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ISO and IEC issue new standard for AI risk management

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have published a new standard providing guidance on risk management in artificial intelligence (AI). Titled ISO/IEC 23894:2023 Information technology – Artificial intelligence – Guidance on risk management, the standard offers guidance to organisations that develop, produce, deploy, or use products, systems, and services that use AI on how to manage AI-related risks.

With the goal of assisting organisations in integrating risk management into their AI-related activities, the standard also describes processes for the effective implementation and integration of AI risk management. In this context, risk management processes are described as involving the systematic application of policies, procedures, and practices to the activities of communicating and consulting, establishing the context, and assessing, treating, monitoring, reviewing, recording, and reporting risk.

The standard is the result of work carried out within the Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC on information technology – Subcommittee SC 42 on AI.

Chinese banks turn to quantum computing to combat fraud

Ping An Insurance, a Chinese holding conglomerate, has joined forces with Origin Quantum, a start-up, to develop financial algorithms and hardware that could help fight financial fraud. Within the framework of this partnership, a fraud detection model was developed based on quantum neural network technology. The model is said to be able to identify abnormal transfers and transactions and effectively identify complex money laundering transactions.

In a similar development, the Bank of China, China Merchants Bank, and the Bank of Communications are working with TuringQ, a quantum computing firm, to enable the use of quantum artificial intelligence algorithms in banking, in areas such as credit card fraud detection and investment portfolios optimisation.

Inter-Parliamentary Union

The IPU is the global organisation of national parliaments. It was founded more than 130 years ago as the world’s first multilateral political organisation, encouraging cooperation and dialogue between all nations. Today, the IPU comprises 181 national Member Parliaments and 15 regional parliamentary bodies. It promotes democracy and helps parliaments develop into stronger, younger, greener, more gender-balanced, and more innovative institutions. It also defends the human rights of parliamentarians through a dedicated committee made up of MPs from around the world.

Digital activities

The IPU’s digital activities mainly focus on the promotion of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in parliaments, including AI. To this end, it has established a Centre for Innovation in Parliament, which undertakes research on the impact of digital technologies on parliaments, publishes the landmark World e-Parliament Report, hosts the biannual World e-Parliament Conference and coordinates a network of parliamentary hubs on innovation in parliaments.

The IPU has also recently developed new tools and resources on AI to help parliaments become stronger and more effective, as well as to share good practice from around the world when it comes to AI policy.

Digital policy issues

Capacity development

In line with its objective of building strong and democratic parliaments, the IPU assists parliaments in building their capacity to use ICTs effectively, both in parliamentary proceedings and in communication with citizens. The IPU has also been mandated by its member parliaments to carry on capacity development programmes for parliamentary bodies tasked to oversee the observance of the right to privacy and individual freedoms in the digital environment.

The IPU also encourages parliaments to make use of ICTs as essential tools in their legislative activities. To this aim, the IPU launched the Centre for Innovation in Parliament (CIP) in 2018 to provide a platform for parliaments to develop and share good practices in digital transformation strategies, as well as practical methods for capacity building. The IPU holds the World e-Parliament Conference, a biannual forum that addresses, from both the policy and technical perspectives, how ICTs can help improve representation, law-making, and oversight. It also publishes the annual World E-Parliament Report.

As of August 2023, eight regional and thematic parliamentary hubs are operating under the Centre for Innovation in Parliament, covering IT governance, open data and transparency, Hispanophone countries, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. Each hub is coordinated by a national parliament and brings together parliaments to work on subjects of common interest, such as remote working methods during COVID-19.

In 2023, the IPU published a Guide to digital transformation in parliaments, in partnership with the Association of Secretaries General of Parliament.

The CIP has seen significant growth in participation, increasing from 27% of parliaments in 2020 to 45% in 2024. An additional 32% of parliaments have expressed interest in future participation. The CIP is working in partnership with the Association of Secretaries General of Parliaments and collaborating with the EU and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) as part of ‘INTER PARES–Parliaments in Partnership, the EU’s Global Project to Strengthen the Capacity of Parliaments’.

The IPU has established the Parliamentary Data Science Hub within the CIP, which is working on creating guidelines for AI governance in parliaments. The Hub has published a collection called ‘Use cases for AI in parliaments’ to help parliaments plan, develop, and measure AI implementation. These resources are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

The IPU published the World e-Parliament Report 2024, which surveyed 115 parliaments or chambers in 86 countries and supranational parliaments. The 2024 report introduced the new IPU Digital Maturity Index as a benchmarking tool that ranks parliaments across six key areas. The report identifies a persistent digital divide among parliaments, with a country’s income level being the most significant predictor of digital maturity. According to the report, 68% of parliaments now have multi-year digital strategies (up from previous years), and public engagement remains a weak spot in digital maturity for many parliaments.

