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Summary

This discussion featured John Evans, Digital Services Commissioner at Coimisiún na Meán (Ireland’s media and online safety regulator), presenting how the organization contributes to media safety and aligns with the Global Digital Compact commitments. Evans explained that the regulator, established just over two years ago, has an unusually significant role in European digital regulation because many major tech platforms are headquartered in Ireland. The organization operates under six strategic areas: children’s protection, democracy, consumer trust, diversity and inclusion, culture, and public safety, all of which align closely with Global Digital Compact principles of human rights, internet governance, digital trust, and information integrity.

Evans detailed Ireland’s role as a Digital Services Coordinator under the EU’s Digital Services Act, explaining how this involves complex coordination at international, bilateral, and domestic levels. The regulator handles approximately 80% of complaints against online platforms due to Ireland’s status as their European base. He focused particularly on two strategic areas: democracy and children’s protection. Regarding democracy, Evans described extensive work during Ireland’s election year, including developing candidate protection packs and coordinating with other European regulators to address electoral integrity challenges. For children’s protection, he outlined both content-focused approaches through Ireland’s online safety code and systems-focused measures under the Digital Services Act.

The organization has grown rapidly from 40 to over 200 staff members, with plans to reach 300, demonstrating Ireland’s serious commitment to digital regulation. During the Q&A session, Evans addressed questions about resource allocation, policy implementation challenges, and coordination with other regulators, emphasizing the network-based approach of European digital regulation and Ireland’s responsibility to regulate not just for Irish citizens but for all Europeans.

Keypoints

**Major Discussion Points:**

– **Ireland’s unique regulatory role in Europe**: As home to many major tech companies (15 of 25 very large online platforms), Ireland’s media regulator Coimisiún na Meán has an outsized responsibility, handling approximately 80% of complaints against online platforms across Europe through the Digital Services Act framework.

– **Electoral integrity and democracy protection**: The regulator’s comprehensive approach to safeguarding elections, including developing toolkits with other European coordinators, creating candidate protection packs, and implementing measures to combat disinformation while supporting safe political participation online.

– **Child protection and online safety**: A two-pronged regulatory approach addressing both content (through Ireland’s online safety code prohibiting harmful content like self-harm promotion) and systems (through Digital Services Act provisions requiring platforms to protect minors’ safety, security, and privacy).

– **International coordination and network governance**: The complex web of relationships required for effective digital regulation, including cooperation with European Digital Services Coordinators, domestic agencies, NGOs, and international bodies like the Global Online Safety Regulators Network.

– **Resource allocation and enforcement challenges**: The regulator’s growth from 40 to over 200 staff (targeting 300), prioritization strategies based on risk assessment, and the balance between policy development speed and the urgency of addressing online harms.

**Overall Purpose:**

The discussion was a presentation by Ireland’s Digital Services Commissioner explaining how the country’s media regulator contributes to online safety and democratic values, both domestically and across Europe, followed by a Q&A session addressing practical regulatory challenges and enforcement approaches.

**Overall Tone:**

The tone was professional and informative throughout, with the presenter demonstrating confidence in Ireland’s regulatory approach while acknowledging significant challenges. During the Q&A, the tone became more conversational and collaborative, with the commissioner showing openness to dialogue and willingness to share experiences. There was a notably positive moment when an audience member complimented the regulator’s integrity, contrasting it favorably with Ireland’s data protection regulation, which seemed to energize the discussion around Ireland’s evolving regulatory reputation.

Speakers

– **John Evans**: Digital Services Commissioner at Coimisiún na Meán (Ireland’s media and online safety regulator)

– **Maria Farrell**: Irish citizen, digital and human rights activist

– **Audience**: Multiple audience members asking questions (roles/expertise not specified)

**Additional speakers:**

– **Niamh Hannafin**: Assistant Director for International Affairs at Coimisiún na Meán, Ireland’s media and online safety regulator

– **Paul**: Colleague of John Evans involved with new legislation on the democracy side (specific title not mentioned)

# Comprehensive Discussion Report: Ireland’s Digital Services Regulation and the Global Digital Compact

## Overview and Context

This discussion featured John Evans, Digital Services Commissioner at Coimisiún na Meán (the Irish language name for Ireland’s media regulator), presenting how the organisation contributes to media safety and aligns with Global Digital Compact commitments. The session, introduced by Niamh Hannafin and including contributions from Maria Farrell (a fellow Irish citizen) and multiple audience members, provided an in-depth examination of Ireland’s unique role in European digital regulation and the practical challenges of implementing comprehensive platform oversight.

The discussion took place against the backdrop of Ireland’s distinctive position in the European digital landscape, where the country hosts 15 of the 25 very large online platforms regulated under the EU’s Digital Services Act. This geographical concentration of major tech companies has transformed Ireland’s media regulator into a body with responsibilities extending far beyond its national borders, effectively making it a key player in protecting digital rights across the entire European Union.

## Ireland’s Unique Regulatory Position and Organisational Structure

Evans began by explaining the extraordinary scope of Coimisiún na Meán’s responsibilities, emphasising that the organisation, just over two years old, handles approximately 80% of complaints against online platforms across Europe. This disproportionate responsibility stems from Ireland’s status as the European headquarters for major technology companies.

The regulator operates under six strategic areas that align closely with Global Digital Compact principles: children, democracy, consumer protection from exploitation and scams, diversity and inclusion, culture, and public safety. These areas correspond directly to the Compact’s focus on human rights, internet governance, digital trust, and information integrity, demonstrating how national regulatory frameworks can support international digital governance objectives.

The organisation’s rapid expansion reflects Ireland’s commitment to its new regulatory mandate. Evans detailed how the regulator has grown from 40 to just over 200 staff members, with plans to reach 300 employees within another six to nine months. Just over half of current staff support online safety work. This dramatic scaling represents a significant investment in regulatory capacity and signals a transformation from the organisation’s previous incarnation as the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

## Electoral Integrity and Democracy Protection

One of the most detailed aspects of Evans’s presentation focused on the regulator’s work protecting democratic processes, particularly during Ireland’s election year. The approach demonstrates the complexity of safeguarding electoral integrity in the digital age, requiring coordination across multiple levels and stakeholders.

The regulator developed comprehensive election guidelines and toolkits in collaboration with other European Digital Services Coordinators. These tools address electoral integrity challenges by requiring platforms to implement specific measures, including elevating official sources of information and limiting the spread of disinformation during critical electoral periods.

A particularly innovative initiative was the creation of candidate protection packs, developed in cooperation with Irish police. These resources help politicians understand how to respond when targeted online during elections, providing practical guidance for maintaining safe participation in public life. Evans noted that the regulator is currently conducting research to evaluate the effectiveness of these packs, indicating a commitment to evidence-based policy development.

The democratic protection work extends beyond individual elections to encompass broader concerns about political participation and media freedom. However, this area also highlighted some implementation challenges, particularly regarding new media privilege rules for journalistic content in platform content moderation systems, where platforms remain uncertain about execution requirements.

## Child Protection and Online Safety Framework

Evans outlined a sophisticated two-dimensional approach to protecting children online, addressing both content-specific harms and systemic platform design issues. This comprehensive framework demonstrates how modern digital regulation must operate across multiple regulatory instruments to achieve effective protection.

The content dimension operates through Ireland’s online safety code, which prohibits platforms from hosting harmful material such as content promoting self-harm or eating disorders. This approach focuses on removing specific types of dangerous content that could directly harm young users.

The systems dimension, implemented through the Digital Services Act, requires platforms to protect minors’ safety, security, and privacy through structural changes to their operations. This includes prohibiting addictive design features targeted at children and implementing robust age verification systems. Evans noted that guidance from the European Commission on Article 28 of the Digital Services Act, which specifically addresses minor protection, will emerge later in the year.

The regulator is pursuing coordinated enforcement actions regarding adult sites, following the European Commission’s investigations into four adult sites. Digital Services Coordinators are examining coordinated action for platforms below the 45 million user threshold, with Coimisiún na Meán serving as vice chair of the working group. Additionally, educational initiatives are being expanded, with the “rights rules and reporting online educational resource” distributed to primary schools and plans for cinema-based awareness campaigns targeting parents during summer months, with Evans hoping for “a rainy summer in Ireland as usual” to maximize cinema attendance.

## International Coordination and Network Governance

A significant portion of the discussion addressed the complex web of relationships required for effective digital regulation in an interconnected world. Evans emphasised that the Digital Services Act creates a network-based approach to regulation, moving beyond failed self-regulatory models to establish meaningful coordination between member states and the European Commission.

This network approach involves multiple levels of coordination: international cooperation through bodies like the Global Online Safety Regulators Network, bilateral relationships with other European regulators, and domestic coordination with various agencies and civil society organisations. The complexity of these relationships reflects the inherently cross-border nature of digital platforms and the harms they can facilitate.

Evans highlighted the value of learning from other regulatory approaches, specifically mentioning Australia’s eSafety Commission and the UK’s Ofcom as examples of different models being tested globally. This international perspective suggests that effective digital regulation will emerge through experimentation and knowledge sharing rather than a single prescribed approach.

However, the network model also raises concerns about potential vulnerabilities. An audience member questioned how Ireland would handle coordination with member states that might have weak digital service coordinators or experience rule of law backsliding. Evans responded that the European Commission and Digital Services Board provide protective mechanisms through shared accountability and mutual support, though this remains an area requiring ongoing attention.

## Resource Allocation and Enforcement Challenges

The discussion revealed significant tensions around resource adequacy and prioritisation in digital regulation. An audience member’s direct question about resource allocation prompted Evans to provide detailed insights into how the regulator manages its enormous mandate with finite resources.

The regulator employs a risk-based prioritisation approach, considering factors such as platform reach, user demographics, and past enforcement actions across Europe. This systematic approach attempts to focus regulatory attention on areas where intervention can have the greatest impact on user safety and rights protection.

However, the scale of the challenge remains substantial. Evans acknowledged the tension between the need for rapid action due to the severity of emerging harms and the time typically required for regulatory frameworks to prove their effectiveness. The resource challenge is compounded by Ireland’s responsibility to regulate not just for Irish citizens but for all Europeans using platforms headquartered in Ireland.

## Implementation Challenges and Practical Concerns

One area of discussion emerged around the gap between policy aspirations and regulatory reality. An audience member from the OECD raised concerns about policy discussions that propose interventions without adequate consideration of enforceability and implementation challenges.

This highlighted tensions in digital governance between the pressure to develop responses to digital harms versus the practical constraints facing regulators who must actually implement and enforce policies. The audience member argued that regulatory expertise is often inadequately integrated into policy development processes.

Evans acknowledged this challenge while defending the approach of working within existing frameworks and learning from implementation experience. He provided context about how internet regulation evolved from a “hands-off” approach to current targeted legislation like the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, suggesting that regulatory frameworks must develop iteratively.

## Ireland’s Regulatory Reputation and Independence

A significant moment in the discussion came when Maria Farrell directly addressed Ireland’s regulatory approach. She noted positive recognition of Coimisiún na Meán’s work, stating that the regulator has gained recognition for “acting with strength and integrity as a regulator,” contrasting this with criticism of other regulatory approaches.

Evans responded by emphasising the importance of having a clear strategic direction and mission that serves as a “North Star” for the organisation, suggesting that consistent principles help maintain regulatory independence despite changing contexts. He also noted the importance of political support for the regulator’s mandate.

This exchange highlighted the critical importance of regulatory credibility and independence in digital governance, particularly in jurisdictions where economic interests might otherwise influence regulatory effectiveness.

## Key Areas of Discussion and Consensus

The discussion revealed substantial agreement on several key points. All participants acknowledged the enormous scope and complexity of platform regulation, recognising that limited resources require careful prioritisation and strategic thinking about regulatory intervention.

There was strong agreement on the importance of cross-border regulatory coordination, even while acknowledging the challenges this creates when some member states may have weaker regulatory capacity. The network-based approach of the Digital Services Act was generally viewed as a positive development over previous self-regulatory models.

The discussion also revealed agreement on the urgency of regulatory action despite implementation challenges. While participants acknowledged significant constraints in current approaches, there was consensus that waiting for perfect solutions is not viable given the severity of emerging digital harms.

## Ongoing Challenges and Future Considerations

Several significant issues remain challenging, highlighting areas requiring continued attention. The challenge of coordinating with member states that may have weak digital service coordinators represents a potential concern in the European regulatory network.

The implementation of new media privilege rules for journalistic content in platform content moderation remains unclear, with platforms reportedly uncertain about execution requirements. This reflects broader challenges in translating policy objectives into practical platform operations.

Questions about long-term regulatory sustainability and maintaining effectiveness across changing political contexts represent ongoing considerations for digital regulators.

## Conclusion

This discussion provided valuable insights into the practical realities of digital regulation in contemporary Europe. Ireland’s experience as a Digital Services Coordinator demonstrates both the possibilities and constraints facing regulators tasked with protecting digital rights and democratic values.

The conversation revealed that effective digital regulation requires appropriate legal frameworks, adequate resources, political support, international cooperation, and ongoing adaptation to evolving challenges. The emphasis on evidence-based policy development, international cooperation, and maintaining regulatory independence provides a foundation for continued progress in this critical area of governance.

Evans’s presentation and the subsequent discussion highlighted both the significant challenges and the practical approaches being developed to address digital harms while protecting fundamental rights and democratic processes in an interconnected digital environment.

