would be can you tell us more, please, about what you do in Europe and why it is postponed, somehow, to be applied, as we heard already, to be 2026. And was it clear what is going to happen by next year or two years from now? Because it's still evolving. So just we are curious to know more about this. And thank you very much. So we can have the experience, also, for other countries. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: There is another question. You? No. Ah, there. Yes. We have two, one there and one over there.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you very much. My name is Katherine Mumba. I am a Senator from Kenya.
I am just wondering, the issue of legislation is varied, with countries at different stages and in my view, the need for possible minimum standards to guide everybody are necessary, given that the service is across the countries. What is your view about a possible minimum code of ethics that can guide actors on operating on digital technologies as a minimum to guide whoever is doing anything anywhere in order to inject some responsibility around human rights, protections, so on. I don't know what you think about that, a code that can actually guide everybody around the world, who will be doing that? Is it IPU? Is it the UN? And so on.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. We have another question over there. I don't know who will be in charge of doing that, and I don't know our panelists' opinion, but depending on what they say, maybe we can ask the Parliamentary Track. We'll see.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: So my question is based on the work we have been doing, in fact, on AI. This is everywhere. It's a big topic. As a parliamentarian, I worked on the negotiation of the AI Act. And in fact, I think we have two levels, where I want to question our speakers about where we can work. Because we have two different streams.
One is the reduction of risks from an ethical point of view in the internal domestic daily life of our societies. This is where I think we need to exchange good practices. But in fact, we will keep, I think, different models because European, American, Saudi Arabia, Chinese, just to mention a few, I think will not have exactly the same domestic ways. However, we can build some common understandings. For example, the definition of "AI systems" or the standardization process. This is one part.
The other part, where it's crucial that we do more international cooperation because otherwise we will not really do anything significant is the safety space. How we build safe AI where there is the risk for safety. For example, the use in military or the use in cybersecurity or the use linked to climate change. I mean, there are globally the risk of muz use, deep fakes. These are areas where domestic legislation is not sufficient.
So the question is how do you see this balance? Because sometimes we heard I give all of these examples, and I conclude. Sometimes we heard a lot of attention from the big leaders government leaders, industry leaders on the safety, which is extremely important because it's about big risks. But sometimes putting these in contra position with the daily management of real risks, the average citizens dealing with medical use of AI or justice system using AI. There will be a seminar about this later on today. I mean, how do you see this balance between the global and the larger and the smaller and how we can work around that also for a good exchange like the Parliamentary Track tries to do in the context of the IGF. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. And we have the last one here. Short, please. Because it's four questions, and we have ten minutes.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: What I want to ask in my mother language, please, in Spanish.
First of all, I want to thank the hospitality of our hosts, our brother country in Saudi Arabia. Thank you so much for welcoming us.
My question for the speakers, our experts. I am a professor in Madrid and also a European parliamentarian.
There is a question everybody has spoken about, and I am really interested in this in terms of cybersecurity. It's linked to the development of AI. And this has created new technologies that countries should have and should start implementing. Are you guys analysing these technologies in this context and in the different geopolitical areas? I am talking about quantum computing. This is going to be a main axis which is going to boost all the computer development and take AI to the next level. So I don't think we should forget about this. Nobody has spoken about it much, and I think this technology is going to bring a huge revolution in the next five or ten years. Our countries will see big changes. I wanted to bring that up here. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Excellent question. We will leave a little time, so only two minutes. I know it's four questions. But please, only two minutes. So here, Senator, thank you.
>> SHUAIB AFOLABI SALISU: My response to why having technology as a moving target, first and foremost, you cannot have technology without legislation. At the same time, we also don't want to overlegislate so they don't kill innovation. So the balance, for me, is to ensure in our legislation we are not technology specific. But rather, we focus on the elements that will make it easier for us to say the technology can only be used for these purposes rather than measure the specific technology. Because if you measure specific technology and you compare, many years, quantum computing is going to change the entire landscape. But if you measure artificial intelligence, you measure quantum computing, two or three years down the line, you have to change the law again. I think we have to create laws that are technology neutral.
Second, we require collaboration. Artificial intelligence can be used for deadly things. And the easiest example I can give is genetic modification. I think when that was going to an area that was going to evaluate the morality of the society, the technical community and the global community came together and said we can only apply this in these particular areas. With artificial intelligence and some of these new technologies will have to be subjected to some form of modulation in the interest of the global community, in the interest of humanity, and that cannot be done at the national level, it cannot be done at regional level. It has to be something of collaboration.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Deputy Yeza, Martin.