Sustainable development

The IPU works to raise awareness about the sustainable development goals (SDGs) among parliaments, and provides them with a platform to assist them in taking action and sharing experiences and good practices in achieving the SDGs.

Privacy and data protection

The IPU’s October 2024 Resolution on AI and Democracy emphasises the critical relationship between democratic institutions and emerging AI technologies. Drawing on diverse parliamentary perspectives, the resolution acknowledges the need for responsive regulation that balances innovation with fundamental democratic values and human rights considerations.

The Resolution guides IPU’s work on strengthening parliaments’ capacity in AI governance. Through targeted initiatives, the IPU equips legislative bodies with essential tools and knowledge to effectively shape AI policy frameworks. Emphasising parliament’s crucial oversight role, the IPU helps legislative bodies to effectively balance innovation with ethical considerations, data protection, and human rights safeguards.

Freedom of expression

The IPU Committee on Democracy and Human Rights works, among others, on promoting the protection of freedom of expression in the digital era and the use of social media as an effective tool to promote democracy. In 2015, the IPU adopted a resolution on ‘Democracy in the digital era and the threat to privacy and individual freedoms’, which encourages parliaments to remove all legal limitations on freedom of expression and the flow of information, and urges them to enable the protection of information in cyberspace, so as to safeguard the privacy and individual freedom of citizens.

In 2023, the Committee decided to prepare a resolution titled ‘The impact of artificial intelligence on democracy, human rights and the rule of law’, for adoption in October 2024. Preparation of the resolution is accompanied by capacity development activities for parliamentarians on AI.
It offers virtual training sessions for parliamentarians. Its IPU Parline database is an open data platform on national parliaments, which includes data on the age of people in parliament, as well as a monthly ranking of women in national parliaments.

Artificial intelligence

The IPU has recently published two new resources to help parliaments unlock the benefits of AI to enhance their efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity while mitigating the risks of this rapidly evolving technology.

The Guidelines for AI in parliaments offer a comprehensive framework for parliaments to understand and implement AI responsibly and effectively.

They provide practical guidance on the importance of a strategic approach, strong governance, ethical considerations, and risk management. The Guidelines underscore the importance of using AI to augment and enhance human capability rather than replace it, especially in democratic deliberation and decision-making.

The Guidelines cover several key areas, including the potential role of AI in parliaments, the related risks and challenges, suggested governance structures and AI strategy, ethical principles and risk management, training and capacity development, and how to manage a portfolio of AI projects across parliament.

Key recommendations include:

Start with small pilot projects to build experience.
Focus on use cases with clear benefits and manageable risks.
Ensure robust human oversight of AI systems.
Prioritise transparency and accountability.
Invest in data and AI literacy across the organisation.
Engage with diverse stakeholders throughout the process.

The Guidelines are complemented by a series of Use cases for AI in parliaments, which offer potential roadmaps for parliamentary AI adoption.

A ‘use case’ describes how a system should work. It is used to plan, develop and measure implementation. Use cases translate the abstract potential of AI into practical applications for parliamentary operations.

The IPU is also tracking parliamentary actions on AI policy by documenting a range of initiatives on AI taking place in national parliaments, including legislative reviews, reports, resolutions, inquiries, working groups, and policy discussions.

Parliamentary actions have so far been observed in 26 countries. Information is sourced from parliaments and updated every month.

For more information about IPU’s work on AI, visit www.ipu.org/AI or contact innovation@ipu.org.

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Getty Images Sues Stable Diffusion AI image generator for copyright infringement

In the High Court of Justice in London, Getty Images has filed a lawsuit against Stability AI for allegedly infringing the intellectual property rights of millions of images from its platform, which Stability AI used to train its AI image generator, Stable Diffusion. According to the lawsuit, Stability AI violated several of Getty Image’s Terms of Service, such as image scraping used to train its AI image generator.

Getty Image is alleging that Stability AI has unlawfully copied and processed images from its website without obtaining a license for their commercial exploitation, including copyright in content that belongs to or is represented by Getty Images.

Previously in September, as was then reported, Getty Images banned AI-generated content on its platform, including images produced by Stable Diffusion, fearing possible (future) copyright lawsuits.

Class action lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt over intellectual property infringement

Three artists have launched a class action lawsuit in San Francisco, USA against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt, creators of artificial intelligence (AI) art generators, alleging intellectual property rights infringements.