John Evans: Hello, hi there. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for attending and thank you to IGF. My name is Niamh Hannafin. I’m Assistant Director for International Affairs at Commissioon na mBan, Ireland’s newly established media and online safety regulator. I’m very pleased to introduce to you our commissioner, our Digital Services Commissioner, John Evans Evans, who’s going to talk you through the ways in which we are contributing to a healthy media and online landscape in Ireland, but also towards some of the key commitments of the Global Digital Compact. Over to you, John Evans. Thanks, Niamh. Okay. So I can see the slides. So I guess first of all, Commissioon na mBan, it’s the Irish language for the media regulator. So we’re a new regulator. We’re just over two years old. We have a pretty broad mandate covering online safety through media development with a particular emphasis on Irish culture as well, which is an important part of our identity as an organisation. We have an unusual or sort of an outsized role in the European setting because so many of the large, the very large online platforms, so many of the large big tech companies are established in Ireland. And our mission, let me say a quick word about the companies we regulated. So that I mentioned media development, I mentioned online safety, and I mentioned kind of broadcasting regulation. And you can see just quite a variety of recognisable brands in there. It means quite a span of work for the organisation. You’ll see that our mission here, particularly recognises the role that the media plays in underpinning fundamental rights and in fostering an open and democratic pluralistic society. CNAM’s vision of a thriving, diverse, creative, safe and trusted media landscape and our strategic direction very closely align with the Global Digital Compact. The Global Digital Compact emphasises human rights, internet governance, digital trust and information integrity. And as you’ll see, as I’m talking through our strategy in a moment and then a few examples that these principles kind of shine through very clearly. So this is like a busy sort of a slide, but what I’ll talk to you very quickly is the six strategic areas or areas of emphasis. Children, so we want a media landscape that upholds the rights, wellbeing and development of children and their safe engagement with content. Democracy, a media landscape that supports democracy, democratic values and underpins civic discourse and reduces the impact of disinformation. We also want a media landscape that consumers can trust where they are protected from exploitation and scams. Diversity and inclusion, a media landscape that promotes the values of justice, equality and diversity. And then finally, culture, a media landscape that is sustainable, pluralistic and participative and that reflects who we are as a society. And again, as an Irish person, our culture is emphasised very importantly in our mission. The last one is public safety. This is kind of a broad one and it captures everything from terrorist content online through to, for example, a response to emergency situations. A word on our regulatory approach. Empowering people and ensuring that they have the tools to understand media, they have information to make decisions, to make good decisions, that’s part of our toolbox. Supporting and developing the Irish media landscape. We see that as very symbiotic between, on the one hand, the cultural aspect but on the other, navigating the online world. So there, for example, journalism schemes that we would support is a very important part of our toolkit. We are a research and future-focused organisation so it’s important to understand from a market perspective and technology perspective what the future is going to look like and how we can expect things to change and how the regulatory response should adapt as we move on. At the core, however, is holding regulated entities to account. So our role is really moving beyond a self-regulatory model which, in many respects, hasn’t worked. I want to say a bit more about an internet governance ecosystem. So within our delivery tools, if you like, we have included, on the one hand, collaborating for impact and then also influencing the European framework. So what I’m going to talk a little bit about is sort of the C, the coordinator, in the Digital Services Coordinator role. So under the Digital Services Act, Commissioner Mann is the Digital Services Coordinator for Ireland. And that C is quite a complicated role, that coordinating role is quite complicated. So if you think at the international level, the fulcrum of what we do is really around participation in the European network along with other Digital Services Coordinators and the European Commission, but also in other media networks supporting regulation. Bilateral relationships with other Digital Services Coordinators across Europe, other media regulators frequently, but other kinds of regulators as well, is very important. The reason for this is that on an operational level, when someone wants to complain about a platform that is established in Ireland, they need to make the complaints to their local Digital Services Coordinator and that’s transmitted to the Irish regulator. So that means that the Irish regulator is responsible for dealing with upwards of 80% of the complaints against online platforms. So that’s a very operational role that we have. And then in the experience sharing space, we try to participate in other kind of fora that go beyond Europe. So for example, the OECD, some of the UN organizations, but also the Global Online Safety Regulators Network of which we’re a founding member. Then domestically, it’s also reasonably complicated. So we’re not the only competent authority under the Digital Services Act in Ireland. Our competition and consumer protection is also one. So relationships with that organization are very important. Our police service on Garda Síochána we do need to cooperate with them as well. They have a role under the Digital Services Act and more broadly as a complimentary agency in the online safety space. Other digital regulators. So for example, we have close relationships with our Telecommunications Regulator and importantly our Data Protection Commission with whom we’re also drafting a cooperation agreement. But then there’s a wider set again of agencies that are involved in the different areas of harm that I mentioned, say, or that are addressed by our strategic objectives. So for example, the Electoral Commission in the electoral integrity space, that’s one example. But there are many departments and agencies that fall into this category from our Department of Health through to our Electoral Commission and in many NGOs. So non-government organizations are also very important in this area. So the coordinating role is really quite a demanding role in terms of internet governance bodies in this space. Now of the six strategic objectives that I outlined earlier, I want to go into a bit more detail about two of them. They are the democracy one and the children one, okay? And the reason I want to spend a bit more time on these now is because as I said at the beginning, beginning, right at the beginning, we’re a new agency and we’ve been developing our capacity to address these areas of these different strategic objectives. Two very important ones right from the outset were democracy and minor protection. So on the democracy side last year was, you know, it’s often said now it was the year of elections and in Ireland it was no difference. So last year we had a European parliamentary elections, we had a referendum, we had local elections and we also had general election and then actually later this year we will have a presidential election so there’s no let-up. But across Europe, right across Europe, there were European elections obviously and many general elections as well in which we had some role. So we engaged intensively in our own elections but we played a supportive role within the network of digital services coordinators across Europe. So digital regulation, it works best when there is coordination across countries. Elections have become a lightning rod, if you like, for newly created governance structures, for example in the DSA and DSC’s last year and this year worked closely with the EEC to share best practice, exchange election experiences and collectively solve problems and develop tools. And it’s it’s a really good example of where the Digital Services Act and the network of agencies involved working together in a horizontal way to address problems can be quite effective. So while an election is not an emergency, it does require a degree of agility on the part of regulators, they need to be responsive to changing circumstances. So with the EU, the digital services coordinators have developed a toolkit, if you like, to help address some of the challenges that arise in the context of electoral integrity. So first, early last year, it was one of the first things that the Digital Services Board, the newly established board under the Digital Services Act, approved was the guidelines, the election guidelines. So the guidelines include measures aimed at platforms, recommendations aimed at platforms for measures which mitigate the risks to electoral integrity, such as elevating official sources of information around electoral processes, demonetizing and limiting the spread of disinformation, labelling political advertising and importantly an onus on platforms to build internal teams that are capable of addressing national local elections. As most of the, actually 15 of the 25 very large online platforms are based in Ireland, we had to participate, we were privileged to participate in many of the pre-election preparations in the in different member states. So that involved attending workshops and scenario planning and then roundtables involving whoever the local agencies and bodies who were in the kind of local electoral ecosystem. So we did one of our own of these and so at that we would have had our Electoral Commission, we would have had the platforms, we would have had some fact-checking agencies, we had also An Garda Síochána very importantly, our police force. There’s a couple of extra points I just want to make in relation to electoral integrity. One is that, this is very important I feel, is supporting that safe participation of politicians in public life. We undertook a specific initiative with our police force, An Garda Síochána, last year to develop a candidate pack. So the candidate pack was developed first for the European elections and local elections and then further enhanced for our general election. The candidate pack was aimed at candidates participating in these elections, so they would know what to do and have to hand quickly information about how to respond when they were targeted, if they were targeted for whatever reason, online. We feel that made a difference but we’re conducting research at the moment to find out exactly how that helped and I think this is an area where we look to develop. The second area that I want to focus on is child rights or minor protection. So children’s rights and the protection online has become an issue of concern worldwide and it’s critical that action is taken. Different regulatory approaches are being tested in different parts of the world, the social media bans for example are being proposed in several countries. In Ireland and within Europe we see this problem as having two dimensions, first is sort of a content dimension and the second is systems. So on the legislative instruments that we have are our Digital Services Act which we feel addresses principally the systems aspect and then our online safety code which comes from the Audiovisual Media Services Directive as part of the transposition of that directive international law. So our online safety code, it clearly defines and lays out the kind of content that children need to be protected from. So regulated platforms must preclude the uploading and sharing of content that promotes self-harm or suicide, eating and feeding disorders and cyberbullying. They also requires the use of age assurance to ensure that children are not normally exposed to videos that contain pornographic or depictions of gross gratuitous violence. There are also provisions relating to parental controls. On the system side, the Digital Services Act on the other hand, it’s a content neutral instrument and instead it has provisions that mean that platforms need to take appropriate measures to protect the safety, security and privacy of minors, that’s the wording of Article 28 of the Digital Services Act, the safety, security and privacy of minors. How platforms are supposed to go about implementing that article of the DSA will be informed by guidance that the European Commission has recently consulted on and which will emerge later this year. The draft guidelines you’ll have seen are quite extensive and but they cover issues covering related to prohibiting addictive design features, age verifications to prevent minors viewing age-inappropriate content, having child accounts or accounts aimed at teenagers set to the highest level of privacy and recommender systems that do not result in the repeated exposure of content that could pose risks to their safety or security. It’s important to say as well that there are also key enforcement activities already underway, so just a couple of weeks ago the European Commission announced the opening of investigations into four adult sites, so these are very large online platforms and so they fall within the purview of the European Commission, but to complement that action the Digital Services Coordinators who have responsibility for below threshold, so these are platforms including adult platforms of which there are many, that have numbers of users below the 45 million threshold that defines the very large online threshold. So to complement that action that the European Commission is taking, the Digital Services Coordinators across the Member States are looking into a coordinated action to address the similar problems arising on the below threshold adult sites. Commissioner Naaman is quite active on that, we are the vice chair of the working group of the Digital Services Board that is looking to help develop a coordinated action. But it’s not all just about enforcement as well, aside from our regulatory powers Commissioner Naaman also supports rights of children through other initiatives such as raising awareness and media literacy efforts, so last year for example we published rights rules and reporting online educational resource and that has been distributed to primary schools throughout the country and later this year we’re looking to extend that to primary age children as well. Alongside that we will be doing kind of a fairly extensive awareness raising campaigns to support one the schools but also parents and during the summer we’re actually going to run a media campaign in cinemas in the hope that we’ll have a rainy summer in Ireland as usual and parents will take their children to see see movies and we’ll get to see that particular advertisement. Just a couple of comments to round up and the challenges that we face as digital regulators whether it’s promoting children’s welfare or safeguarding democracy, they’re not isolated issues, they’re interconnected challenges that require a coordinated and innovative response that put fundamental rights at the centre. Ireland’s unique position as home to some of the major tech companies means that we have quite a heavy responsibility but also an opportunity. We’re not just regulating for Ireland in many respects, we’re also regulating for European citizens. The global digital compact and division of an inclusive open safe and secure digital space is not just an aspiration, it’s a practical framework and it’s reflected very very clearly in our organisation’s strategic statement. As we look forward Commissioner Mann remains committed to not just regulating the digital future but actively shaping it in service of an open democratic and pluralistic society. The work we do today will determine whether technology serves humanity’s aspirations or undermines them so I think we are at a critical moment in Europe in particular and we will see whether or not the regulatory measures and systems and frameworks that we put in place and which are now developing that they will have impact. It’s an interesting time. Thank you. Any questions now, if anybody’s interested? Thank you very much. It sounds like you have a lot of obligations and a huge task and not to put more pressure on you but we kind of count on you to take you know to take on the battle against the platforms for the rest of us in the EU. How do you make your choices? Do you have enough resources? What is your policy on prioritising with the resources that you have given all the challenges that there are? Yeah sure, when we started we just had 40 people in the organisation that was the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland that was a kind of legacy organisation. They did traditional broadcasting regulation so to that remit was added the online safety brief which is huge right and we’re now at just over 200 people and we think within another six to nine months we’ll be at 300 people. About a hundred and just over half I think of those are kind of in one way or another supporting the online safety side of the work of the organisation. So Ireland has taken the responsibility quite seriously and really put the resources into that and any time we’re asked politically we always get the support that we’re looking for and it is an important mandate and society has rallied around it. We could even see it in the kinds of people that have come to work with us since we had a concern maybe that we might not be able to attract because we’re a public service organisation great people but we have people have been really interested in in the mandate. Second thing I’d say is that we’re not alone as a regulator here I do want to emphasise the network nature of the regulatory approach in Europe. So you know my French colleagues often describe the digital services that network or digital services I can act on the network approach as a sort of a team with the European Commission being the captain. Ireland has a very important role to play not because so many of the platforms are based here and but we do have the support of the Commission and also other digital services coordinators. On prioritisation we have said publicly and we are developing the mechanisms in the background to see how we can focus our regulatory efforts more precisely. So at the very highest level I articulated you know if you just set aside the Irish culture one for just for a second the other five you can kind of invert them and think of them as areas of harm. So online hate, the undermining of electoral processes and so on. Those are kind of five kind of high-level areas that we try to focus on. But on top of that we’ve tried to layer or we’re trying to layer kind of this what we call this risk-based approach. So what kind of what kind of reach does a platform have? Does it for example I have a lot of young users? If it does then it’s going to move up at the move up the rankings in terms of potential risk under the child protection strategic objective. And there’s many of those kind of characteristics that you can observe and from service characteristics to how many for example takedown orders have been issued by competent authorities across Europe against the particular platform. That tells you how a particular platform is setting up its trust and safety business.

Audience: Thanks so much for this interesting overview. I have two questions that are somehow interrelated. And the first one is so I work at the OECE in a policy space where very often I think for this big if we go back to kind of like this power concentration and big tech and platform perspective very often in the policy discussions there are calls for interventions that are maybe not necessarily enforceable right. So very often then in this discussion we have and people raising concerns about this is not implementable or enforceable from the legal side or from the regulatory side. So my first part of the question would be do you feel that you with your expertise and specific and background knowledge on how complex these issues are that this is also taken up on the other side of the spectrum in the policy and regulatory development whether there’s kind of this interlinkage. And then the second part of the question which is maybe too specific and please feel free to ignore it if it’s too specific but I’d be interested to hear specifically your thoughts on this because you also mentioned the elevation of authoritative content in the election context but now there is also the specific rule on media privileges so this privilege of journalistic content on platform content moderation which is also very contested and discussed and it will now be I think applicable as of August and at least from the platforms that we spoke with they don’t really know how to do it yet so I wonder if if you have already prepared for that if you already have some some approach of of how to to approach it from a regulatory and regular regulatory body and enforcement side.

John Evans: Thanks. Okay yeah the second one is quite specific but I’d be happy to talk to you we’re getting ready as well so but I’d be happy to talk to you afterwards and I have a colleague here Paul who’s kind of involved with the on some of the new legislation coming down to track on the democracy side so I’ll be happy to chat. But on the skills do we have or does the policy side have the the requisite skills to to carry out the mandate okay and with new recommendations new approaches being proposed all the time. Sometimes it is hard to keep up it’s it’s it’s if you cast your mind back 15-20 years and the approach to the regulation of the internet was let’s let’s keep our hands off it for the moment let’s see how it develops Gradually, problems started to emerge very early. It was perceived to be around concentration issues, so competition policy was seen to be maybe an appropriate measure, consumer protection measures to a degree, but it became apparent over a number of years that there was certain characteristics of the platform economy that were unique and were driving different dynamics that the regulatory systems were not capable of handling effectively. So enter Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act in the late teens, and the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, they’re kind of twins if you like, were trying to address the emerging harms that had become, that were becoming apparent. Both of those pieces of legislation were pushed through in really quite a, in a speedy way. It’s kind of, European legislation takes time to develop and emerge and I think they stand out as being, as having been done quite quickly. But also I think it’s recognized that they are a first step in developing a comprehensive, efficient, streamlined regulatory process. So you always have this tension between trying to work within the system that you have and people at the same time recommending actually that’s not going to work well, you need to try this, you need to, I think we need to try what we have first, see what works, learn from it and develop new things as we mature. But I think the problem is that the harms are perceived as really quite severe and we just don’t have time to wait and see how things mature. If you look back at a different regulatory system, say telecommunications for example, there the framework was developing and evolving over a period of 25 years as competition was embedded in European telecommunications markets. I don’t think we have that same privilege of waiting to see how things develop, we need to move quite quickly in the online safety space, I think. I don’t know if that answers the question, but I’m happy to chat, yeah.

Maria Farrell: Hi, I’m Maria Farrell, I’m a fellow Irish citizen and I have a compliment for you and a question. And the compliment is that amongst other digital and human rights activists around Europe, Camargo na mBan has already a reputation of acting with strength and integrity as a regulator, which has been completely lacking in our data protection regulator and how Ireland deals with tax and the tech co’s. So you guys have completely are changing the narrative on what we can do as a country to actually stand up to our responsibility to regulate these firms that are headquartered in Ireland. My question to you is what are you doing and can you do to ensure that you continue to act with that strength, with that integrity, with that moral courage that says, you know, we are going to stand up to these firms and stand in defence, in active defence of European democracy?

John Evans: I always give a two-part answer to this. The first is that we’re really quite proud of the strategy document that we put together, we think it’s a pretty solid North Star for us. So we were supposed to refresh and renew these things every every two or three years or so. We don’t expect the top our mission and the strategic objectives to change dramatically over the next while. Those are going to be consistent North Stars if you like. So we think we have the strategic direction quite well set and embedded in the organisation and I think we think that will endure. The other side of it is is that just from a resource resource wise, we’re not pushing closed doors in a sense that there is an expectation that we will act and we’re happy to do that, you know, we’re happy to do that. But independent regulation is independent regulation, political context changes, but until somebody changes the law we’re going to enforce the law to the best of our ability.

Audience: I’ll try as best as I can to make it short. I was wondering the DSA being sort of content agnostic, how do you see a role as a regulator in this network of other regulators, especially in relation to member states where there may be rule of law backsliding. So how would you relate as an Irish media commission to member states with perhaps the last strong digital service coordinator or making decisions that you do not agree with from a rule of law perspective.

John Evans: I think part of the protection against that is the role that the European Commission has to play, but also the Digital Services Board. So we get to hold each other to account and but also support each other within that network. And really I think the key pieces, you know, there’s very important articles that the digital services coordinators have a shared responsibility with the European Commission, but the piece around the systemic article 34, article 35, those are really the core strategic pieces, the central planks of the Digital Services Act and I think those are the best protections. We’re happy to chat, yeah, yeah, yeah, can I do another one, yeah? Gosling, yeah, yeah, yes, we’re part of Gosling, yeah, yeah, I kind of described participation in the Digital Services Board as strategic and there’s a kind of operational aspect to that. The Global Online Safety Regulators Network, that’s really excellent in trying to understand different regulatory approaches in different countries and what are best practices, because often Australia’s eSafety Commission is well ahead of us in terms of, kind of, along the regulatory path than we are in certain respects, and there’s a lot for us to learn from that. The Ofcom is a member of that as well and they’re a well-established very expert regulator for whom we have a lot to learn, but also we’re happy to share the European experience in that network as well, yeah, yeah. Okay, I’d better go, sorry, but I’m happy to chat. Thanks.

Agreement points

Resource adequacy and prioritization challenges in digital regulation

Speakers

– John Evans
– Audience

Arguments

Regulatory Challenges and Resource Allocation

Regulatory Challenges and Resource Allocation

Summary

Both acknowledge the enormous scope and complexity of platform regulation, with limited resources requiring careful prioritization. There’s recognition that Ireland faces a disproportionate responsibility for EU-wide platform oversight.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Data governance | Consumer protection

Importance of cross-border regulatory coordination

Speakers

– John Evans
– Audience

Arguments

Cross-Border Regulatory Coordination

Cross-Border Regulatory Coordination

Summary

Both recognize the critical need for effective coordination between regulators across jurisdictions, though they acknowledge challenges when some member states may have weaker regulatory capacity or governance issues.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Jurisdiction | Human rights principles

Gap between policy development and regulatory implementation

Speakers

– John Evans
– Audience

Arguments

Regulatory Challenges and Resource Allocation

Electoral Integrity and Democracy Protection

Summary

Both acknowledge the tension between policy aspirations and practical enforceability, with John Evans noting the need to move quickly despite not having the luxury of gradual development like telecommunications regulation, while audience members raise concerns about implementability of policy recommendations.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Jurisdiction | Human rights

Similar viewpoints

Both recognize and emphasize Ireland’s transformation into a regulator that acts with strength and integrity, representing a significant departure from previous approaches to tech company oversight in Ireland.

Speakers

– John Evans
– Maria Farrell

Arguments

Ireland’s Regulatory Reputation and Independence

Ireland’s Regulatory Reputation and Independence

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights principles | Privacy and data protection

Both acknowledge the complexity of protecting democratic processes online and the challenges of implementing media privileges and content moderation policies, though they approach from different perspectives of implementation versus policy development.

Speakers

– John Evans
– Audience

Arguments

Electoral Integrity and Democracy Protection

Electoral Integrity and Democracy Protection

Topics

Sociocultural | Content policy | Human rights | Freedom of expression | Freedom of the press

Unexpected consensus

Ireland’s regulatory transformation and credibility

Speakers

– John Evans
– Maria Farrell

Arguments

Ireland’s Regulatory Reputation and Independence

Ireland’s Regulatory Reputation and Independence

Explanation

It’s unexpected to see such strong consensus between a regulator and an activist about the regulator’s performance. Maria Farrell’s explicit praise for the regulator’s strength and integrity, contrasted with criticism of other Irish regulatory bodies, suggests genuine recognition of effective regulatory action rather than typical regulatory capture or weakness.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights principles | Privacy and data protection

Urgency of regulatory action despite implementation challenges

Speakers

– John Evans
– Audience

Arguments

Regulatory Challenges and Resource Allocation

Electoral Integrity and Democracy Protection

Explanation

Despite acknowledging significant implementation challenges and resource constraints, there’s consensus that waiting for perfect solutions is not an option due to the severity of emerging harms. This represents agreement on the need for imperfect but immediate action over delayed comprehensive solutions.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Data governance

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion reveals strong consensus on the fundamental challenges facing digital regulation: resource constraints, implementation complexity, and the need for cross-border coordination. There’s also unexpected agreement on Ireland’s regulatory transformation and the urgency of action despite imperfect tools.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on challenges and approach, with constructive dialogue rather than adversarial positions. This suggests a mature understanding of regulatory realities and shared commitment to effective platform oversight, which bodes well for continued cooperation and development of regulatory frameworks.

Different viewpoints

Policy Development vs. Regulatory Implementation Gap

Speakers

– John Evans
– Audience

Arguments

Regulatory Challenges and Resource Allocation – The regulator uses a risk-based approach to prioritize enforcement efforts, considering factors like platform reach, user demographics, and past enforcement history. Unlike traditional regulatory sectors that had decades to develop, online safety regulation must move quickly due to the severity of emerging harms.

Electoral Integrity and Democracy Protection – There are concerns about the gap between policy recommendations and practical enforceability in digital regulation. Many policy discussions propose interventions that may not be legally or technically implementable, raising questions about whether regulatory expertise is adequately considered in policy development.

Summary

John Evans advocates for working within existing regulatory frameworks first and learning from implementation, while the audience member argues that policy development often proposes unenforceable interventions without adequate consideration of regulatory expertise and practical implementation challenges.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Freedom of the press

Unexpected differences

Regulatory Timeline and Urgency

Speakers

– John Evans
– Audience

Arguments

Regulatory Challenges and Resource Allocation – Unlike traditional regulatory sectors that had decades to develop, online safety regulation must move quickly due to the severity of emerging harms.

Electoral Integrity and Democracy Protection – There are concerns about the gap between policy recommendations and practical enforceability in digital regulation.

Explanation

While both parties acknowledge the urgency of digital regulation, they have opposing views on how to balance speed with effectiveness. Evans argues for rapid implementation despite imperfections, while the audience suggests that rushing may lead to unenforceable policies. This disagreement is unexpected because both parties want effective regulation but fundamentally differ on the risk-reward calculation of moving quickly versus ensuring implementability.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Jurisdiction

Overall assessment

Summary

The main areas of disagreement center on the balance between policy ambition and regulatory practicality, resource adequacy for the scale of platform oversight, and the effectiveness of current cross-border coordination mechanisms.

Disagreement level

Moderate disagreement with significant implications. While speakers share common goals of effective platform regulation and protection of democratic values, their different perspectives on implementation approaches could lead to tensions between policy development and regulatory execution. The disagreements suggest a need for better integration between policy-making and regulatory expertise to ensure that ambitious digital governance goals are matched with practical enforcement capabilities.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both recognize and emphasize Ireland’s transformation into a regulator that acts with strength and integrity, representing a significant departure from previous approaches to tech company oversight in Ireland.

Speakers

– John Evans
– Maria Farrell

Arguments

Ireland’s Regulatory Reputation and Independence

Ireland’s Regulatory Reputation and Independence

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights principles | Privacy and data protection

Both acknowledge the complexity of protecting democratic processes online and the challenges of implementing media privileges and content moderation policies, though they approach from different perspectives of implementation versus policy development.