>> MARTIN YEZA: I've been working in this quantum computing especially. It was something related. It's not a theme in the IGF this year, that's why I didn't talk about it. But adding to the question from the other gentleman, basically, I am pretty convinced that the liberal democracies, at least we are starting an accelerated process, and I believe that if we don't have the ability to incorporate some of the logic that's provided from AI, things like quantum computing, we might be replaced by worse systems, at least in the short term, in our own cultural experience.
I believe if we don't have our own accords, like when different organisations like the IMF or others, if we don't talk about these accords for these rapid technologies, me, believing positively and that the tendency of the world is to go towards progress, I believe we could start a process in some ways. Our quality of life will greatly improve, especially in the design of new health systems with these genetic advances.
But in terms of living together, different inequalities, I think this might be worse, and I think we are facing threats we are not familiar with.
In the first time I worked with quantum computing, it was in India. They had this quantum communication chip to put under the skin that multiplies by over 28,000 times the reality encryption. And I thought, wow, how can we fight against all of these ideas? Well, in the same way we've been doing things until now by the way, I am writing up a book about this. Hopefully it will be published by June. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.
>> (Captioner is standing by for English translation)
develop strategies to set strategies and regulations and policies to enhance the transparency, to invest in education when education, we have a proper and solid education. I think this can upskilling and the reskilling, and this can reduce the risks to enhance international cooperation. If we have international framework for cooperation, we can mitigate the risks and we can reduce the risks together. Thank you.
>> CHAIR: Thank you so much. Lina?
>> LINA GALVEZ MUNOZ: In order to evaluate to know what extent artificial intelligence act is going on or not. First, we have to take out the negative narrative it has from the very beginning. I mean, they are saying because of the artificial intelligence Act, there is not enough innovation in Europe. We don't have enough innovation in Europe. And we had this innovation gap before, so it's not still going on. So the first thing is to take out this because, I mean, with the innovation probably is the best way. So we need, really, to evaluate.
In my wish list, one of the things was evaluate. We really need to evaluate better our legislation. Probably in the two levels, this reduction of risk and this safety space.
But it's not only artificial intelligence Act. Artificial intelligence is not alone. It's the Digital Services Act, as I was saying before, the possibility data Act. It is the responsibility data Act. The cybersecurity, we are more secure now just because of artificial intelligence. Otherwise it would be absolutely impossible to defend ourselves from the attacks. So artificial intelligence is now starting to be included in many other legislations and will be even more because we will not stop here.
Now, this Artificial intelligence Act is just a framework. Probably new legislation will come in this legislative term. Especially regarding labour spaces or labour issues. This is something that will come because we have realized that it will be a great challenge, not only in the terms that people are subject tuted by artificial intelligence, but also in the way the labour is organized and how fundamental rights could be affected.
In science this is very important. You are a computing science professor. But if you talk with a physics someone from the physics department, they will complain because they are doing data mining with my own data, but it is not contextualized, so they are killing science. But other people, we are advancing in science, at the same time other people are complaining. So we really need to promote on specific areas regarding artificial intelligence. It is what we are going to do. And also in quantum too.
You don't know, but when the quantum prototypes is in the European parliaments list in my office. Because I have been supporting the quantum people, and we will have now a quantum also act. So that will be also going on. On probably one area we need also to think about very seriously and to advance on it is neuro rights. This is a new frontier. We don't want to be late on this one, as we have been probably with artificial intelligence in general. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Gulsharkan?
>> GULSHARKAN KULTAEVA: (Captioner is standing by for English translation)
>> MODERATOR: Sorry? I will. I will ask that. No worries, no worries.
So now, to finish with this question, because I am going to take that, because I have a proposal. That's why.
Looking at the Parliamentary Track Programme and other IGF sessions this year, I would like to ask you what would you like to see emerge at the IGF to address the priorities and all these challenges that you mentioned next year and in the other years coming?
>> SHUAIB AFOLABI SALISU: From the African parliamentary experience, number one, there are so many interventions that have created so many silos. We would like to see some of these interventions be streamlined so that resources would be freed from the bureaucratic bottlenecks that usually accompany so many silos and so many divisions from our developing partners. We must appreciate what they are doing, but we would like to see some of these streamlined so that resources can be now more focused on the object of the intervention itself.