The artists argue that the producers of AI art generators violated the copyrights of millions of users by scraping the web to train their art algorithms without getting approval from content owners or giving credit or compensation. As such, they are seeking damages as well as an injunction to prevent future harm from the AI tools in question.

The lawsuit alleges direct copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement related to forgeries, violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), violation of class members’ rights of publicity, unlawful competition, and a breach of terms of service.

Uganda’s police to use facial recognition and AI technology

News reports indicate that the police in Uganda are planning to expand their closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera project by adding facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. These technologies are meant to assist law enforcement in their monitoring activities aimed at curbing crime in the country.

‘All movements will be monitored digitally. By increasing the camera density, we are trying to reduce on human intervention in terms of fighting crime. We are to introduce scientific means using Artificial Intelligence. We are going to procure more intelligent cameras with higher performance.’, Yusuf Ssewanyana, police ICT director, was quoted as saying.

Cybercriminals start using ChatGPT

US-based cyber threat intelligence research team Check Point Research (CPR) found that cybercriminals have been using the artificial intelligence-based tool ChatGPT for malicious purpose s. The team described three examples of such misuses of ChatGPT:

Recreating malicious strains and techniques described in research publications and write-ups about common malware.
Creating encryption tools
The second thread is found to perform cryptographic combinations of different signing, encryption, and decryption functions.
Creating dark web marketplaces.

As CPR notes, although the examples given in the report are relatively basic, ‘it is only a matter of time until more sophisticated actors enhance the way they use AI-based tools for bad’.

US government’s Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology begins operations

In the USA, the Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology began operations in early January 2023, within the US Department of State.

The office is expected to support the Department of State in its work on the policy and diplomatic dimensions of critical and emerging technologies. As such, it will ‘provide a center of expertise and energy to develop and coordinate critical and emerging technology foreign policy, and to engage foreign partners on emerging technologies’ such as biotechnology, advanced computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum information technologies.

China’s regulation on deepfakes to enter into force in January 2023

China’s regulation on deepfakes will come into force on 10 January 2023. Deepfakes are synthetically generated or altered images or videos built using artificial intelligence. This technology can be used to alter an existing video, for example, by creating realistic fake speech.

Finalised at the end of 2022, the Provisions on the Administration of Deep Synthesis of Internet-based Information Services requires providers of deep synthesis services, among other issues, to:

Strengthen data management by taking necessary measures for personal data protection according to the existing laws.
Establish guidelines, criteria, and processes for recognising false or damaging information, and devise mechanisms to deal with users who produce false or damaging material using deep synthesis technology.
Periodically review the algorithms used, and conduct security assessments when providing models, templates, and other tools with the editing function of the face, voice, and other biometric information, or objects, scenes, and other non-biometric information that may involve national security, national image, national interests, and public interests.

US government expands restrictions on exports of advance tech to China

The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced new restrictions on the export of advanced US technologies to Chinese entities. The Bureau added 36 new entities to the Entity List, meaning that they will be subject to strict licence requirements significantly restricting their access to commodities, software, and technologies subject to the US Export Administration regulations. Among these 36 entities, 35 are primarily located in China and 1 in Japan (but it is a subsidiary to a Chinese entity). The US government argues that these entities were found ‘to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States)’ for the following reasons:

Twenty-one entities are major artificial intelligence (AI) chip research and development (R&D), manufacturing, and sales entities thought to be or have close ties to government organisations that support the Chinese military and defence industry.
Two entities were added to the list for acquiring or attempting to acquire US-origin items in support of China’s military modernisation.
Seven of the entities engaged in supporting China’s military modernisation were found to have demonstrable direct ties to activities of concern.
Four entities are seen as posing a significant risk of becoming involved in activities that could have a negative impact on the national security or foreign policy of the USA.
One entity was found to engage in or enable activities contrary to US foreign policy interests.
One entity was found to facilitate the illegal export of US-origin electronics to Iran for use in the production of military unmanned aerial vehicles and missile systems.
For two entities, additional restrictions were imposed for having supported, or continued to support, Russia’s military (‘backfilling’) since the imposition of new export controls.

In a second rule issued on the same day, BIS:

Removes 25 Chinese entities from the Unverified List (UVL) due to satisfactory completion of End-Use Checks (EUCs) and verification of those entities’ bona fides, including in cooperation with the Chinese government. This means they are now removed from BIS’ restricted party lists.
Adds 9 Russian entities to the Entity List from the UVL due to the inability to complete EUCs.

Commenting on the two rules, the Chinese government expressed opposition to the addition of the 36 entities to the export controls list, noting that it ‘will take necessary measures to firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and institutions’. At the same time, it welcomed the removal of the 25 entities from the unverified list.