Speakers

– John Evans
– Audience

Arguments

Electoral Integrity and Democracy Protection

Electoral Integrity and Democracy Protection

Topics

Sociocultural | Content policy | Human rights | Freedom of expression | Freedom of the press

Key takeaways

Ireland serves as a critical hub for European digital regulation, handling approximately 80% of complaints against online platforms due to many major tech companies being headquartered there

The Digital Services Act creates an effective network-based regulatory approach requiring coordination between member states and the European Commission, moving beyond failed self-regulatory models

Ireland has demonstrated serious commitment to digital regulation by expanding from 40 to over 200 staff members, with plans to reach 300, showing that adequate resourcing is possible when there is political will

A two-dimensional approach to child protection (addressing both content through safety codes and systems through the DSA) provides a comprehensive framework for protecting minors online

Electoral integrity requires coordinated cross-border regulatory response, with tools like election guidelines, candidate support packs, and pre-election scenario planning proving effective

Ireland’s media regulator has established a reputation for acting with strength and integrity, contrasting positively with other Irish regulators’ handling of tech companies

Risk-based prioritization considering platform reach, user demographics, and enforcement history across Europe is essential for effective resource allocation

The urgency of online harms means regulators cannot wait decades for frameworks to mature as was possible with telecommunications regulation

Resolutions and action items

Ireland will continue developing risk-based prioritization mechanisms to focus regulatory efforts more precisely on high-harm areas

Coordinated enforcement actions against adult sites below the 45 million user threshold will be pursued by Digital Services Coordinators across member states

Ireland plans to extend educational resources to primary age children and run cinema-based awareness campaigns for parents during summer

Research will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of candidate support packs provided during elections

The regulator committed to ongoing participation in international networks like the Global Online Safety Regulators Network to share best practices

Unresolved issues

How to effectively coordinate with member states that may have weak digital service coordinators or rule of law backsliding issues

The challenge of ensuring policy recommendations are actually enforceable and implementable from a legal/regulatory perspective

Implementation details for the new media privilege rules for journalistic content in platform content moderation, which platforms don’t yet know how to execute

Long-term sustainability of regulatory independence and integrity as political contexts change

Whether current regulatory frameworks will prove sufficient or if additional legislative measures will be needed as harms evolve

How to balance the need for quick action on severe harms with the time required for regulatory frameworks to mature and prove effective

Suggested compromises

Using existing Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act frameworks as a first step while learning and developing new approaches, rather than waiting for perfect solutions

Leveraging the European Commission and Digital Services Board as protective mechanisms against potential regulatory capture or weakness in individual member states

Combining enforcement actions with educational initiatives and media literacy efforts rather than relying solely on punitive measures

Accepting that regulatory frameworks will need to evolve iteratively rather than expecting comprehensive solutions immediately, while still acting urgently on severe harms

How do you make your choices? Do you have enough resources? What is your policy on prioritising with the resources that you have given all the challenges that there are?

Speaker

Audience member (first questioner)

Reason

This question cuts to the heart of regulatory effectiveness by addressing the fundamental challenge of resource allocation in digital regulation. It acknowledges the enormous scope of the regulator’s mandate while recognizing the practical limitations that could undermine their effectiveness.

Impact

This question shifted the discussion from theoretical regulatory frameworks to practical implementation challenges. It prompted Evans to reveal concrete details about organizational growth (from 40 to 200+ people), resource allocation strategies, and the collaborative nature of European digital regulation. It also led him to discuss their risk-based prioritization approach, adding depth to understanding how modern digital regulation actually works in practice.

Very often in policy discussions there are calls for interventions that are maybe not necessarily enforceable… do you feel that you with your expertise and specific background knowledge on how complex these issues are that this is also taken up on the other side of the spectrum in the policy and regulatory development?

Speaker

OECD policy worker

Reason

This comment highlights a critical disconnect between policy aspirations and regulatory reality – the gap between what policymakers want to achieve and what regulators can actually enforce. It introduces the concept of implementability as a key constraint in digital governance.

Impact

This question prompted Evans to provide historical context about internet regulation evolution, explaining how the ‘hands-off’ approach gradually gave way to targeted legislation like the DSA and DMA. It led to a deeper discussion about the tension between the urgency of addressing digital harms and the time needed to develop mature regulatory frameworks, comparing it to the 25-year evolution of telecommunications regulation.

Amongst other digital and human rights activists around Europe, Coimisiún na Meán has already a reputation of acting with strength and integrity as a regulator, which has been completely lacking in our data protection regulator and how Ireland deals with tax and the tech cos… what are you doing and can you do to ensure that you continue to act with that strength, with that integrity, with that moral courage?

Speaker

Maria Farrell

Reason

This comment is particularly insightful because it directly addresses Ireland’s controversial reputation as a ‘regulatory haven’ for tech companies while acknowledging a positive counter-narrative. It raises the fundamental question of regulatory capture and independence in a jurisdiction where major tech companies are headquartered.

Impact

This comment created a moment of validation for the regulator while simultaneously challenging them to maintain their independence. It shifted the conversation toward questions of institutional integrity and political pressure. Evans’ response about having a ‘North Star’ strategy and political support revealed important insights about how regulatory independence can be maintained even in challenging political-economic contexts.

How would you relate as an Irish media commission to member states with perhaps the last strong digital service coordinator or making decisions that you do not agree with from a rule of law perspective?

Speaker

Audience member (final questioner)

Reason

This question introduces the complex geopolitical dimension of digital regulation within the EU, specifically addressing how democratic backsliding in some member states could affect the coordinated regulatory approach that the DSA depends upon. It highlights potential systemic vulnerabilities in the network-based regulatory model.

Impact

While Evans’ response was brief, this question opened up discussion of the safeguards built into the DSA framework, particularly the role of the European Commission and Digital Services Board in maintaining standards across member states. It highlighted the tension between national sovereignty in regulation and the need for consistent enforcement of digital rights across the EU.

Overall assessment

These key comments transformed what could have been a straightforward regulatory presentation into a nuanced exploration of the practical, political, and systemic challenges facing digital governance. The questions moved the discussion from describing regulatory frameworks to examining their real-world implementation challenges, resource constraints, political pressures, and systemic vulnerabilities. Maria Farrell’s comment was particularly impactful in acknowledging Ireland’s unique position and the regulator’s emerging reputation, while the OECD questioner’s focus on enforceability highlighted the gap between policy ambition and regulatory reality. Together, these interventions created a more honest and comprehensive picture of digital regulation as an evolving, resource-constrained, and politically complex endeavor rather than a purely technical exercise.

How effective was the candidate pack initiative in supporting politicians’ safe participation in public life during elections?

Speaker

John Evans

Explanation

John Evans mentioned they are conducting research to find out exactly how the candidate pack helped politicians when targeted online, indicating this is an ongoing area of investigation to measure impact and improve future initiatives

How will platforms implement Article 28 of the Digital Services Act regarding protection of minors’ safety, security and privacy?

Speaker

John Evans

Explanation

John Evans noted that guidance from the European Commission on implementing this article will emerge later in the year, suggesting this is an area requiring further clarification and research on practical implementation

How to approach the new media privileges rule for journalistic content on platform content moderation from a regulatory enforcement perspective?

Speaker

OECD audience member

Explanation

The audience member noted that platforms don’t know how to implement this rule yet and asked about the regulatory body’s preparedness, indicating this is an area requiring further research and policy development

How can policy discussions better integrate regulatory expertise to ensure proposed interventions are actually enforceable?

Speaker

OECD audience member

Explanation

The audience member raised concerns about policy calls for interventions that may not be legally or regulatorily enforceable, suggesting need for better interlinkage between policy development and regulatory expertise

How can regulators maintain strength and integrity in the face of changing political contexts while ensuring independent regulation?

Speaker

Maria Farrell

Explanation

This question addresses the critical challenge of maintaining regulatory independence and moral courage over time, which is essential for effective platform regulation

How should digital services coordinators handle situations involving member states with rule of law backsliding?

Speaker

Audience member

Explanation

This question addresses potential conflicts within the European regulatory network when some member states may have compromised rule of law standards, requiring research into governance mechanisms and accountability measures

What are the best practices and different regulatory approaches being tested globally for online safety regulation?

Speaker

John Evans

Explanation

John Evans mentioned the value of learning from other regulators like Australia’s eSafety Commission and Ofcom through the Global Online Safety Regulators Network, indicating ongoing research into comparative regulatory approaches

Summary

This discussion at the Internet Governance Forum focused on the security and resilience of subsea telecommunication cables, which carry over 99% of global intercontinental data traffic. The session was co-hosted by UNIDIR and the Norwegian government, bringing together ministers, industry experts, and international organizations to address growing threats to this critical infrastructure.

Ministers from Norway, Finland, Nigeria, and Estonia highlighted how recent incidents, particularly in the Baltic Sea, have demonstrated the vulnerability of subsea cables to both accidental damage and intentional sabotage. They emphasized that geopolitical tensions have significantly increased risks, with incidents involving Russia’s shadow fleet cutting cables in European waters. The speakers stressed that protecting subsea cables requires comprehensive international cooperation, as these systems cross national borders and operate in international waters.

Industry representatives shared practical experiences, including a detailed account of a cable cut between Latvia and Sweden that took 28 days to repair despite good preparation. They discussed emerging technologies like distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) that can detect threats up to two kilometers away and provide real-time monitoring of underwater activities. The panelists emphasized that fiber optic cables can essentially function as massive underwater sensor networks.

Key themes throughout the discussion included the importance of public-private partnerships, the need for redundancy and route diversity, and the critical role of preparedness and crisis management planning. Speakers highlighted initiatives like the ITU’s International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience and regional cooperation agreements in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. The discussion concluded that strengthening subsea cable resilience is a “team sport” requiring coordinated efforts across governments, industry, and international organizations, with resilience built by design rather than as an afterthought.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Critical Infrastructure Vulnerability**: Subsea telecommunication cables carry over 99% of global intercontinental data traffic, making them essential digital lifelines that remain largely “out of sight and out of mind” despite their critical importance to the global digital economy, healthcare, education, and financial systems.

– **Evolving Threat Landscape**: The security environment has fundamentally changed, with incidents in the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and other regions showing a dramatic increase in both accidental and intentional damage to cables, including activities by “shadow fleets” and state-backed interference amid growing geopolitical tensions.

– **Multi-stakeholder Cooperation as Essential**: Effective protection requires coordinated efforts between governments, private industry, international organizations, and civil society, with emphasis on public-private partnerships, regional cooperation agreements (like those in the North Sea and Baltic Sea), and international bodies like the ITU Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience.

– **Resilience by Design, Not Response**: Protection must be intentional and built into systems from the planning stage, incorporating redundancy, route diversity, advanced monitoring technologies (like distributed acoustic sensing), rapid repair capabilities, and comprehensive preparedness including crisis management protocols and regular exercises.

– **Regulatory and Legal Framework Gaps**: There’s a need for updated international cooperation mechanisms, streamlined permitting processes for repairs, clarification of roles between civil and defense authorities, and better implementation of existing legal tools under international law rather than creating entirely new regulatory structures.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to raise awareness about the critical vulnerability of subsea cable infrastructure and foster international cooperation to strengthen protection and resilience measures. The session sought to move beyond mere conversation to serve as “a call for governments, industry, and the wider multi-stakeholder community to come together and exchange best practices, strengthen cooperation, and build resilience.”

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a consistently serious and urgent tone throughout, reflecting the critical nature of the infrastructure being discussed. Speakers emphasized that “the risks are no longer hypothetical” and stressed the need for immediate action. While collaborative and constructive, there was an underlying sense of urgency driven by recent incidents and the recognition that current threats are both increasing and evolving. The tone remained professional and solution-oriented, with participants sharing concrete experiences and actionable recommendations rather than engaging in abstract theoretical discussions.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Giacomo Persi Paoli** – Head of the Security and Technology Program at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), session moderator and co-host

– **Karianne Tung** – Minister of Digitalisation and Public Governance of Norway

– **Jarno Syrjala** – Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, Finland

– **Bosun Tijani** – Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy of Nigeria, co-chair of the ITU International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience

– **Liisa-Ly Pakosta** – Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs of Estonia

– **Camino Kavanagh** – Expert and research fellow from UNIDIR

– **Steinar Bjornstad** – Strategic competence and research manager at TAMPNET (offshore telecom service provider)

– **Evijs Taube** – Member of the management board from Latvia State Radio and Television Center

– **Sandra Maximiano** – Chair of the board of directors of ANACOM (National Regulatory Authority for Communications in Portugal), co-chair of the ITU International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience

– **Kent Bressie** – Legal advisor for International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC), participating remotely

– **Session video** – Video content/narrator (not a human speaker)

**Additional speakers:**

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

# Comprehensive Report: Strengthening the Security and Resilience of Subsea Telecommunication Cables

## Executive Summary

This Internet Governance Forum session, co-hosted by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and the Norwegian government, brought together ministers, industry experts, and international organisations to address the critical vulnerability of subsea telecommunication cables. The discussion emphasised that these cables, which carry over 99% of global intercontinental data traffic, represent essential digital lifelines that remain largely “out of sight and out of mind” despite their fundamental importance to modern society.

The session established a four-pillar framework for cable resilience: protection, planning, preparedness, and response. Speakers emphasised that “the risks are no longer hypothetical” and stressed the need for immediate action, driven by recent incidents and the recognition that current threats are both increasing and evolving. Key outcomes included the establishment of ITU Advisory Body working groups for 2025-26, regional cooperation agreements in the North Sea and Baltic Sea, and concrete national commitments to enhanced protection frameworks.

The discussion remained professional and solution-oriented, with participants sharing concrete experiences and actionable recommendations, ultimately concluding that cable protection is fundamentally “a team sport” requiring coordinated efforts across governments, industry, and international organisations.

## Critical Infrastructure Vulnerability and Societal Dependence

The discussion began with a stark assessment of society’s complete dependence on subsea cables. Giacomo Persi Paoli, Head of the Security and Technology Program at UNIDIR and session moderator, established that subsea cables carry over 99% of global intercontinental data traffic, making them critical digital infrastructure that underpins the global economy.

Karianne Tung, Norway’s Minister of Digitalisation and Public Governance, emphasised that digital society is completely dependent on submarine cables for healthcare, education, and transport systems. This dependency was further illustrated by Liisa-Ly Pakosta, Estonia’s Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs, who explained that as a fully digital state, Estonia faces actual threats to government services when cables are cut.

The human impact of cable failures was powerfully articulated by Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, who shared his personal experience during West African cable cuts last year in March: “I was surprised at how, of course, we were fortunate, the private sector came together. But as a minister, I didn’t have any answer to give to people. And people don’t often complain about companies when you have natural disasters. It’s the government that they look to for answer.” This comment fundamentally reframed the discussion from technical protection measures to governance accountability, highlighting how governments are held accountable for infrastructure failures regardless of ownership structures.

## Evolving Threat Landscape and Geopolitical Context

The discussion revealed a fundamental shift in the security environment surrounding subsea cables. Tung highlighted recent incidents with damages to subsea cables in the Baltic Sea and Red Sea, demonstrating increased vulnerability in critical maritime regions. This assessment was reinforced by Pakosta, who provided stark geopolitical context: “Let us remember that it was 1884 when the Paris Convention of Undersea Telegraphic Cables was agreed… So this is actually the situation where we are just now, as well, within the broader geopolitical situation. What we see around this area… that the Russian shadow fleet is cutting down our connections.”

Pakosta noted a dramatic rise in “accidents” during the full-scale war in Ukraine, with intentional cable cutting by Russian shadow fleet vessels, connecting current geopolitical tensions to a 140-year pattern of intentional cable disruption during conflicts.

Camino Kavanagh, an expert and research fellow from UNIDIR, provided crucial empirical context with historical data analysis. She referenced how in 1881, a group of countries concerned about damage to cables in the North Sea raised the issue in pre-negotiations to the 1884 Convention, and in 1882, a specific government brought statistics showing “60% of damage caused by natural events, 35% by unintentional acts due to accidents at sea or force majeure, and 5% due to gross negligence and some malign activities.” Moving forward 143 years later, she noted that whilst these statistics haven’t changed dramatically, intentional threats are increasing, though it remains “very hard to ascertain responsibility for some of the incidents.”

Jarno Syrjala, Finland’s Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, emphasised that geopolitical tensions have fundamentally changed the security environment with significant implications for digital infrastructure safety. He stressed the need for urgency in developing innovative technological solutions, noting that different regions experience vastly different threat landscapes and problem sets.

## Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation and Governance

A central theme throughout the discussion was the absolute necessity of international cooperation and public-private partnerships for effective subsea cable protection. Tung articulated this clearly: “Cross-border cooperation is crucial since submarine cables cross national borders and international waters.” She provided concrete examples of successful regional cooperation, including North Sea cooperation agreements from 2024 and Baltic Sea cooperation agreements established in May 2025 with Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, the EU, and Norway for protection of critical subsea infrastructure.

Syrjala reinforced this theme, explaining how international cooperation through NATO, the European Union, and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) helps build resilience and response capabilities. He advocated for the multi-stakeholder community to have a more prominent role in submarine cable resilience discussions, emphasising that solid public-private partnership represents one of the most important aspects of telecommunications resilience.

Sandra Maximiano, co-chair of the ITU International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience and Chair of the board of directors of ANACOM (Portugal’s National Regulatory Authority for Communications), highlighted how the ITU Advisory Body provides a global platform for collaboration between public and private sectors. She noted that the body, co-chaired with Bosun Tijani, has established three working groups for 2025-26 focusing on resilience by design, timely deployment and repair, and risk identification and monitoring.

Kent Bressie, legal advisor for the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) participating remotely, provided industry perspective on this cooperation. He noted that the ICPC, founded in 1958 with more than 240 members from approximately 75 countries, emphasises the “need for better awareness and communication between submarine cable operators, marine industries, and governments. Governments need to understand what industry does and recognise actions only governments can take.”

This theme of complementary capabilities was reinforced throughout the discussion, with speakers acknowledging that whilst private industry owns and operates most cables, only governments can take certain political and military responses to threats. The challenge lies in creating effective coordination mechanisms that leverage both sectors’ strengths whilst maintaining clear accountability structures.

## Technical Innovation and Resilience by Design

The discussion highlighted significant technological advances in cable monitoring and threat detection alongside the fundamental principle of building resilience into systems from the beginning. Steinar Bjornstad, Strategic competence and research manager at TAMPNET (an offshore telecom service provider), explained how fiber sensing technology allows cables to work as underwater microphones, detecting approaching threats: “Combining multiple monitoring tools including AIS information and fiber sensing provides comprehensive situational awareness.”

The technological capability was further elaborated through distributed acoustic sensing, which turns fiber optic cables into virtual hydrophones for ocean monitoring. Light pulses are injected into fiber cables, and backscattered light reveals acoustic pressure fields, essentially making “the ocean transparent” for monitoring purposes. The technology can detect threats like two kilometers away and provide real-time monitoring of underwater activities.

Evijs Taube, a member of the management board from Latvia State Radio and Television Center, introduced a paradigm shift in thinking about cables: “Every cable, existing cable is a big asset, and we can call it a big sensor. If we install… distributed or centralised… integrated system of such sensors in a particular area, for example, Baltic Sea… that would give a big benefit, not only protecting the cables, but to understand what is going on under the water.”

This comment transformed the discussion from viewing cables as passive infrastructure requiring protection to active sensing networks that could provide comprehensive underwater surveillance, turning the infrastructure itself into a security solution.

A fundamental principle that emerged was “resilience by design.” Tijani articulated this powerfully: “Resilience should be intentional. It shouldn’t be something that is afterthought.” This philosophy emphasised that protection must be built into systems from the planning stage rather than added reactively.

Bjornstad explained how multiple cables and optical switching enable quick traffic rerouting when cables fail, demonstrating the importance of redundancy in system design. Maximiano reinforced this by advocating for building redundancy through multiple geographically diverse cable routes and avoiding strategic choke points. Tijani emphasised that countries need multiple access points to cables rather than single cable connections, noting that resilience requires calculated investment in infrastructure diversity.

## Response Preparedness and Crisis Management

The practical challenges of cable repair and crisis response emerged as critical concerns throughout the discussion. Bjornstad explained that repair alliance membership ensures cable repair within a couple of weeks when incidents occur, but this requires significant advance preparation and investment.

Taube provided a detailed case study of a successful repair between Latvia and Sweden, explaining: “we tried three times to recover, the third time was successful, and despite of February being a short month, we managed to fix it within a month, so 28 days.” This demonstrated the importance of preparation, spare parts, and standby vessel agreements, while highlighting that even with good preparation, repairs can take nearly a month, creating extended vulnerability periods.

Effective crisis management emerged as a crucial component requiring clear crisis management teams, communication channels with partners, and public communication strategies. Taube emphasised the importance of established communication lines with international partners and 24/7 contact protocols, noting that preparation through table exercises and drills is essential, though real incidents provide irreplaceable learning experiences.