The second thing we would like to see, WSIS will be 20 years this year. And also a number of initiatives. What we'd like to see more at IGF is also discipline for implementation and to track progress. So every time when we are coming to 20th IGF, where it is going to take place, we can at least measure progress that as a result of our participation at the 19th IGF in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, these are the specific tasks that the parliamentarians expected to do, and we can, therefore, measure progress against that when next we meet. That, for me and for most of my colleagues from African parliaments, would be a major motivation for also continuing to come to IGF.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Deputy Yeza.
>> MARTIN YEZA: To start, what we have been working on in the IGF from Latin America, there is a topic that hasn't been addressed related to the intersectorial collaboration. We have been talking about intersectorial collaboration because when we are talking about quantum computing in our continent nowadays, in the American continent, the only wars that have quantum computing are private companies, IBM, Google. We don't have any States that own these equipment. So we don't know how a State can develop an act related to these when we don't even have any sort of tool or technical capacity to be able to exert any sort of control because of this massive technological divide.
The IBM model, for example, is an open source model, which is a great thing. And this means that we can work, collaborating together. The same with universities.
Secondly, I don't think we've talked about education and employment. But probably, the most sophisticated tool that we can develop wouldn't be any sort of regulation or technical collaboration. The most revolutionary tool that we can implement in our countries is updated curriculums. This is the most serious policy that could resolve a lot of our issues.
Third, I already mentioned it in my previous answer, but I think I would like for the IGF to be what it used to be, the investment payment bank or the reconstruction bank that came before the global bank, the ones that came before the IMF. And the Britain accords created new systems. We talk about the Internet Governance Forum, that was great and it was very well created. But we have way more sophisticated technologies above the Internet or that work parallelly to the Internet that definitely could become tools and international organisation that is are way more sophisticated with way better tools. Because if we try to resolve them individually in our States, what are we going to do with some of these complex tasks? It's going to be way more difficult than if we define an international methodology in which we can elaborate some solutions that we can then incorporate in our countries. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Muneer, please.
>> MUNEER SOROOR: Of course. We in Bahrain create a comprehensive framework, enhance responsible intervention and enhance as well and force cybersecurity and to reduce digital divide through cooperation between companies and sharing experiences to set solutions to enhance digital governance.
We have three points. To enhance the regional and international cooperation to extend experience and set policies to protect rights and to enhance cybersecurity. And to apply and adopt principles and building capacities. And to have this kind of inclusive approach inclusion for different segments of society to benefit from the digital transformation.
For Bahrain to be a leader in this regard, we should have a positive stance to benefit from the international experience in this regard.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Lina?
>> LINA GALVEZ MUNOZ: Mostly agree, especially how important it is the digital literacy, especially skills. I mentioned before, but I would like to mention again, because I did not mention something, but that we really need to work on non stereotype skills. This is very important because otherwise we will not solve the gender divide or other divides, especially gender divide. So non stereotyping skills is very important.
And but I had a he like to add something more. We agree how important it is good to have agreement. We have to acknowledge it was based on great inequalities, regional inequalities, and power inequalities around the world. So probably one thing we really need to tackle also in IGF is all the geopolitical changes that are going on and how that could affect common standards regarding Internet Governance and other digital or digital governance in general and how also the concentration of power in a few hands that it is also going on could affect that as well. We have seen in recent elections how that works. But really, geopolitics is changing a very fast path. And we really need to rethink Internet Governance in this new world or geopolitical world or multilateralism, even multi stakeholderism, is under attack, let's say.
(Captioning will cease in 3 minutes.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Mr. Gulsharkan.
>> (Captioner is standing by for English interpretation.)
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. To conclude sorry, one minute. I know you all want to go. But just I want to thank the IGF Secretariat and especially the IGF Parliamentary Track for organizing this. And I want to say two things. First, regarding the minimum Code of ethics, who that was mentioned prior, I think it would be a good idea, Celine, I know you are going to do a survey after the Parliamentary Track. Maybe we can add something on that asking the parliamentarians if they want to join or if they want to draft this.
And secondly, what Deputy Yeza mentioned, that it's not only about Internet. Also, it will be really grateful to see you all next year in Norway because the IGF is turning 20 years, and there will be a lot of discussion because it has to be redefined, the IGF. And what he mentioned, it's really important for you all to be there to see, it's not only about Internet, but it's also about new technology, quantum, and all the things. So thank you so much for being here, and we see you tomorrow.
(Applause)