Maximiano identified the need for collective mechanisms to support repair capacity, especially for regions lacking resources. She noted that small island states and remote regions need special attention where economic incentives for response are lower. The discussion revealed that limited repair ships and talent for cable maintenance require calculated investment and regional cooperation.

Tijani highlighted the workforce development challenges, noting difficulties in attracting young talent to the submarine cable industry. This human resource challenge compounds the technical and logistical difficulties of maintaining adequate repair capacity globally.

## Regulatory Framework Challenges and Best Practices

The regulatory dimension of cable protection revealed several complex challenges. Bressie presented ICPC best practices advocating a holistic approach including default separation distances and single government contact points. However, he also warned that government policies can potentially undermine cable protection through excessive delays and clustering requirements.

A particularly striking example of counterintuitive regulation was Bressie’s observation about cable location transparency: “We see a renewed push by some governments to remove cables from nautical charts. This is woefully misguided. Given that approximately 70 percent of cable damage each year is caused by fishing and anchors, removing cables from nautical charts would significantly increase those risks and make it impossible for cable owners to pursue damages claims.”

This comment challenged security-through-obscurity thinking, demonstrating how transparency actually enhances protection by enabling avoidance of accidental damage. It highlighted the need for evidence-based security measures rather than intuitive but potentially counterproductive approaches.

Maximiano noted that regulation needs to keep pace with technological innovation and high-capacity connectivity demands, particularly as artificial intelligence applications require massive computational capacity that depends on robust cable infrastructure. Syrjala noted that Finland had already transposed the NIS2 directive into national law in April 2025 with comprehensive telecommunications resilience requirements.

## Implementation and Future Challenges

The discussion produced several concrete commitments and initiatives. The ITU Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience established three working groups for 2025-26 focusing on resilience by design, timely deployment and repair, and risk identification and monitoring. The Abuja Declaration was approved in February 2025 as a milestone for international cooperation on submarine cable resilience.

Multiple countries committed to implementing the EU Action Plan on Cable Security with four objectives: prevention, detection, response and repair, and deterrence. Several nations signed the New York Declaration on Submarine Cable Security to promote integrity and accessibility.

At the national level, Norway committed to establishing dedicated cooperation between private sector and civil/defence authorities with clarified roles and responsibilities. Nigeria announced plans to set up a dedicated desk within its communications commission for cable protection protocols and international coordination.

Despite these concrete commitments, several significant challenges remain unresolved. Limited repair capacity globally, particularly the shortage of specialised vessels and trained personnel for cable maintenance, represents a critical vulnerability that requires sustained investment and international coordination.

Many developing countries and small island states continue to lack adequate frameworks and expertise for cable protection, creating global vulnerabilities that could affect international connectivity. The economic incentives for prompt response mechanisms in remote regions remain insufficient, requiring innovative financing and cooperation mechanisms.

Technical challenges include the ongoing debate over removing cables from nautical charts, difficulties in attributing responsibility for cable incidents, and regulatory delays that can undermine protection efforts. The workforce development challenge of attracting young talent to the submarine cable industry requires sustained attention from both industry and educational institutions.

## Conclusion and Strategic Implications

The discussion concluded with Giacomo Persi Paoli’s synthesis that strengthening subsea cable resilience is fundamentally “a team sport” requiring coordinated efforts across governments, industry, and international organisations. He emphasised his four-pillar framework of protection, planning, preparedness, and response, noting that “plans are useless unless they are put in practice through concrete measures of preparedness” and stressing the need for “effective, quick response to minimize disruption.”

The session successfully moved beyond abstract discussions to concrete commitments and actionable frameworks, though significant implementation challenges remain. The strong consensus among participants suggests that the subsea cable protection community has developed mature understanding of the challenges and potential solutions.

The session’s emphasis on resilience by design, international cooperation, and public-private partnerships provides a solid foundation for addressing the evolving threats to this critical infrastructure. The combination of historical perspective, current geopolitical realities, and future technological possibilities creates a comprehensive framework for action.

Ultimately, the discussion reinforced that protecting subsea cables is not merely a technical challenge but a fundamental requirement for maintaining global digital connectivity, economic stability, and societal resilience in an increasingly interconnected world. The urgency expressed by all participants reflects the recognition that the time for preparation and action is now, before more serious incidents test the limits of current protection capabilities.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, good morning and a warm welcome to this session, whether you’re following us here in the room or online. We’re here today to discuss a topic that is both critical and too often overlooked, the security and resilience of subsea telecommunication cables. This hidden infrastructure carries over 99% of global intercontinental data, silently underpinning every facet of our digital world that we rely on. Yet, despite of their criticality, they remain largely out of sight and too often out of mind. My name is Giacomo Persi-Paoli. I’m the head of the security and technology program at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, UNIDIR, and it is an honor to co-host this session in partnership with the government of Norway as part of this year’s Internet Governance Forum. Recent incidents, whether accidental or deliberate, have underscored how vulnerable these lifelines, these digital lifelines truly are. The growing intersection of geopolitical tensions, malicious cyber capabilities, and infrastructure fragility highlights a stark reality. The risks are no longer hypothetical. They’re here and they’re multiplying. This is why this session aspires to be more than a conversation. It aspires to serve as a call for governments, industry, and the wider multi-stakeholder community to come together and exchange best practices, strengthen cooperation, and build resilience into one of the most vital components of the global digital ecosystem. This session will unfold in two parts. We will begin with a high-level ministerial dialogue offering national perspectives on how countries are approaching the protection of subsea cables. Following that, we will turn to a multi-stakeholder panel of experts who will reflect on the evolving threat landscape and share actionable insights on how to secure subsea cable infrastructure. We are privileged to be joined by an exceptional group of leaders and practitioners from across sectors and regions. Their experience and ideas are vital as we chart a path forward, one that reflects both the complexity of today’s challenges and the spirit of international cooperation that forums like IGF are designed to inspire. And now, without further ado, I have the honour of inviting here on stage Minister Karianne Tung, Minister of Digitalisation and Public Governance of Norway, Jarno Syrjala, Under-Secretary of State for International Trade in Finland, Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy of Nigeria, and Liisa-Ly Pakosta, Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs of Estonia. Please join me in a round of applause in welcoming them on stage. Thank you once again for taking the time to join us to discuss this very important And I would like to start with you, Minister Tung, and give you the floor and the opportunity to introduce the topic. Please.

Karianne Tung: Thank you, moderator. Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here together with you for this important session on the protection of subsea telecommunication cables, and thank you once again for being here. The underwater cables make up the foundation of the global internet infrastructure, enabling people, communities and businesses to communicate, share and innovate. The recent years’ incidents with damages to subsea infrastructure have reminded us how important it is to increase the resilience of this critical infrastructure. We’ve seen the incident with the North Stream Pipeline damages to subsea cables in the Baltic Sea and in the Red Sea, and once again we see war raging on European soil. As more than 99% of the intercontinental data traffic is carried by subsea communication cables have raised the awareness that we must better protect this critical infrastructure. Norway has intensified our efforts to increase the security of subsea cables. We are conducting service of subsea cables for detection and prevention of threats. We make use of innovative technologies to monitor the subsea cables, enable detection of threats and incidents, and quick notification and intervention. We are also establishing a close cooperation between the private sector and the civil and defence authorities. This way we can combine and maximise the knowledge and strength of the civil and private sector and the defence sector in this important work. We have seen the importance of clarifying the roles and responsibilities of owners of subsea cables, civil authorities and the defence sector. This experience from the Baltic Sea has shown us that such clarifications are needed for swift action when incidents occur. occur. But there’s no escaping that submarine cable infrastructure often go across both national borders and international waters. Therefore, it is crucial with both European and international cooperation to identify and implement effective security measures and the necessary regulatory framework. One good example of such cooperation was established in 2024 for the protection of critical subsea infrastructure in the North Sea between the North Sea countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Denmark, and Norway. In May 2025, a similar cooperation was agreed on for protection of critical subsea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea with Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, EU, and Norway. We need a combination of national, regional, and international cooperation to achieve effective resilience measures and the necessary exchange of information about threats and sharing of best practice. Threats to subsea communication cables are not limited by national borders, so international cooperation is vital for protection of subsea cables, and together we can better advance new and innovative ways of securing these critical cables that the Internet is fully depending on. Thank you.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you very much, Minister Tang, for sharing these opening remarks and also for highlighting among other things the importance of cooperation, both between states and governments, but also public-private cooperation as a key enabler for the protection of subsea cables. And now I’d like to give the floor to Jarno Syrjala, Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, Finland, please.

Jarno Syrjala: Thank you, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It’s great to be here, and it’s my great pleasure to provide some remarks. on behalf of the government of Finland on protection of subsea telecommunications cables. The fundamental change in our security environment has implications for safety and resilience of our critical digital infrastructure. As recent incidents at the Baltic Sea have demonstrated, we have a clear need to better protect our critical undersea infrastructure. Trust in the digital systems is necessary for sustainable, inclusive digital future. The security of data and digital infrastructure are key concerns for countries from both national security and an economic standpoint. The security of digital systems and data increases trust, and trust adds to investments, welfare and prosperity. Combining the current threat landscape and our resilience, Finland has a long history of preparedness in all areas of life, including the telecommunications sector. For example, resilience requirements for public communications networks were deemed necessary several decades ago, and have been developed over time as technologies and usage needs have changed. Comprehensive telecommunications legislation and extensive resilience requirements, covering also submarine cables, have been implemented in Finland’s national telecommunications legislation. The NIS2 directive, focused on enhancing cybersecurity across the EU, was also transposed into national law in April 2025. One of the most important aspects of the NIS2 directive is the importance of the use of of the telecommunications resilience is a solid public-private partnership. Over the years, close cooperation between public authorities and private companies has been established in Finland. I would like to also underline the importance of international cooperation on the security and resilience of submarine cables. International cross-border cooperation plays an important role, for example in terms of supervision, building new capabilities and preventing disruptions. We encourage also other actors to engage in the international cooperation and partnership building on submarine cable resilience, including the multi-stakeholder community. NATO and EU have increased their resilience, response and deterrence, which help us protect against all incidents, intentional or unintentional. Most recent example of this practical cooperation to protect critical undersea infrastructure, including submarine cables, is the recent Memorandum of Understanding, which the Baltic Sea, NATO Allies and the EU have published in May 2025. Within International Telecommunications Union, ITU, we have endorsed the International Advisory Body Declaration on Submarine Cable Resilience, adopted in February 2025, and look forward to engaging in the working groups. Pleased to see the co-chair of the advisory body, Honorable Minister Tijani, taking an active role on these issues. In addition, the EU Action Plan on Cable Security defines four objectives. to address the challenges in the field of submarine cable resilience and security prevention, detection, response and repair, and deterrence. Finland endorses the actions and objectives defined in the action plan and is committed to them. Also, we are co-signatories of the New York Declaration on Submarine Cable Security. The Declaration aims to encourage countries to promote the integrity, security and accessibility of the submarine cable infrastructure, which is important for the digital economy and a prerequisite for the trusted connectivity. To conclude, our societies are increasingly dependent on reliable and secure digital connections that ensure free flow of information and support growth in the digital economy. Securing critical infrastructure is of primary importance for Finland. This is why we will intensify cooperation with like-minded countries and actors to strengthen the security of submarine cables. A lot of focus has been placed on using new technologies in protecting critical undersea infrastructure. We need a sense of urgency on this. We need to develop well-working mechanisms that are innovative and willing to experiment. With regard to submarine cables, we underline three areas with resilience as a priority. Adequacy of repair capacity, material preparation, as well as infrastructure monitoring and sensing capabilities. The momentum on submarine cable security is right now. It is important to enhance international cooperation on this. this topic. The multi-stakeholder community should also have a more prominent role in discussions on submarine cable resilience. And I’m grateful for our Norwegian colleagues to place more attention to this topic. Thank you.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you very much, Under-Secretary Siriala, for your remarks. For, again, stressing the importance of cooperation, both between states and within the multi-stakeholder community, but also for bringing to light the importance of trust and security as vehicles towards the resilience of digital information infrastructure. I’d like now to give the floor to Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy of Nigeria.

Bosun Tijani: Please. Thank you so much for the opportunity, and good morning, everyone. It’s a privilege to, of course, be on this stage to contribute to this important conversation. One that is important, not just because, of course, we all know that digital economy is now literally the backbone of every economy in the world, but the fact that, you know, submarine cables are not just technical assets. These are literally the most important critical infrastructure that we can think of in the world today. And I think when you compare it to many other critical infrastructure, I don’t think attention is being given enough to actually how we protect it. And while we may be seeing more attention, I think we have to call out, in particular, the International Telecommunications Union, the ICPC, for the work they’ve done, but also the renewed focus on mobilizing actors and partnerships and collaboration to drive stronger attention on this cable. When you look at countries all over the world, and I can speak to Nigeria and, of course, a lot of other African countries, a lot of the long-edge challenges that we face, we’re seeing communications technologies as being one of the fastest ways. in which we can address so many of these challenges, whether you talk about quality education or being able to provide healthcare to literally everyone on our continent and in our countries. We see the role that digital technologies, connected technologies can actually play. We’ve seen the role of connected technologies in financial inclusion, for instance, which has changed the landscape significantly. I think the most popular ones would be what you have in M-PESA in East Africa. How many people we’ve been able to now bring into the financial system because we have connected technologies. It’s the same in my country as well, where financial technology solutions are now changing how we do things. And all these solutions will not be possible without the internet. I think the introductory remarks mentioned that 99% of the traffic that is actually carried on the internet is on subsea cables. So we can actually see why this is not just a technical asset. It is an important asset that not only do we need to protect it, we also need to worry more about the broader resilience of this cable. Which is why as a country we’re extremely excited to be participating in the international advisory body that ITU has put together. And this advisory body for us is not just another talk shop or opportunity to gather. It’s not one where we’re just talking about how do we come up with more laws to protect. But how do we also deploy for timely repair? Because sometimes the damages to the cable are not intentional. Natural disaster may also cause the destruction of these cables. How do we ensure that nations can timely come to the point where they can fix this cable? Because just a day or two or three of some of these cables being down can cause significant problems for economies. That’s why we’re extremely excited to be part of it. The second thing that the advisory body, it’s about that we find extremely useful is also how do we ensure that we can mobilize people to think more of the protocols around, and building of frameworks to improve the resilience around, which means in some countries you have only one cable, and we have opportunity for countries to be connected to more than one cable, right? This is also part of the framework that can improve the resilience within any country. In many countries you have these cables, of course these cables are not cables that you deal with in silos. We have about eight subsea cables in Nigeria, nearly all of them. I think all of them actually came through Portugal, and while coming through Portugal they passed through so many other countries. So this is something that you have to do in collaboration with so many countries. So we’re working on not just the repair, we’re working also on ensuring that we can increase the resilience by ensuring countries have multiple access to it. We’re also working on the diversity, is there a need to even have more of these cables in the first place? Not just the ones we have, do we need to have more of the cables? From that advisory body as a country, we’re now being inspired to set up a dedicated desk within our communications commission that is responsible for ensuring that the protocol within country is clear, but the clarity within country is also then translated to neighboring countries and partner countries, because you can’t do this in silo. And that’s one thing we extremely enjoy. The second thing is also the talent and the resources to be able to make these repairs when they happen. We’ve seen on the African continent a limited amount of ships that can quickly go and be deployed to help with the fixing, and there’s a limit to how much investment you can throw at it, because it’s not something that happens all the time as well. So it has to be an extremely calculated investment. What’s the optimal way to do it? This is something we’re thinking of. Another is talent. There’s a need for talent, ubiquitous talent that can actually also support, whether it’s in the maintenance or the repair of subsea cable. That’s also something that Nigeria is also prioritizing as well. And by extension to subsea cable, we’re then asking difficult questions even around fiber optic network as well. Because that’s what take the advantage of subsea cable to the people, and we need to think about when we’re thinking the sustainability and resilience, we’re now saying can we be thinking of these things in conjunction, not just one in isolation, because one feeds into the other. So we’re extremely happy to be part of this, and I think it’s something we’ll urge other partners to take seriously, that we don’t just look at loss only to protect them, but we also look at how do we make them a lot more resilient as well.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you, Minister Tijani, for also highlighting how resilience is not just about protection, as you just mentioned. There are many other components that is definitely the part of securing to protection, but there is also a very strong component that relates to redundancy, relates to mitigating and be able to react when incidents do occur. And also thank you for highlighting how the work conducted under the ITU is helping driving change at the national and regional level, and being a representative of the UN, that’s ultimately our best hope, is that through the work of these multilateral bodies, we can actually impact and drive change at the national and regional level. So thank you for sharing your remarks. And last, but of course not least, I would like to give the floor now to Liisa-Ly Pakosta, the Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs of Estonia. Please.

Liisa-Ly Pakosta: Thank you so much, and thank you for having me here. It’s a great honor for Estonia to participate here. So I have in a way a possibility to summarize why we are talking about this topic now. It is the situation that has changed, at least around this region where we physically are now. Let us remember that it was 1884. when the Paris Convention of Undersea Telegraphic Cables was agreed. And this was already then, because if the good countries established the undersea connections, there were, at the next moment, the bad guys who wanted to cut it down. So this is actually the situation where we are just now, as well, within the broader geopolitical situation. What we see around this area, where we are physically now, that the Russian shadow fleet is cutting down our connections. And it has been underlined several times already here, how important these connections are for our people, for our security, for our economies, for our hospitals, for our transport, name only. Estonia is a fully digital state, so all our government services are digital. Attacked by cutting down the undersea communication cables is actually not only a hybrid threat to our country, but it is a very actual threat to our country’s services to be actually there for our citizens. So we have seen a dramatic rise of accidents, so-called accidents, during the full-scale war in Ukraine. And I fully agree with my colleague, some of the incidents beforehand have been unintentional. But what we see now is that we see definitely the intentional cut down of the undersea cables. And the only way to handle this is, I will put it very short, that the good guys from like-minded countries, from like-minded organizations work together against, to stop the bad guys who want to take down the security of our people, who want to take down our hospital services, economy, transport, heating system, name only. So this is the actual question we are discussing now. What we can do together in order to beat the bad guys who want to harm us.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you, Minister Pakosta, for sharing your perspective. And Estonia, in fact, has been a champion of driving digital transformation for many years. So thank you so much for sharing your perspective. We still have a couple of minutes before we wrap up this first part of the panel. So I want to give all of you the opportunity, if you wanted to add anything to your remarks or to react to anything you have heard from your colleagues, this would be a good moment. We do have a couple of minutes left. Please.

Karianne Tung: Thank you, moderator. I think the panel has shown that we are completely dependent on the submarine cables. Our society, our digital society, for health care services, education, transport system and so forth. So being able to work together, both multilateral, but also multistakeholder, since many of these cables also are non-governmental and so forth. It’s important to bring the different actors together and to discuss how we can make them more resilient so that we keep connected both to society, but also internationally.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you. Please.

Bosun Tijani: I think the point I would love to add is that building resiliency into subsea cable shouldn’t be half to thought. I think for a long time this is a cable that we’ve dumped there and we’ve concluded that the risk to them is not severe. And as we’re saying, both intentional and unintentional risk to them will become severe. And because of their critical nature, I think resilience should be intentional. It shouldn’t be something that is afterthought. And what got me extremely passionate about this as a minister was when the cable cuts in the West African region happened last year, in March, and I saw firsthand the impact on society. Because we’re all working daily to move literally everything online. And if we’re moving everything online, if the backbone to this is at risk, it is a big challenge. And I was surprised at how, of course, we were fortunate, the private sector, because a lot of these cables are owned by private companies, the private sector came together. But as a minister, I didn’t have any answer to give to people. And people don’t often complain about companies when you have natural disasters. It’s the government that they look to for answer. And that’s why I think the work of the advisory board, the fact that ITU is prioritizing this, is extremely important. I don’t think it’s something we should push away. Some countries, some regions have the expertise, the framework, the know-how to be able to address this. You’d be surprised at how many countries and regions in the world have no clue where to start from. So even having things like regional redundancy and protocol, I think is something we should mainstream more. We saw the minister talked about the one in the Baltic region, but there are so many other parts of the world without this understanding. So we should collaborate more, share more, and ensure that collectively we can actually protect this critical infrastructure. Thank you.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Please.

Liisa-Ly Pakosta: Thank you. Thank you very much for underlining this, because this is absolutely essential. We know sea as for ages connecting the whole world, not just regions. That is the fantastic part of sea. And also not only the ferries, but also the undersea cables. that we now know as technological possibility. And this is nothing we can do alone to protect them. So, I think Norway has put it very well and very timely, this topic here on the agenda, because really it is a global issue. Although we have some local issues, but in general what we need is a very clear universal set of rules to protect our citizens in all the continents. That is absolutely what we need.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you. Please.

Jarno Syrjala: Yeah, I think it’s very easy to echo what has been said about the international cooperation and the meaning of that, because we definitely are in a different kind of situations and there are different lessons there to be shared. And of course, I mean, when we talk about telecommunications or communication cables in general, so that’s only part of the issues, what is there lying beneath the waves. And in Finland, so we have for a long time, decades already, we have applied this kind of model of comprehensive security. So, these are also things that you have to connect to the other areas. So, how to keep the society keeping during a time of peace or during a time of crisis, but you have to have a holistic understanding of what is it all about.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you very much. As the screens in front of us are suggesting, we have come up to time for this first part of the panel. I would like to sincerely thank you for taking the time to share your experience and expertise with us, with the audience here in the room and online. And I do invite our audience to join me in a round of applause for Minister Tung, Under-Secretary Siriala, Minister Tijani and Minister Pakosta. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. As we reconfigure the stage for the next part of the panel, I do invite you to watch a very interesting video on a specific application of a subsea cable technology, distributed acoustic sensing, and in the meantime we’ll prepare for the continuation of the panel. So over to the screen.

Session video: We can turn the ocean transparent and monitor whales by using distributed acoustic sensing. We have a network of fiber optic cables covering the world. Distributed acoustic sensing works by turning these cables into very long lines of virtual hydrophones. To record this data, one injects light pulses into a fiber cable. Some light is scattered back from impurities in the fiber and can be received by a DAS interrogator. Acoustic sources, such as whales, radiate oscillating pressure fields that stretch and compress the fiber. Variations in backscattered light tell us about the acoustic pressure fields at different points along the cable. This means that we can listen to the ocean at many separate points, creating tens of thousands of virtual hydrophones. This data is available immediately ashore at the end of the cable. Distributed acoustic sensing can revolutionize the way we understand and listen to the ocean, but we can go further than that. We can understand mechanisms of earthquakes, risks of landslides, avalanches, floods. For the ocean, we already have more than 1 million kilometers of fiber optic cables. What if we can use this as a global monitoring system?

Giacomo Persi Paoli: I’m now very happy to introduce the next set of speakers on stage. This distinguished panel of experts comprising representatives from government, industry, academia, and civil society will really help us unpack different perspectives on the evolving threat landscape as well as on actionable measures. to protect subsea cable infrastructure, and we just heard through the remarks of all of the four ministers that preceded this panel how multi-stakeholder cooperation is indeed a key component to building resilience. Over the next hour or so, the panel discussion will focus on four key components. First, we will look at the current and emerging threat landscape. We will also try to unpack what are some of the vulnerabilities in the digital systems that monitor, manage, and secure subsea cable networks. We will be diving deeper into applicable international law, voluntary norms, and emerging best practices relevant to subsea cable protection. And last but not least, we will try at least our best to come up with some recommendations for strengthening subsea cable security through technical policy and legal mechanism, including the role of public-private partnership. And now, without further ado, I have the pleasure of inviting to join me here on stage and online Camino Camino Kavanagh, expert and research fellow from UNIDIR, Steinar Bjornstad, strategic competence and research manager at TAMPNET, Evijs Taube, member of the management board from Latvia State Radio and Television Center, Sandra Maximiano, chair of the board of directors of ANACOM, and Kent Bressie, who is joining us online, legal advisor for International Cable Protection Committee. Please join me in a round of applause to welcome our speakers on stage. So, we have structured this as a conversation. We have some questions that we have prepared for our experts. If there will be time towards the end of the session, and if you would like to intervene, please do let me know. But I can’t make many promises because we have to finish at 1 p.m. sharp. So Steiner, I’d like to start with you. From an operator’s perspective, how do you integrate resilience into the design and management of subsea cable infrastructure, both technically and strategically, in high-risk regions like the North Sea?

Steinar Bjornstad: Very good question. So at Tampnet, we are an offshore telecom service provider. These type of services is really important these days because it’s also important for oil and gas. So we have a very critical infrastructure. It’s both mobile, it’s satellite, and it’s fixed links. And the thing is, it all depends on the optical subsea fiber cables. So they are really, really important for the services. And the capacity of these cables, it’s enormous, and it’s carrying a lot of traffic, and also for data centers out of Norway. So how to protect these cables, how to enable resilience? The thing is that you need to be able to do this already in the planning. So we have multiple cables, that’s the first thing. And if something goes wrong, we need to repair it quite fast. So we are a member of an alliance, so ensuring that we can have repair within a couple of weeks if something goes wrong. Also, because it’s very high capacity, it’s not that easy to switch this traffic electronically if something goes wrong from one cable to another. But we use optical switching, and even offshore we have optical switching. So we actually switch the light in the optical fiber cables. And by doing this we are able to protect very quickly, put the traffic over to another cable if one cable fails by some reason. So I think that is maybe the key things that we are doing for protecting the traffic.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you. Camino, I’d like to come to you now. And we’ve heard now, but even in the previous part of the panel, how different regions are experiencing slightly different considerations when it comes to the threat landscape. But building on the work that you’ve done, and if I’d ask you to zoom out and consider a little bit more what is the broader global picture. How is the threat landscape for subsea cable infrastructure evolving across different regions? And what are some of the key challenges that you have identified?

Camino Kavanagh: Thanks Giacomo, and thank you for the invitation to speak here. It’s a real honor to be on this panel with the other panelists. So I think I’ll zoom back in and then zoom out again. What I found interesting from the minister from Estonia, she mentioned the 1884 Convention. And what’s very interesting in some of the research I’ve been doing on damage to subsea cables, if we’re just looking at the submersed element of submarine cables, or subsea cables, was back in 1881, already a group of countries concerned about damage to cables in the North Sea, raised the issue in the pre-negotiations to the 1884 Convention. In 1882, a specific government brought statistics. to the negotiations of the Paris conference and highlighted that 60% of damage to cables was caused by natural events, 35% by unintentional acts due to accidents at sea or force majeure, and 5% due to gross negligence and some malign activities, and I think within that malign activities would have been very minimal. But that was in the build-up to World War I, and as we know during that period as well, state-backed interventions or damage, sabotage, espionage, et cetera, was increasing and was being introduced into battle planning. Let’s move forward a century plus, I think 143 years later, and those statistics wouldn’t have changed very much, although I think maybe the stats between natural causes and unintentional damage caused by accidents and so forth would slightly change in that sense. The number of accidents caused by intentional damage, the stats, it’s very hard to know, because as we know it’s very hard to ascertain responsibility for some of the incidents, but we do know that it’s a great concern for states, and particularly in the European context and Nord Stream, we know that it’s not just a concern with regard to states in this region, but also in the Baltic Sea, the Irish Sea, the North Atlantic, and so forth. But that differs significantly across regions, as was mentioned by Minister Tijani as well. Different regions are experiencing very, very different problems, and so that call for coordination especially coordination from a regulatory perspective, from an operational perspective, is very difficult when your problem set is also very different, and so reaching some kind of alignment there is critical. absolutely key and absolutely key is also engagement with industry. But I’m not going to go too far into that because I understand there are others that will talk about that problem.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you Camino for this at least first stab at the problem and I think it’s interesting because statistics are normally built on the data we have right and it’s always hard it is hard in the cyber domain and it’s probably just as hard doing that in the specific context of subsea cables to really have strong data on malicious or malign activities because we only hear of the successful attempts. What we don’t know is how much of the malicious activity that threatens or targets subsea cable infrastructure isn’t successful and that in probably if we had more visibility into that and we could do something even even more. But I’d like now to to give the floor to you Evis and your organization as you know speaking of incidents as recently experienced the direct impact of a subsea cable incident. Could you walk us through what happened and the immediate actions that were taken to respond to the disruption of service please.

Evijs Taube: Some some say that the cut cable or unplugged cable is the best way to protect against cyber cyber threats just the unfortunate side effect is the lost loss of communication but jokes aside but my big pleasure to be here and to tell the story and about the incidents on subsea cables of course especially last few years or or especially last couple of years the incidents especially in this area Baltic Sea nor North Sea has dramatically increased like in a normal life before the geopolitics politics changed the incidents happened time by time that’s not that’s not any news the fishing nets, et cetera, but the big incidents in numbers has significantly increased. So also, our company has been prepared, so we had the plans before, we had the drills, procedures, table exercises, algorithms, et cetera, et cetera, spare parts, but when the incident happens, basically everything becomes crystal clear, so not loss of communication, our company, our company’s customers and users immediately feel it, and talking about the impact of the incident, there basically are, let’s simplify the networking, so basically there are two parts, one part is the public internet, and thanks to the design, great design of internet, internet, we can say heals itself, so it rebalances and the public, normal users don’t feel it, and there is other part, let’s call them enterprise or data center to data center, connecting A to B, those guys usually, they should have a second, third or fourth route, if one breaks, everything switches over, like my colleague explained. So about the first part, as far as we know, nobody felt the impact, because the capacity of the connections is very huge, and just losing one cable or one cable connection, normal public don’t feel it. Of course we were speculating that there might be some minor examples, for example somebody was doing the stock exchange trading, where the latency is critical, maybe somebody lost some, we don’t know that, maybe somebody lost a game in Counter-Strike or something like that, where latency is important, talking about the latency. So, over cable is connecting Latvia, Sweden, so very important in terms of latency. When we lost the connection, the latency increased five to ten times, because the speed of light is constant, and then we cannot fight physics in that sense, but otherwise everything continued to work. How we fixed the thing. So, said we need to fix it as soon as possible, but it really depends on preparation. Do we have right spares, do we have right spare cable, the right joints, do we have the vessel stand by agreement, do we have right weather, the waves shouldn’t be higher than two meters, for example, for special vessels. So in our incident, we tried three times to recover, the third time was successful, and despite of February being a short month, we managed to fix it within a month, so 28 days, which is a good result in a winter storm. So all in all, we really had a good lesson, you cannot compare that practical lesson to the table exercise, and we learned a lot from it.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you, also for bringing to light some very concrete examples of the sort of incidents that can occur, but also the 28 days is a remarkable result, but it shows that it’s not something that can be fixed overnight, so it does really require adequate planning and adequate resourcing, otherwise 28 days can then be extended even further. I’d like now to come to you Sandra, and given the strategic location and tradition, Portugal is a very relevant player. in the submarine cable industry, and through your work with ANACOM, the National Regulatory Authority for Communications in Portugal, and more recently with the ITU Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience, what practices do you recognize as being most effective for strengthening subsea cable protection at the national level, as well as across jurisdictions?

Sandra Maximiano: First of all, thanks a lot for the invitation. It’s really a great honor to be here and talking about this so important topic. First, I would also like to tell you that Portugal geography places us at the crossroads of global connectivity. We have one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the world, and the long tradition of cable landings. Portugal is uniquely positioned to strengthen its role in the field. So in fact, submarine cables already link us directly to multiple continents. Also, we have two autonomous regions, Madeira and the Source, which are composed by islands, and they depend almost entirely on submarine cables for communication. So that makes us also having this privileged position, but it comes with special responsibilities for ensuring the resilience of submarine cable systems. So we truly believe in four, I would say, key aspects. First, to build redundancy and route diversity. Second, strategic preparation and predictive maintenance. And third, protection zones, so building these protection zones and promote rapid repair capacity. So after all, we cannot prevent every incident. Submarine cable faults are inevitable, as it has been. question we have on how can we or how can it be developed, and how can it be architected so educated people can go to the markets and compete with the hybrid works. There is also some small setbacks which It also suggests a sudden social pause, amongst other things for creating the resilience, ensuring continuity of service of disruption, and these will probably involve, I’ll say four important points, establish multiple geographical diverse cables routes and alternative routes, including satellite backups and terrestrial connections. Avoiding strategic choke points to minimize congestion and high-risk areas, which are more susceptible to sabotage or accidents. And deploying armored cables and burying cables deeper in higher-risk areas. And this will be four important points for planning and building redundancy. Second, I’ll mention strategic preparation, which includes building intelligence into our networks, so they can adapt in real-time. Technologies like software-defining networking and AI analytics allow dynamic rerouting and predictive detection. This agility reduces downtime and boosts resilience. Third, we need collective mechanisms to support repair capacity, especially for regions and countries that lack those resources, to respond on their own. This is particularly important for island states and remote regions. And, at last, we need to promote rapid repair, and it’s really important. For that, we need licensing and permitting procedures that should be simplified and more flexible. And, of course, promote investment in repair vessels and joint capacity. These priorities cannot be postponed. Equally important is having clear plans for incident response, setting strict deadlines for repairs, and establishing priorities levels so that, in case of multiple simultaneous failures, the most critical links, those essential for national security and public welfare, are restored first. So, it’s very important to know which critical infrastructures are in every country so we can establish these priorities. We’re also at a time when technological innovation, particularly artificial intelligence, is reshaping the landscape. The training and deployment of large AI models demand massive computational capacity, as we know, and energy-intensive data centers, which, in turn, depend on robust, high-capacity connectivity, also submarine cables. This is not just about speed, but about enabling an entirely new digital paradigm. Anacom is actively monitoring these trends to ensure that our regulatory framework anticipates infrastructure bottlenecks and ensures sustainable high-capacity connectivity. So, in a very high-speed, I would say, technological change environment, we need regulation to keep the same pace, and that’s what Anacom is investing in nowadays, to keep the same pace as innovation goes, to have a proper regulatory framework. that can enable the redundancy and resilience of marine cables.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you. Thank you very much for your initial overview of some key topics. Again, building on the idea that resilience is intentional. It’s not something that can be responsive to the need. The issue of preparedness and the issue of regulation, which are very important. Kent, thank you so much for patiently waiting online. It is a pleasure to see you on the screen. We’ve heard now and before the importance of public-private partnerships when it comes to the protection of subsea cables. And through your work at ICPC, you engage substantially with both governments and industry. So from your perspective, what are the most effective ways to strengthen public-private partnership in responding to cable-related threats?

Kent Bressie: Thank you, Giacomo, for allowing me to participate remotely. I am actually currently on holiday in Greece before I teach oceans law as part of the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy, which runs each year here in Greece. It’s also nice to see my fellow panelists. To your question, more than anything else, we need more and better awareness and communication between and among submarine cable operators, other marine industries, and governments at the national, regional, and multilateral levels. These are never-ending tasks. They are not one-time things, but we really see a need for ongoing dialogue among these stakeholders at all levels. In particular, governments need to understand what industry already does to promote cable protection and resilience in the design and operation of systems, and also to recognize those actions that governments are uniquely positioned to take, particularly with political and military responses. to intentional damage. In some cases, industry and governments have shared tasks. We also need better understanding of risks and threats to cables. The ICPC, in particular, has a lot of very good data on that, but I’m not sure that it’s always recognized or understood. We also need to understand the interrelationships between unintentional and intentional sources of damage and the fact that the cause of damage is not always immediately known. In the design and development phase, submarine cable operators embed cable protection and system design by selecting routes and landings that balance connectivity needs with risk mitigation and geographic diversity, which Sandra and others today have taken note of, all of which strengthens resilience. In the operating phase, subsequent other marine stakeholders and to publicize the locations of cables, which I’ll return to in a second as that’s become increasingly fraught. Governments don’t need to dictate or duplicate those particular actions, but again, there are some actions that only governments can take. The ICPC launched in 2021 its best practices for governments for cable protection and resilience to highlight the ICPC’s own thinking about this. In particular, the best practices advocate for a holistic approach to risks that minimizes infrastructure damage and promotes continuity of communication, even in the event that there is infrastructure damage. So the best practices are not a lengthy document. They were meant to be very user-friendly, about 12 pages long, and have some very specific best practices. This is highlighted, including the use of default separation distances between cables and other marine activities. As other uncoordinated marine industries, whether it’s wind farms, oil and gas development, seabed mining, vessel anchorages, or fishing can damage cables. Having a single point of contact within national governments. Adoption of cable protection laws and measures and implementation of them. Minimization of cabotage and crewing restrictions, customs duties, taxes, and fees, as this is very much a maritime classification of submarine cables as critical infrastructure in order to secure government resources for protection. This is the subject of a forthcoming study that Camino is publishing. The sharing of risk and threat information between governments and industries we have seen with recent cable damage incidents in the Baltic and the Arctic. There’s still a lot of work to be done there. But so far, I think that a lot of government engagement with the industry in response has so far been very productive. The use of technology such as fiber sensing is also very promising. And then ratification and implementation of the Law of the Sea Convention and the 1884 Convention, both of which established rights and responsibilities for states, including some key tools that relate to cable security. So a lot of these best practices were later incorporated into the New York Statement. Many of them were echoed by Sandra, our previous. panelist speaker. So I’ll just finally note that it’s important for governments to understand how their own policies and regulations can potentially undermine cable protection and resilience, because we’re very concerned about this as an industry, and our best practices also address this. In some jurisdictions, we see national security-oriented regulation creating massive delays for installation and repair permits, and this ultimately undermines development of additional and diverse systems that promote that resilience and allow recovery of damaged systems. We see that regulations oftentimes encourage clustering of cables and landings in narrow corridors to get cables out of the way of offshore energy development or fishing, and that can magnify the risk that a single event will damage multiple cables and disrupt connectivity. And finally, we see a renewed push by some governments to remove cables from nautical charts. This is woefully misguided. Given that approximately 70 percent of cable damage each year is caused by fishing and anchors, removing cables from nautical charts would significantly increase those risks and make it impossible for cable owners to pursue damages claims, because no one would know where the cables are. So ultimately, I don’t think that we need elaborate new regulatory constructs or the like to encourage engagement between governments and industry, but we do need to leverage existing agreements, data, and tools to promote cable resilience, protection, and security, and inform laws, policies, and coordinating mechanisms.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you, Kent, for sharing. your first remarks with us and, you know, having served 15 years in the Navy, the thought of having subsea infrastructure that is not on nautical charts is terrifying in more than one way. But thank you also for bringing to light the best practices that ICPC has developed that I do invite everyone that is interested in consulting. But also for, you opened by stressing the need for continuous dialogue among different stakeholder groups and I think this is key, this is what we’re trying to do, but of course in an hour and a half we can only scratch the surface, there is much more that needs to be done on a continuous basis, even for the simple reason that people change and rotate, particularly in government you may have a very fruitful dialogue today and in six months your counterparts have rotated and have gone to other posts and other jobs and it is important that this dialogue, that there is a mechanism to really make sure this dialogue is continuous. I’d like to go back to our panel for a second round of questions and coming back to you Evis about the incident that you described earlier, and so following the cable disruption, how did your organisation coordinate with national authorities, international partners and any other stakeholder that was relevant, and what are some of the key lessons that emerged about effective collaboration and communication?

Evijs Taube: I would call it different communication channels and first of all they’re very important and not only about like any subsea cable incidents, like any big incidents, we call it like crisis management within a company, so the team should be, like core team of crisis management should be very precise. should be trained, shouldn’t be bigger than needed. Everybody has to know exactly what to do. And that’s also a question of training. As I mentioned, the table exercises. Second is communication with partners. And here we are touching different stakeholders. It includes authorities. It includes international partners. Because like any subsea cable, in most of the cases, it’s connecting countries, right? So you’re connecting one country to another. In our case, Latvia, Sweden. You should know. In our case, we have the established communication line. I’m not talking about cable communication, but about human communication line connecting to NOX 24 by 7. So you always have, like within a minute or seconds, you know to whom to talk to, right? And that also should be documented in the best case, trained, practiced, et cetera. And then the third part is public communication. Public communication also is very important. And you shouldn’t be silent after the incident for days. In our case, we had prepared and we call it routine. Routine press releases daily. You shouldn’t open too much information. Because in many cases, that’s kind of sensitive information, right? What happened in which place. But you shouldn’t also be totally silent. So you should really feel and feel the balance. What to disclose, what don’t disclose. And that’s also very critical. About the communication with different parties involved, it includes already. In subsea cable cases, it includes, of course, the Navy, the military side. Those algorithms and procedures also have to be established before any incidents to be in place, and it also requires training, requires preparation, should be also algorithms written on a paper, trained, drilled, et cetera. So it’s all about preparation. And then in a practice, in the worst case, of course, when an incident happens, you can try it in real life, and there are lessons always. So like any preparation, any plans, who said, Truman said, that any plans go to waste, but the most important is to do the plans.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you. And we’ll come back to this plan and prepare issue later, but I now would like to come back to you, Steiner, about, we’ve heard already how it is important to be able to respond as quickly as possible to minimize disruption. So my question to you is, from a technological standpoint, what are some of the emerging tools or innovations that you see as most promising for detecting, mitigating, or responding to threats to subsea cables?

Steinar Bjornstad: Yeah. And the answer, I think, is actually to combine a lot of tools, to monitor, combining several tools, getting a lot of data. And I think I would like to tell a story how this started. It started with trawlers, probably. We didn’t actually know it was cable cuts, and what was it? We just noticed the light went off, and what happened? And then the first tool that came at hand was AIS information. That is GPS information sent from vessels, also containing some information about their activity like, for example, trolling. And by actively monitoring the activity around our cables, we now have a knowledge of what is going on, which vessels are moving around these cables. But that is on the surface, not underwater, not subsea. And some of these vessels, they just turn off their AIS information. So it’s still challenging. And then we started exploring fiber sensing. Fiber sensing actually means that the fiber works as a microphone or an array of microphones. So we can listen underwater to what is going on. By doing this, we are able to see and listen if a troller is approaching. And we can see it like two kilometers away. So we actually see the subsea activity. And that really enables us to take action very early. But the thing is that trollers, they are crossing the cable like ten times every day. It can be as much as that. So what we actually need to know is also if the cable is hit. Because normally this is okay to pass over the cable because it’s buried. And it should be well-buried, protected. But we can’t control the environment. And there are water currents that may make the cable exposed. So we use a different fiber sensing technology that now also gives us statistics on small hits. And by doing this, we can also see where the cable may be vulnerable. So, combining all these technologies, we know where the cable may be vulnerable, if there is something approaching these vulnerable points, and also statistics on what is going on over the cable, what type of vessels are crossing. So today, most of our network is actually covered with fiber sensing techniques, and we have quite a good overview of what is going on.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: So I would say that, would you say that situational awareness, if you want, has improved significantly in recent years, thanks to technological innovations? Yeah? Okay, good. Thank you for that. And Camino, I’d like to come back to you, and building on the insights shared by panelists, as well as drawing from your own research with Unidear, what are some additional other policy or technical approaches that you’ve seen states and other stakeholders exploring to strengthen the protection and resilience of subsea cables?

Camino Kavanagh: Okay, so basically what we did in the research, we broke government approaches down into three different areas. So how government actions, whether it be policy, regulatory, or operational activity, how it contributes to the actual resilience capacities of the systems themselves. So we looked at the absorptive capacities, which would be the kind of preparedness, ensuring all the procedures and protocols, the regulation and so forth, including many of the best practices that Kent mentioned, and that they are in place in the event that something happens. And now the systems are actually built bearing in mind that something will eventually happen, whether it be regardless of the cause. So the second area that we looked at was the responsive capacities of the system. So what are governments doing to actually prepare and support some of the responses required, and I think Sandra mentioned issues related to repair capabilities and capacities. I think the previous panel discussed workforce challenges and so forth. Industry has a significant focus on workforce at the moment, trying to attract young talent into the industry, but it’s difficult. Also governments need to do the same, and we also have to bear in mind that there are some very small governments, small countries that have limited capacities and that have limited resources, so being able to invest in DAS and so forth is a luxury, and one also has to bear in mind that it also has jurisdictional complications, so there are lots of challenges on that front. Also within the restorative capacities, we are seeing that a number of states are actually looking and are investing in market analysis and so forth to see where it would be best, where the better use of their resources would lie and so forth. There are a range of other issues there in that rubric that we touched upon, which I can come back to. The final tranche that we looked at, or the final area, was in adaptive capacities, and we also often forget about those, but I think colleagues here have also talked about learning from incidents, regardless of the cause again, what can we learn from those, and how do we adapt? How do we adapt our national structures, procedures, regulations, and so forth, to be able to prepare and respond to incidents should they happen? And a final thing that cuts across these different areas is that we’ve been talking mainly about the submersed part of the subsea cable system. We’ve touched upon it slightly, but there’s also the network layer, the supply chain issues, a range of other issues. There’s the repair fleet, the store, the supplies, and so forth. So there are a range of different areas and I think connecting these both through government action in our crisis management, emergency planning and so forth is absolutely critical and I don’t think any government is there yet. So how you bring together all of those elements but with working in conjunction with industry as well as academia is absolutely fundamental.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you Camino. Sandra, I’d like to come back to you with a follow-up question on, you know, given also your role within the advisory body on submarine cable resilience, how do you see international initiatives such as this one foster better cooperation and strengthen the resilience of subsea cable infrastructure?

Sandra Maximiano: So that’s one of the main purposes of the advisory body for submarine cable resilience. And that is one main purpose because definitely collaboration is vital in this case. So to enhance connectivity, to stimulate innovation and promote resilience of submarine cables, and if you look at all these, they are multifaceted tasks and they require collaboration. So across different organizations. So we need governments, we need industry, we need academia and international organizations to work together. So over the past year, ANACOM has deepened our partnerships, recognizing that each player plays a unique role. For instance, governments and regulators create enabling frameworks, as I also mentioned before. Academia advances research and innovation, it’s extremely important. Industry builds and operates vital critical infrastructure. So we need all to work together. And having said this, the challenge is in ensuring that these diverse players speak the same language. And sometimes it’s very difficult because, of course, all of these players, they have their own… interests, they maximize, now speaking like an economist, maximize their own utility and interests, but we need to align their efforts to hard a common goal. And the advisory bodies is an example, it’s a multi-stakeholder forum where we try to do that. So we try to have all these organizations together and working together and trying to align our language for this common goal. So at TANACOM we see this as first-hand and we are very actively fostering an ecosystem that encourage investment in submarine cables and associated infrastructure. We remain committed in leading this agenda at both European and international levels. At European level we do it mainly through BEREC, the body of European regulators for electronic communications and in collaboration with European Commission. In BEREC, for example, TANACOM is a co-leader of the BEREC report on domestic submarine cables in different member states, together with a national regulatory authority from France, ARCEP. We are also very active at European Union Agency for Cybersecurity and this is an important topic there as well. And finally, as mentioned, I’m very proud to co-chair the International Advisory Group for Submarine Cable Resilience, which, as I mentioned, provides a unique global platform for collaboration. So the International Advisory Body, for some that maybe are still not familiar, was launched by the International Telecommunication Union in partnership with the International Cable Protection Committee, ICPC. And this partnership is a significant and fortunate development, combining the ITU’s capacity to promote worldwide dialogue on digital matters with ICPC’s expertise in submarine cable resilience. which I believe to be a very fortunate and needed collaboration. In addition, 40 outstanding personalities from both the public and private sectors across the world are part of the advisory body. So this ensures a diverse knowledge and experience, including contributions from countries ranging from large economies to small island states. So this diversity is extremely important. The role of the advisory body is to promote these open conversations, build trust for the benefit of global community. And we aim at ensuring that discussions are based on technical merit and best practice. I think in my personal view as well, I think we should give special attention to regions, countries and remote islands where economic incentives for prompt response mechanisms are lower. But, of course, their response is important for everyone. So the incentives are there. So we should work in collaboration to increase the response capacity of these small states. The advisory body has made very decisive progress. In particular, I would like to mention in February in Abuja, Nigeria, the International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit. And the body approved the Abuja Declaration, making a key milestone for submarine cable resilience and paving the way for greater international cooperation. Secondly, the body established clear priorities for 2025-26 and decided to form three thematic working groups responsible for deliverable concrete outcomes. These groups will address submarine cable resilience from multiple complementary perspectives. One of the working groups will focus on resilience by design, examining the importance of ensuring service continuity through redundant and diverse communities. communication routes, another working group will focus on timely deployment and repairing of submarine cable systems, exploring how regulatory measures can expedite this process, and the third working group will be dedicated to risk identification, monitoring, and mitigation. So with this framework, we’ll assess the application of new technologies and monitoring systems. So I think it’s, as I said, it’s composed by experts from different regions and stakeholders, and given the progress that we made so far, I’m totally confident that the advisory body will remain committed to ensuring the submarine cables are safe and resilient. So just to conclude, preparing for the future, and especially in this matter, is not a task of one individual body. We must work together, and we share responsibility among regulators, industry, academia, and international communities. So we should cooperate openly, pragmatically, and globally in this case.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you, Sandra. Kent, I’d like to come back to you for a last question. Now with growing international attention to subsea infrastructure protection, how can new initiatives complement and avoid duplicating existing efforts like those led by ICPC and others?

Kent Bressie: Thank you, Giacomo. Well, first, I’d like to start just by noting that I think Sandra laid out very clearly the amazing collaboration that we have between the ITU and the ICPC under her leadership and that of Osun Tejani, who was on our prior panel, and I think that can be a model for leveraging the industry expertise and experience of the ICPC. PC without duplicating it. But I think it’s also important to understand, Sandra was very generous and helpful in describing the advisory body, but I’m not sure that everyone has a good understanding of what the ICPC does either. So I thought I’d note just briefly that the ICPC was founded in 1958, and it’s the world’s leading organization promoting submarine cable protection and resilience. It’s an NGO that works with its members, governments, international organizations, other marine industries, and the scientific community on a number of key tasks. First, to identify and mitigate risks of natural and human damage to cables. The ICPC has developed the world’s leading databases of cable damage information, and also repair time frames, which are key inputs for the work of the advisory body. The ICPC has developed recommendations and the best practices for governments that I mentioned earlier for the entire cable project lifecycle. The ICPC promotes scientific research regarding cables in the marine environment. This is even more critical in light of the BBNJ agreement under the Law of the Sea Convention. And the ICPC just published in partnership with the United Nations Environment Program World Climate Monitoring Center a report titled Submarine Cables and Marine Biodiversity, which we had very much promoted and provided resources for as a resource for governments as they implement the BBNJ agreement. We also work to promote, and this is particularly my task, the rule of law for the oceans, particularly ratification and implementation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. And also, as Camino was mentioning, the 1884 Cable Protection Convention on which there is renewed focus. So the ICPC has more than 240 members from approximately 75 countries. Those are industry representatives, but the ICPC also has about 20 government observers, and we welcome more formal government observers, but also engagement even for those governments who are not observers. So we see, as I noted before, a need for continuing engagement and communication. And this is not just between the ICPC and governments and other marine stakeholders, but also the regional cable protection committees that focus on more localized issues around the world. These aren’t formally subsidiaries of the ICPC, but we coordinate closely with them to avoid duplication of work. We have regional cable protection committees that are very active in submarine cables association, the North American Submarine Cable Association, recently established committees in Africa, and the Oceanic Submarine Cable Association. We do not have regional cable protection committees in that area. The ICPC and these other organizations are all keen to work with governments on a range of initiatives and don’t view the recommendations and principles as they advance in a proprietary fashion. As I noted before, the fact that the New York statement included recommendations the ICPC had previously articulated was very flattering, but we would like to see greater adoption by more and more bodies of that. So other ICPC recent engagements, obviously the international advisory body is a key focus for us. co-executive secretary and we’re grateful for the leadership of our co-chairs who are with us today. We held a critical Law of the Sea workshop for our members and regional academics in Singapore last year with the support of the Australian and Singapore governments looking at key issues with the BDDNJ agreement, regulatory and permitting issues, and security among others. We have worked with the UNODC to develop cable resilience plans in the Indian Ocean region and it’s a really interesting and helpful model I think for a lot of countries in considering how to bring together stakeholders to think more in a more integrated way about connectivity and cable protection. And then I serve on the International Law Association’s Committee on Submarine Cables and Pipelines which is developing guidelines to address prevention, monitoring, and responses under international law to intentional cable damage. As I noted before, we’re unlikely to get a new treaty addressing some of these issues but the ICPC’s view is that countries have existing tools under international law that they can and should use and we certainly point to the government of Finland as having made good use of those tools. So finally there’s a need for better communication and coordination on issues and multilateral processes so these aren’t just sort of looking at best practices initiatives but also looking at collaborating on some critical issues and other fora globally. These include work in the International Seabed Authority to ensure cable protection and resilience in relation to deep sea mining which is increasingly an issue given the push for critical minerals. and development of green technologies, the impact of the new BBNJ agreement on cable routing and permitting, and cable damage by dark fleet ships, which we remain concerned is something that the international community, including the IMO has not yet been able to address effectively. So in general, I think we have the data analysis, recommendations, and potential legal tools that we need,

Karianne Tung: and which shouldn’t necessarily be duplicated, but we need much better and more comprehensive global implementation. Thank you.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you, Kent. We have just a couple of minutes before we have to wrap up this panel. So before I share with you some concluding remarks from my notes, I just wanted to give the panelists literally 20 to 30 seconds maximum, if there is one key takeaway that you would like the audience to walk away after this hour and a half discussing subsea cables, what would that be? And you can only add to whatever the other person has said. So starting with you, Camino.

Camino Kavanagh: Prepare and exercise your preparedness.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you.

Session video: Be prepared, monitor what is going on, situational awareness.

Evijs Taube: I would mention again, this dust systems, which were mentioned. So every cable, existing cable is a big asset, and we can call it a big sensor. If we install, already installed, also on the new cables, distributed or centralized, whatever integrated system of such a sensors in a particular area, for example, Baltic Sea, which is very compact sea. Some call it Baltic Lake as a test bed. And that would give a big benefit, not only protecting the cables, but to understand what is going on under the water. There is a shadow fleet, there is normal fleet, there is other fleet, but nobody knows what is happening. If shadow fleet switches off the AIS system, it goes invisible. with such sensors, we can immediately see something better.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you. Sandra?

Sandra Maximiano: And as I said, I think collaboration is the key. This is a very important matter. It’s a multi-stakeholder issue and we should work together and, as I said, involve everyone, governments, academia, regulators, international organizations, and increase awareness and, of course, work on the best practices. I think booklets of best practices to act are very important and especially some countries are at a different speed, but in this issue we should all try to align the speed that we move on because, as I said, small states, remote islands, they can’t be left alone because it will have a negative impact for all of us.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you. Kent, any final thoughts on your side?

Kent Bressie: Yes. Convene and communicate with stakeholders. Negotiations are really a complicated place.

Giacomo Persi Paoli: Thank you. So, very quickly, because time is up, what I took away from this hour and a half is the following. Strengthening the resilience of subsea cable is a team sport. It’s a team sport that requires different players knowing exactly what to do and working together as a team. No individual player can really achieve this ambitious goal without working with others. But also that resilience has different components. One is protection. Protection is key, but it’s also necessary, but it’s not sufficient. It has to be matched with adequate planning, because no matter how well we protect our cables, incidents are going to happen, and it’s important to have plans that are well thought in advance, so resiliency cannot be improvised. It has to be made by design through careful planning. But while planning is essential, plans are useless unless they are put in practice through concrete measures of preparedness, which include dialogue and discussions and cooperation between states, between public and private cooperation. And this cooperation needs to be tested through exercises, through crisis management drills that really bring to the surface all of the possible mechanisms that need to be improved, because ultimately the last important pillar is the pillar of response that needs to be effective, needs to be quick, in order to minimize disruption and make sure that we work towards resilience, redundancy, and ultimately continuity of service. With that, I hope that the summary does not do justice to an hour and a half in discussion, but hopefully it touches on the key points, and we’re out of time. I do invite you to approach our speakers and experts after the session if you would like to ask more questions. All is left for me to do is to thank you, the audience, for engaging or for being here in person and online, the government of Norway, not only for being amazing hosts, but also for partnering with UNIDIR in organizing this session, and of course, last but not least, to our excellent experts and speakers that took their time to share their knowledge with us. So please join me in a round of applause for our speakers. Thank you.

Agreement points

Critical Infrastructure Dependency

Speakers

– Giacomo Persi Paoli
– Karianne Tung
– Bosun Tijani
– Liisa-Ly Pakosta

Arguments

Subsea cables carry over 99% of global intercontinental data traffic, making them critical digital infrastructure

Digital society is completely dependent on submarine cables for healthcare, education, transport systems

Submarine cables are not just technical assets but the most important critical infrastructure globally

Estonia as a fully digital state faces actual threats to government services when cables are cut

Summary

All speakers unanimously agree that subsea cables represent critical infrastructure that modern digital society cannot function without, carrying the vast majority of global data traffic and supporting essential services

Topics

Infrastructure | Cybersecurity

International Cooperation Necessity

Speakers

– Karianne Tung
– Jarno Syrjala
– Bosun Tijani
– Liisa-Ly Pakosta
– Sandra Maximiano

Arguments

Cross-border cooperation is crucial since submarine cables cross national borders and international waters

International cooperation through NATO, EU, and ITU helps build resilience and response capabilities

Many countries and regions lack expertise and frameworks to address cable protection

Need for universal set of rules to protect citizens across all continents

ITU Advisory Body provides global platform for collaboration between public and private sectors

Summary

Strong consensus that submarine cable protection requires extensive international cooperation due to the cross-border nature of the infrastructure and varying national capabilities

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Public-Private Partnership Requirements

Speakers

– Karianne Tung
– Jarno Syrjala
– Kent Bressie

Arguments

Close cooperation between private sector and civil/defense authorities maximizes knowledge and strength

Solid public-private partnership is one of the most important aspects of telecommunications resilience

Need for better awareness and communication between submarine cable operators, marine industries, and governments

Summary

Clear agreement that effective subsea cable protection requires strong partnerships between government and private sector, combining their respective expertise and capabilities

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Resilience by Design Philosophy

Speakers

– Bosun Tijani
– Sandra Maximiano
– Steinar Bjornstad

Arguments

Resilience should be intentional and built into design, not an afterthought

Building redundancy through multiple geographical diverse cable routes and avoiding strategic choke points

Multiple cables and optical switching enable quick traffic rerouting when cables fail

Summary

Consensus that resilience must be intentionally designed into cable systems from the beginning, incorporating redundancy and multiple pathways rather than being added as an afterthought

Topics

Infrastructure | Cybersecurity

Preparation and Planning Importance

Speakers

– Evijs Taube
– Camino Kavanagh
– Sandra Maximiano

Arguments

Preparation through table exercises and drills, though real incidents provide irreplaceable learning

Prepare and exercise your preparedness

Need for collective mechanisms to support repair capacity, especially for regions lacking resources

Summary

Strong agreement that effective cable protection requires extensive advance preparation, including exercises, drills, and pre-positioned resources for rapid response

Topics

Infrastructure | Cybersecurity

Similar viewpoints

These speakers share the view that the threat landscape has fundamentally changed, with increased intentional attacks on subsea cables, particularly in the context of current geopolitical tensions and conflicts

Speakers

– Karianne Tung
– Liisa-Ly Pakosta
– Camino Kavanagh

Arguments

Recent incidents with damages to subsea cables in Baltic Sea and Red Sea highlight increased vulnerability

Dramatic rise in ‘accidents’ during full-scale war in Ukraine, with intentional cable cutting by Russian shadow fleet

Historical perspective shows 60% natural causes, 35% unintentional accidents, 5% malicious activity, but intentional threats are increasing

Topics

Cybersecurity | Infrastructure

Both emphasize the potential of advanced sensing technologies, particularly fiber sensing and distributed acoustic sensing, to transform cables into comprehensive monitoring systems

Speakers

– Steinar Bjornstad
– Session video

Arguments

Combining multiple monitoring tools including AIS information and fiber sensing provides comprehensive situational awareness

Distributed acoustic sensing can turn fiber optic cables into virtual hydrophones for ocean monitoring

Topics

Infrastructure | Cybersecurity

Both speakers highlight the disparity in global capabilities for cable protection, with particular concern for developing countries and small island states that lack resources and expertise

Speakers

– Bosun Tijani
– Sandra Maximiano

Arguments

Many countries and regions lack expertise and frameworks to address cable protection

Small island states and remote regions need special attention where economic incentives for response are lower

Topics

Infrastructure | Development

Unexpected consensus

Technology Integration for Monitoring

Speakers

– Steinar Bjornstad
– Evijs Taube
– Session video

Arguments

Fiber sensing technology allows cables to work as underwater microphones, detecting approaching threats

Importance of established communication lines with international partners and 24/7 contact protocols

Existing global fiber optic cable network can serve as comprehensive monitoring system for multiple applications

Explanation

Unexpected strong consensus emerged around leveraging existing cable infrastructure for comprehensive monitoring beyond just communication purposes, including environmental monitoring and threat detection. This represents a shift from viewing cables purely as communication infrastructure to seeing them as multi-purpose sensing networks

Topics

Infrastructure | Cybersecurity

Regulatory Framework Challenges

Speakers

– Kent Bressie
– Sandra Maximiano

Arguments

Government policies can potentially undermine cable protection through excessive delays and clustering requirements

Need for regulation to keep pace with technological innovation and high-capacity connectivity demands

Explanation

Unexpected consensus that well-intentioned government regulations can actually harm cable security, with both speakers acknowledging that regulatory frameworks need to be carefully designed to support rather than hinder cable protection efforts

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed remarkably strong consensus across all speakers on fundamental issues: the critical importance of subsea cables to modern society, the necessity of international cooperation, the requirement for public-private partnerships, and the need for intentional resilience design. There was also broad agreement on the changing threat landscape and the importance of preparation and planning.

Consensus level

Very high level of consensus with no significant disagreements identified. This strong alignment suggests the subsea cable protection community has developed shared understanding of challenges and solutions, which bodes well for coordinated international action. The consensus spans technical, policy, and governance dimensions, indicating mature thinking about this critical infrastructure challenge.

Different viewpoints

Approach to cable location transparency vs. security

Speakers

– Kent Bressie

Arguments

Removing cables from nautical charts is misguided and would increase risks from fishing and anchoring

Summary

Kent Bressie strongly opposes government efforts to remove cable locations from nautical charts for security reasons, arguing this would increase the primary causes of damage (70% from fishing/anchoring). However, no other speakers directly addressed this specific policy debate, suggesting potential disagreement exists but wasn’t explicitly debated.

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected differences

Limited explicit debate on regulatory approaches

Speakers

– Kent Bressie
– Sandra Maximiano

Arguments

Government policies can potentially undermine cable protection through excessive delays and clustering requirements

Need for regulation to keep pace with technological innovation and high-capacity connectivity demands

Explanation

Unexpectedly, there was minimal debate about the balance between security-focused regulation and operational efficiency. Kent Bressie warned about over-regulation creating delays and vulnerabilities, while Sandra Maximiano advocated for proactive regulatory frameworks. This fundamental tension between security and efficiency wasn’t directly addressed or debated.

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkable consensus on key issues: the critical importance of subsea cables, need for international cooperation, public-private partnerships, resilience by design, and preparation for incidents. The few areas of potential disagreement were not directly debated.

Disagreement level

Very low disagreement level. This consensus likely reflects the technical and collaborative nature of the subsea cable community, but may also indicate insufficient exploration of challenging policy trade-offs. The high level of agreement could facilitate implementation of recommended measures, but might also suggest that more difficult questions about resource allocation, regulatory balance, and competing priorities need deeper examination in future discussions.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

These speakers share the view that the threat landscape has fundamentally changed, with increased intentional attacks on subsea cables, particularly in the context of current geopolitical tensions and conflicts

Speakers

– Karianne Tung
– Liisa-Ly Pakosta
– Camino Kavanagh

Arguments

Recent incidents with damages to subsea cables in Baltic Sea and Red Sea highlight increased vulnerability

Dramatic rise in ‘accidents’ during full-scale war in Ukraine, with intentional cable cutting by Russian shadow fleet

Historical perspective shows 60% natural causes, 35% unintentional accidents, 5% malicious activity, but intentional threats are increasing

Topics

Cybersecurity | Infrastructure

Both emphasize the potential of advanced sensing technologies, particularly fiber sensing and distributed acoustic sensing, to transform cables into comprehensive monitoring systems

Speakers

– Steinar Bjornstad
– Session video

Arguments

Combining multiple monitoring tools including AIS information and fiber sensing provides comprehensive situational awareness

Distributed acoustic sensing can turn fiber optic cables into virtual hydrophones for ocean monitoring

Topics

Infrastructure | Cybersecurity

Both speakers highlight the disparity in global capabilities for cable protection, with particular concern for developing countries and small island states that lack resources and expertise

Speakers

– Bosun Tijani
– Sandra Maximiano

Arguments

Many countries and regions lack expertise and frameworks to address cable protection

Small island states and remote regions need special attention where economic incentives for response are lower

Topics

Infrastructure | Development

Key takeaways

Subsea cables carrying 99% of global intercontinental data are critical infrastructure requiring urgent protection due to increasing intentional threats, particularly from geopolitical tensions and hybrid warfare

Resilience must be built by design through four key pillars: protection, planning, preparedness, and response – it cannot be improvised or treated as an afterthought

Strengthening subsea cable security is a ‘team sport’ requiring coordinated multi-stakeholder cooperation between governments, industry, academia, and international organizations

Public-private partnerships are essential, with governments needing to understand industry capabilities while taking actions only they can perform (political/military responses)

Technical innovations like fiber sensing and distributed acoustic sensing are revolutionizing threat detection and situational awareness for cable monitoring

Regional cooperation frameworks (North Sea 2024, Baltic Sea 2025) demonstrate effective models for cross-border collaboration on cable protection

Redundancy and route diversity are critical for resilience, with countries needing multiple cable connections rather than single points of failure

Repair capacity and preparedness require significant investment in specialized vessels, equipment, spare parts, and trained personnel

Different regions face vastly different threat landscapes, requiring tailored approaches while maintaining global coordination standards

Resolutions and action items

ITU Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience established three working groups for 2025-26: resilience by design, timely deployment/repair, and risk identification/monitoring

Abuja Declaration approved in February 2025 as milestone for international cooperation on submarine cable resilience

Countries committed to implementing EU Action Plan on Cable Security with four objectives: prevention, detection, response/repair, and deterrence

Multiple countries signed New York Declaration on Submarine Cable Security to promote integrity and accessibility

Norway establishing dedicated cooperation between private sector and civil/defense authorities with clarified roles and responsibilities

Nigeria setting up dedicated desk within communications commission for cable protection protocols and international coordination

Finland transposing NIS2 directive into national law (April 2025) with comprehensive telecommunications resilience requirements

Unresolved issues

Limited repair capacity globally, particularly shortage of specialized vessels and trained personnel for cable maintenance

Lack of adequate frameworks and expertise in many developing countries and small island states for cable protection

Insufficient economic incentives for prompt response mechanisms in remote regions where commercial viability is lower

Debate over removing cables from nautical charts for security versus safety concerns (industry strongly opposes removal)

Challenges in attributing responsibility for cable incidents and distinguishing between intentional and unintentional damage

Regulatory delays and bureaucratic obstacles that can undermine cable protection and repair efforts

Workforce development challenges in attracting young talent to the submarine cable industry

Coordination difficulties across different jurisdictions and legal frameworks for international cable systems

Suggested compromises

Collective mechanisms to support repair capacity for regions and countries lacking resources, with shared investment in repair vessels and joint capacity

Balanced approach to cable route planning that avoids both strategic choke points and excessive clustering while meeting connectivity needs

Graduated response protocols that prioritize critical infrastructure restoration based on national security and public welfare importance

Flexible licensing and permitting procedures that balance security requirements with operational efficiency for repairs

Regional cooperation models that can be adapted to different geographic and political contexts while maintaining core protection principles

Public-private information sharing frameworks that protect sensitive operational details while enabling effective threat response

Technology sharing arrangements where advanced countries assist developing nations with monitoring capabilities and expertise transfer

Resilience should be intentional. It shouldn’t be something that is afterthought… I was surprised at how, of course, we were fortunate, the private sector… came together. But as a minister, I didn’t have any answer to give to people. And people don’t often complain about companies when you have natural disasters. It’s the government that they look to for answer.

Speaker

Bosun Tijani (Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy of Nigeria)

Reason

This comment fundamentally reframed the discussion from technical protection measures to governance accountability. Tijani’s personal experience during the West African cable cuts revealed a critical gap between technical preparedness and political responsibility, highlighting how governments are held accountable for infrastructure failures regardless of ownership structures.

Impact

This shifted the conversation toward the need for proactive government frameworks and sparked subsequent discussions about public-private partnerships, regulatory preparedness, and the importance of having clear protocols before incidents occur. It influenced other speakers to emphasize planning and preparedness rather than just reactive measures.

Let us remember that it was 1884 when the Paris Convention of Undersea Telegraphic Cables was agreed… So this is actually the situation where we are just now, as well, within the broader geopolitical situation. What we see around this area… that the Russian shadow fleet is cutting down our connections.

Speaker

Liisa-Ly Pakosta (Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs of Estonia)

Reason

This historical parallel was profound because it connected current geopolitical tensions to a 140-year pattern of intentional cable disruption during conflicts. By referencing the 1884 convention, Pakosta demonstrated that cable protection challenges aren’t new but have evolved with geopolitical contexts, directly naming current threat actors.

Impact

This comment elevated the discussion from technical and regulatory issues to explicit geopolitical framing, legitimizing direct discussion of state-sponsored threats. It influenced the tone of subsequent technical discussions by establishing the current security environment as fundamentally different from peacetime operations.

Statistics from 1882: 60% of damage caused by natural events, 35% by unintentional acts due to accidents at sea or force majeure, and 5% due to gross negligence and some malign activities… those statistics wouldn’t have changed very much, although… the stats between natural causes and unintentional damage… would slightly change… it’s very hard to ascertain responsibility for some of the incidents.

Speaker

Camino Kavanagh (UNIDIR expert)

Reason

This historical data analysis was intellectually striking because it revealed the consistency of threat patterns across 140+ years while highlighting the fundamental challenge of attribution in cable incidents. It provided empirical grounding for policy discussions while acknowledging the inherent difficulty in distinguishing between intentional and unintentional damage.

Impact

This comment provided crucial context that influenced how other speakers framed their responses, moving away from assumptions about threat prevalence toward evidence-based discussions. It also highlighted the attribution challenge that became a recurring theme in technical monitoring discussions.

We see a renewed push by some governments to remove cables from nautical charts. This is woefully misguided. Given that approximately 70 percent of cable damage each year is caused by fishing and anchors, removing cables from nautical charts would significantly increase those risks and make it impossible for cable owners to pursue damages claims.

Speaker

Kent Bressie (ICPC legal advisor)

Reason

This comment challenged a counterintuitive security approach that could actually increase vulnerabilities. It demonstrated how security-through-obscurity thinking can backfire in maritime infrastructure, where transparency actually enhances protection by enabling avoidance of accidental damage.

Impact

This practical insight influenced the discussion toward evidence-based security measures rather than intuitive but potentially counterproductive approaches. It reinforced the theme that effective protection requires understanding actual threat vectors rather than theoretical ones.

Every cable, existing cable is a big asset, and we can call it a big sensor. If we install… distributed or centralized… integrated system of such sensors in a particular area, for example, Baltic Sea… that would give a big benefit, not only protecting the cables, but to understand what is going on under the water.

Speaker

Evijs Taube (Latvia State Radio and Television Center)

Reason

This comment introduced a paradigm shift from viewing cables as passive infrastructure to active sensing networks. It suggested transforming the problem from protecting vulnerable assets to creating a comprehensive underwater surveillance system, turning the infrastructure itself into a security solution.

Impact

This technical insight influenced the discussion toward dual-use technologies and comprehensive situational awareness. It connected to earlier discussions about distributed acoustic sensing and elevated the conversation from individual cable protection to regional maritime domain awareness.

We need a combination of national, regional, and international cooperation to achieve effective resilience measures… Threats to subsea communication cables are not limited by national borders, so international cooperation is vital for protection of subsea cables.

Speaker

Karianne Tung (Norwegian Minister of Digitalisation)

Reason

While cooperation was mentioned throughout, Tung’s framing established the multi-level governance structure needed for transnational infrastructure. Her concrete examples of North Sea and Baltic Sea cooperation agreements provided practical models for how abstract cooperation principles could be operationalized.

Impact

This set the framework for the entire discussion, with subsequent speakers building on the multi-stakeholder, multi-level cooperation theme. It influenced how other participants framed their national experiences within broader international contexts.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by establishing three critical frameworks: (1) the historical continuity of cable threats with contemporary geopolitical urgency, (2) the shift from reactive technical protection to proactive governance accountability, and (3) the transformation of cables from passive infrastructure to active sensing networks. The most impactful insight was Tijani’s reframing of resilience as intentional governance responsibility, which influenced subsequent speakers to emphasize preparedness and planning over purely technical solutions. The historical perspectives from Pakosta and Kavanagh provided crucial context that legitimized current security concerns while grounding them in empirical evidence. Together, these comments elevated the discussion from a technical workshop to a strategic policy dialogue that balanced historical lessons, current geopolitical realities, and future technological possibilities.

How can we develop well-working mechanisms that are innovative and willing to experiment for protecting critical undersea infrastructure?

Speaker

Jarno Syrjala

Explanation

There’s a need for urgency in developing innovative technological solutions and experimental approaches to protect subsea cables, suggesting current methods may be insufficient

What is the optimal investment strategy for repair ships and talent given that cable incidents don’t happen frequently?

Speaker

Bosun Tijani

Explanation

The challenge of making calculated investments in repair capacity and skilled workforce when incidents are infrequent but critical when they occur needs further analysis

How can we better understand the statistics and data on malicious activities targeting subsea cables?

Speaker

Camino Kavanagh (implied by Giacomo Persi Paoli)

Explanation

There’s limited visibility into unsuccessful malicious attempts against subsea cables, making it difficult to assess the true scope of intentional threats

How can countries with limited resources and capacities invest in advanced monitoring technologies like DAS (Distributed Acoustic Sensing)?

Speaker

Camino Kavanagh

Explanation

Small governments and countries have limited resources to invest in expensive monitoring technologies, creating gaps in global protection coverage

How can we address the workforce challenges in the subsea cable industry to attract young talent?

Speaker

Camino Kavanagh

Explanation

Both industry and governments face difficulties in attracting young professionals to work in the subsea cable sector, which is critical for long-term resilience

How can we better integrate crisis management and emergency planning across different elements of subsea cable systems (submersed parts, network layer, supply chain, repair fleet)?

Speaker

Camino Kavanagh

Explanation

No government has yet successfully integrated all aspects of subsea cable protection into comprehensive crisis management systems

How can we ensure regulatory frameworks keep pace with rapid technological changes, particularly AI and high-capacity connectivity demands?

Speaker

Sandra Maximiano

Explanation

The rapid evolution of technology, especially AI requiring massive computational capacity, is outpacing regulatory frameworks designed to ensure cable resilience

How can we address cable damage by dark fleet ships through international mechanisms like the IMO?

Speaker

Kent Bressie

Explanation

The international community has not yet effectively addressed the threat posed by dark fleet vessels that can damage cables while operating without proper identification

How can we implement integrated distributed acoustic sensing systems across compact sea areas like the Baltic Sea?

Speaker

Evijs Taube

Explanation

Creating a comprehensive underwater monitoring network using existing cables as sensors could provide better situational awareness but requires coordination and technical implementation

How can we develop mechanisms to ensure continuity of dialogue between government and industry stakeholders despite personnel rotation?

Speaker

Giacomo Persi Paoli

Explanation

The challenge of maintaining effective public-private partnerships when government personnel frequently rotate to different positions needs systematic solutions

Summary

This discussion was a networking session about the 18th edition of EuroDIG (European Dialogue on Internet Governance), which took place in Strasbourg at the Council of Europe. Sandra Hoferichter welcomed participants and explained that this year’s conference returned to where EuroDIG originally began, making it particularly special. The overarching theme was “balancing innovation and regulation” with an added focus on “safeguarding human rights” given the Council of Europe venue.

Thomas Schneider, Swiss ambassador and president of the EuroDIG Support Association, presented key messages from the WSIS+20 review process. He emphasized that the European community strongly supports the multi-stakeholder approach as fundamental to solving digital issues, with regional diversity and National and Regional Internet Governance Initiatives (NRIs) being crucial for bringing diverse voices into global processes. The community advocates for making the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) a permanent institution rather than renewing its mandate every 10 years, and calls for the WSIS+20 process to be more open, transparent, and inclusive rather than conducted behind closed doors.

Frances Douglas-Thompson, a YouthDIG participant, highlighted two controversial areas that emerged from youth discussions. First, regarding digital literacy, young people disagreed on how to approach generative AI in education—whether it should be seen as a positive assistant or as something that creates complacency and erodes critical thinking skills. Second, on content moderation, there was significant disagreement between those favoring strict moderation to combat misinformation and violence, and those concerned about freedom of speech and expression. The youth ultimately agreed on improving algorithm transparency so users can better understand why they receive certain content.

The session concluded with audience questions addressing broader challenges in internet governance, including the role of these dialogues during humanitarian crises and how to increase youth participation in policy discussions.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **WSIS+20 Review and Internet Governance Framework**: Discussion of EuroDIG’s input on the World Summit on the Information Society plus 20 review process, emphasizing the need for multi-stakeholder approaches, making the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) a permanent institution rather than renewing it every 10 years, and ensuring the review process remains open and inclusive rather than conducted behind closed doors.

– **Youth Participation and Controversial Digital Policy Issues**: Presentation of YouthDIG findings highlighting divisions among young Europeans on key issues like digital literacy curriculum design, the role of generative AI in education, and content moderation approaches – with some favoring strict moderation while others worried about freedom of expression implications.

– **AI Governance and Human Rights**: Focus on artificial intelligence governance challenges, particularly around privacy and data protection in environments where distinguishing private from non-private data becomes increasingly difficult, and the need to safeguard human rights in digital spaces.

– **Democratic Participation and Crisis Response**: Discussion of how internet governance forums can address humanitarian crises, misinformation during conflicts, and the broader challenge of maintaining democratic engagement when people may be losing faith in democratic institutions and seeking simpler answers from authoritarian figures.

– **Practical Youth Engagement Strategies**: Exploration of effective methods for involving young people in internet governance, including financial support for participation, bottom-up rather than top-down approaches, and creating spaces where youth voices are taken seriously in policy discussions.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion served as a networking session and report-back from the 18th EuroDIG conference, aimed at sharing key outcomes and messages from the European internet governance community, particularly focusing on WSIS+20 review input and youth perspectives, while fostering dialogue about current digital policy challenges.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a professional yet accessible tone throughout, beginning with formal presentations but becoming increasingly interactive and engaged as audience questions introduced more complex and sometimes challenging topics. The tone remained constructive and solution-oriented even when addressing difficult issues like democratic backsliding and humanitarian crises, with speakers demonstrating both realism about current challenges and optimism about the potential for continued progress through multi-stakeholder dialogue.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Sandra Hoferichter** – Session moderator/facilitator for EuroDIG networking session

– **Thomas Schneider** – Swiss ambassador, President of the EuroDIG Support Association

– **Frances Douglas Thomson** – YouthDIG participant, youth representative

– **Hans Seeuws** – Business operations manager of .eu (operates top-level domain on behalf of the European Commission)

– **Chetan Sharma** – Representative from Data Mission Foundation Trust India

– **Janice Richardson** – Expert to the Council of Europe

– **Audience** – Various unidentified audience members who asked questions

**Additional speakers:**

– **Thomas** (different from Thomas Schneider) – Former youth delegate/youth digger from the previous year

– **Audience member from Geneva** – Representative from Geneva Macro labs University of Geneva, active with program committee

# EuroDIG 18th Edition: Networking Session Summary

## Introduction and Context

The 18th edition of EuroDIG (European Dialogue on Internet Governance) took place at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, marking a symbolic return to where the initiative originally began in 2008. Sandra Hoferichter, serving as session moderator, welcomed participants to this 30-minute networking session during the lunch break, designed to share key outcomes and messages from the conference. As Sandra noted, this return to “where it all started” made the event particularly special.

The overarching theme focused on “balancing innovation and regulation” with particular emphasis on “safeguarding human rights,” reflecting the significance of hosting the event at the Council of Europe. Although Council of Europe representatives were unable to attend due to the Deputy Secretary General having another mission, the session proceeded with its planned agenda.

This networking session served multiple purposes: reporting back on conference outcomes, sharing key messages for the WSIS+20 review process, presenting youth perspectives through YouthDIG findings, and fostering dialogue about contemporary digital governance challenges. The discussion brought together diverse stakeholders including diplomats, youth representatives, business operators, and civil society experts.

## WSIS+20 Review Process and European Messages

Thomas Schneider, Swiss ambassador and President of the EuroDIG Support Association, presented the European community’s key messages for the World Summit on the Information Society plus 20 (WSIS+20) review process. These represent “messages from Strasbourg number two” – the first being from 2008 – continuing EuroDIG’s tradition of producing consolidated input from the European internet governance community. Notably, EuroDIG invented the concept of “messages” that has since been adopted by the global IGF and other local IGFs.

The input gathering process was facilitated by Mark Harvell, a former UK government member, and the messages will be delivered to Suela Janina, the Albanian permanent representative who serves as European co-facilitator for WSIS+20.

The European community strongly advocates for maintaining and strengthening the multi-stakeholder approach as fundamental to solving digital issues. Schneider emphasized that regional diversity and National and Regional Internet Governance Initiatives (NRIs) play crucial roles in bringing diverse voices into global processes, ensuring that internet governance remains inclusive rather than dominated by any single stakeholder group.

A significant recommendation concerns the Internet Governance Forum’s institutional status. The European community calls for making the IGF a permanent institution rather than continuing the current practice of renewing its mandate every ten years. This change would provide greater stability and enable better long-term planning. Schneider noted that the IGF has evolved beyond its original focus on “critical internet resources and domain names” and now serves a “decision-shaping” rather than “decision-making” role.

Regarding the WSIS+20 review process itself, there was strong emphasis on ensuring it remains open, transparent, and inclusive rather than being conducted behind closed doors among diplomats. The messages also address contemporary challenges including AI governance, human rights protection in digital spaces, and data protection challenges.

## Youth Perspectives and Digital Policy Controversies

Frances Douglas Thomson, representing YouthDIG participants, presented excerpts from the youth messages, focusing on two particularly controversial areas that emerged from their discussions. The YouthDIG programme brought together young participants who met online the month before EuroDIG, then worked together for three days during the conference to develop their positions.

Thomson revealed that these controversial areas surprised organizers with the level of disagreement among youth participants, challenging common assumptions about youth consensus on digital issues and highlighting the complexity of generational perspectives on digital governance.

### Digital Literacy Curriculum Debates

The first controversial area concerned digital literacy curriculum development, specifically “who decides on the syllabus for digital literacy and how do these issues get presented,” particularly regarding generative AI in educational contexts. Youth participants were divided between those who view AI as a beneficial educational assistant that can enhance learning experiences and those who worry about creating dependency and eroding critical thinking skills.

This disagreement reflects broader questions about educational governance and how emerging technologies should be framed for young learners, suggesting that educational approaches may need to acknowledge multiple perspectives rather than presenting singular narratives.

### Content Moderation: Balancing Safety and Freedom

The second major area involved content moderation approaches, where youth participants were fundamentally split between strict safety measures and freedom of expression concerns. One group supported comprehensive content moderation including warnings, banning, and flagging of harmful content, while another group viewed such measures as threats to free speech.

However, youth participants found common ground in supporting algorithmic transparency. Their compromise solution focused on increased user understanding of “why is the algorithm feeding me this” with options to access “the other side” or “other sources.” This approach emphasizes user empowerment through information rather than content restriction.

### Social Media Regulation Approaches

When asked by a former youth delegate whether the goal should be to “lessen time spent online for youth” or ensure they see the “right type of stuff,” Frances emphasized focusing on content quality rather than quantity restrictions. She argued that time-based restrictions could limit access to valuable democratic spaces where young people engage with political and social issues, advocating instead for approaches that recognize social media’s potential as venues for civic engagement.

## Business and Technical Stakeholder Perspectives

Hans Seeuws, business operations manager of .eu (operating the top-level domain on behalf of the European Commission), provided insights from the technical and business stakeholder perspective. His participation highlighted the importance of involving infrastructure operators in internet governance discussions, as these stakeholders bring practical implementation experience.

Seeuws expressed particular interest in seeing EuroDIG messages influence decision-makers, especially regarding AI governance, human rights protection, data privacy, and youth involvement in policy processes, emphasizing the need for translating policy discussions into practical implementation.

## Crisis Response and Humanitarian Challenges

Chetan Sharma from the Data Mission Foundation Trust India raised challenging questions about internet governance platforms’ effectiveness in addressing humanitarian crises. He argued that these forums had missed opportunities to build advocacy roles during recent crises, suggesting they could contribute more meaningfully to raising awareness about urgent humanitarian situations.

Frances Douglas Thomson responded by highlighting that EuroDIG does address conflict-related issues through discussions on autonomous weapons, internet weaponization, and misinformation in warfare, bringing together diverse stakeholders to examine how digital technologies are used in conflicts.

Thomas Schneider acknowledged the challenges facing multilateral approaches while suggesting that crises can create opportunities for rethinking governance approaches. He noted that despite government knowledge gaps and engagement difficulties, other stakeholders can continue advancing important policy discussions.

## Democratic Participation and Governance Challenges

An audience member from Geneva raised fundamental questions about fixing internet policy when governments lack technical expertise and multilateral approaches appear insufficient. This prompted reflection on traditional governance limitations in addressing rapidly evolving technological challenges.

Schneider provided context suggesting that current challenges may reflect consequences of previous success, where people may be losing appreciation for the effort required to maintain democratic institutions. He emphasized that maintaining democracy and quality information requires continuous effort, particularly during crises when people may seek simple answers to complex problems.

## Youth Engagement Strategies and Implementation

The session explored practical strategies for expanding youth participation beyond current programs. Sandra Hoferichter emphasized the importance of promoting programs like YouthDIG through schools and social media to increase awareness among young people who might not otherwise encounter internet governance discussions.

A significant challenge identified was providing structural support, including financial assistance for travel and accommodation. Sandra made a specific appeal for support for participants from distant countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, noting the expensive flight costs that create barriers to participation.

Frances emphasized the importance of bottom-up rather than top-down approaches to youth engagement, ensuring young people feel taken seriously in policy spaces rather than being treated as token participants. She highlighted how these dialogues “impact when people go away from these dialogues how they perceive this issue.”

## Regional Diversity and Global Coordination

Throughout the discussion, speakers emphasized maintaining regional diversity within global internet governance processes. The European approach recognizes that different regions may have different priorities and approaches while still requiring coordination on global issues.

This perspective acknowledges that internet governance challenges manifest differently across regions due to varying legal frameworks, cultural contexts, and technological infrastructure. Regional initiatives like EuroDIG provide opportunities for developing contextually appropriate approaches while contributing to global policy discussions.

## Conclusions and Future Directions

The networking session demonstrated both achievements and ongoing challenges of multi-stakeholder internet governance approaches. While there was strong consensus on fundamental principles such as inclusivity, transparency, and multi-stakeholder participation, significant disagreements remain on specific policy approaches.

The revelation of disagreements within the youth community challenged assumptions about generational consensus and highlighted the need for more nuanced approaches to youth engagement that acknowledge diverse perspectives rather than treating young people as a monolithic group.

Sandra concluded the session by encouraging participants to visit the joint booth with other NRIs and to reach out for deeper discussions on the topics raised. The session reinforced that internet governance remains a work in progress, requiring continuous adaptation to address emerging challenges while maintaining commitment to inclusive, transparent, and participatory approaches.

The diversity of perspectives represented – from youth participants to business operators to diplomatic representatives – demonstrated both the complexity of achieving consensus and the value of maintaining spaces for constructive dialogue across different stakeholder communities as the internet governance community prepares for the WSIS+20 review process.

Sandra Hoferichter: So, welcome to this session, nice to see you, I appreciate that you interrupt your lunch break in order to have a short networking session about EuroDIG this year. It was the 18th edition of EuroDIG, the 18th in a row, we have been to a different European country ever since every year, but this year we came back to where it all started from and that made it a very special session. Unfortunately, the Council of Europe will not join us today, they were supposed to be with us here, but the Deputy Secretary General had to go to another mission and had to be accompanied by those who agreed being here on stage today, so unfortunately, but I should submit my best greetings to you. You will see that over there and also at our booth we have our annual messages and as I said already, messages from Strasbourg number two, because messages from Strasbourg number one were drafted in 2008. Just to remind us all, EuroDIG was the forum that invented the concept of messages which was later on adapted by the global IGF and by many other local IGFs as well and if you want to have a hard copy, get one after the session over there, if you want to have two, get two or three, whatever. The overarching theme this year was not super creative because we recycled the overarching theme from last year which was so good, that was balancing innovation and regulation and because we were at the Council of Europe, we added safeguarding human rights. We found that was a good idea and safeguarding human rights is possibly something that is of great importance in these times. Of course, WSIS plus 20 review was one of the focuses in this year’s EuroDIG as it is here at the IGF and of course we have prepared our messages on the WSIS plus 20 review which we would like to briefly share with you but possibly not going too much into detail because this is subject to many other sessions here at the IGF and then we would also like to highlight one element of EuroDIG which is very close to our heart which is youth participation and Frances Douglas-Thompson, got it right, she was one of our YouthDIG participants this year and she has prepared an excerpt of the YouthDIG messages from this year’s YouthDIG. They met already the month before online, prepared for their participation in EuroDIG and YouthDIG. They had three days of hard work, discussion but also fun I hope at EuroDIG and then EuroDIG as the conference was of course also included. And then I hope we have a little bit of ten minutes, it’s only a 30-minute session, ten minutes of exchange with you on either what the two of our speakers, Thomas, our president and Frances, our YouthDIG participant are telling us or we have also prepared some guiding questions, let’s put it that way. But if you would like to engage with us on any other topic, we are very flexible here. And without further ado, I hand over to Thomas Schneider, Swiss ambassador, well known to most of you and president of the EuroDIG Support Association to share the WSIS plus 20 review messages. Thomas, I think you should stand up and I take your seat for the moment. I don’t have a seat, so it’s possibly better.

Thomas Schneider: So we need, you see, we are working on very low resources, so we share almost everything. Okay, so yes, Sandra has already said it. In addition to thematic sessions, of course, the EuroDIG community also cares about the architectural issues about global digital governance. And we had before already like community gathered voices from Europe, not just the EU or the governments or single stakeholders, but already for the IGF improvement discussion for the GDC, EuroDIG collected input. It was facilitated by a former UK government member by Mark Harvell, who is very good at this. And also with him, we spent some time gathering information or views from European stakeholders on the ongoing WSIS plus 20 process, review process. And of course, the outcomes are absolutely surprising in the sense that, first of all, everyone thinks that multi-stakeholder approach is fundamental to successfully finding solutions for all kinds of digital issues, and that the regional diversity, also the NRIs are key to actually bring in as many voices as possible into global processes. So we need global processes, you need regional processes, national processes that then are able to distill everything so that the variety of voices are able to be heard. Of course, the EuroDIG community thinks that the IGF is a fundamentally important platform for multi-stakeholder, global multi-stakeholder dialogue. It’s not a decision-making platform, but it is a decision-shaping platform. We have had many instances where new issues have come up at the IGF or EuroDIG or elsewhere, and then have then picked up by decision-making bodies like intergovernmental institutions, but also by businesses and so on. And of course, the request, what a surprise, is that the EuroDIG community thinks that we should now move from renewing the IGF mandate only on a 10-year basis, which is always difficult than to plan if it goes at the end of the 10-year phase. So it should be a permanent, the IGF should become a permanent institution that you don’t have to renew every 10 years like what is it now. And of course, another key element is that the WSIS plus 20 process should not be happening behind closed doors in New York among some diplomats, but it should be as open, as transparent, as inclusive, and also as diverse as possible. So this is a very clear message and there’s still, things are getting better, but there’s still some room for improvement. And another point is also that the IGF is not just about critical internet resources and domain names like it used to be, mainly, not only, but that was in the focus 20 years ago when it was created, the IGF has moved on, has taken on all the new relevant issues from AI to data governance to other things, and that this should continue, the ITU should be the place where new and emerging issues are discussed and first ideas, first perspectives of common opportunities and challenges should be developed. And just to say that, of course, we had an exchange with the European co-facilitator for the WSIS plus 20 process with Suela Janina, the Albanian perm rep in New York, and she’s also here around, so if you happen to see her, of course, you may also, again, pass on European messages to her. Thank you very much.

Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you very much, and I would suggest we invite for one intervention, one reply to what Thomas just said, or question, whatever you like. I come down with a microphone. You have a microphone? Fantastic. So, please, signal to that lady with a microphone if you would like to speak up. There is only a chance now. Yeah, thank you, Thomas. You said that you’re like… Please introduce yourself.

Hans Seeuws: I’ll introduce myself, Sandra. My name is Hans Seuss. I’m the business operations manager of .eu, so we operate a top-level domain on behalf of the European Commission. You mentioned earlier that you like messages to be picked up and also, in a way, by decision-makers and intergovernmental bodies. What is then one of the key topics that you would like them to see picked up in the very near future?

Thomas Schneider: From this year’s Euro, it’s not just one, it’s several ones. One, of course, that was all over the place was AI governance, human rights aspect data, how to deal with something like privacy in an environment where it’s very difficult to actually say what is private data, what is not private data. Another big… But we’ll get to that, is how to involve young people, not just in a dialogue, but also then in decision-making. You get the key points on a few pages here in this leaflet, of course, also online, so I recommend you to read it. I must have forgotten all the other eight or ten important points, so forgive me if I didn’t mention the ones that you care most. But yeah, it’s basically from human rights economic angles. Geopolitical discussions, of course, were also there, so it covered the whole range. Thank you.

Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you. And as I said, only one intervention, we give another chance after the contribution from Frances. Frances, please, go ahead.

Frances Douglas Thomson: Okay. So, yes. As Sandra rightly said, I am a youth digger, which means that I attended both the sessions online and also the sessions in person. We had three days. They were very youth-led. At all points, it was the youth who were saying what mattered to us, what was pertinent to us, and what were our stances on these issues. And I think in this short amount of time, what I really would like to focus on is where controversies lie. Yeah, I think it’s very easy as a young person to think that everyone in your network in Europe has similar ideas about things like content moderation digital literacy The role of generative AI and whether these things are good or bad and how we should regulate or not regulate Against these issues. And so this is what I am hoping to present today and then get your advice or opinions or Perspectives on these issues. So the first one we had five broad messages. I’m going to focus on two today The first one is about digital literacy. So we all broadly speaking a lot of digital literacy operates, right? So who decides on the syllabus for digital literacy and how do these issues get presented? so for example, do we see generative AI as something that’s necessarily a positive and Wholesale good for society and education. Is it as an assistant or is it actually something that? creates complacency within young students and means the skill sets they leave education with and Not nearly as good as they used to be doesn’t mean that young people aren’t aware of the sources of information like they used to be and the kind of Skills you got in things like history about learning where resources and sources come from is now eroded So we had different ideas about this and we didn’t come to any clear Agreement on what the syllabus looks like but just that the syllabus is incredibly important because the digital space is Increasing in How much it’s going to be part of young people’s lives and you can’t just not be in the digital space And so you must know how to engage with it in a way that’s sensible and be aware of the benefits and the risks So yeah, this is the first thing The second thing is on content moderation and this is what surprised me the most because myself and another sector or contingent of the The group of youth diggers when we were coming to discuss in our discussion and debate spaces before the euro dig Some of us said content moderation is great. We think that things like warnings bannings flagging information that is clearly misinformation is clearly deep fakes or is clearly inciting violence or is Harmful to us this should be very strictly dealt with and then another group said this is very worrying for us and this idea of very harsh stringent content moderation is worrying for freedom of speech freedom of expression and The capacity for young people and all people to be engaging with information of all different types So then this was very surprising to me And so what we did decide on was something that could be very good is if we had Increased how users on places like social media can Better understand where what they’re being given Comes from right so you can press maybe an information thing on the corner of your post and see why is the algorithm feeding me? This so that instead of passively sort of being led into echo chambers on social media You therefore have more of a conscious awareness as to why you’re being fed the things you’re being fed and then you can also Say actually I don’t want to see more of this or I do want to see more of this or even I want to see The other side of this if it’s a political issue or if it’s a fact and you doubt it Then can I see other sources that are also reporting on this topic? So that’s what we all agreed was good But yes we didn’t agree exactly what should be strictly banned and taken off and whether anything should be strictly taken off these online sites is The very point of social media and these online spaces to have anyone saying whatever they want and is that good if you can have a critical awareness and and then also you get into the Is it censorship and who decides what gets taken off and why and is there bias there? So yeah, that was another point that I think was very important the last thing I’d say is I very much agree with Thomas when he says that the European dialogue is a place where policy issues Informed right so decisions are not necessarily made but they are very much informed and the kind of content that I saw at Euro dig was so varied and so informative and things that I wouldn’t have been able to engage with if I hadn’t had gone and Topics that I hadn’t I wouldn’t have been able to Yeah Conceptualize in the way I can now if I hadn’t had been able to attend these panel discussions and being taken very seriously in the Process so yeah that I’m very grateful for and that’s all I would say Thank

Sandra Hoferichter: You very much Francis and I I think we all agree we could feel the enthusiasm that came out of this year’s you stick Cohort and we are very happy that we can offer this element in our program I would ask you know One intervention already, but as I said if you would like to have a greater conversation on what Francis just said Flag us and we will change our plans and continue on this one Please introduce yourself is it it’s on.

Audience: Okay. Thank you. My name is Thomas I’m a former youth delegate or youth digger for last year and I thought what you said about how some of the Conversations that you end up in there are quite interesting and how you didn’t realize that there are so many perspectives You know there’s always a counterpoint to your point and that is the whole point right you’re in a space where you get to debate these things with other engaged youth And then on a tangent point of what you you said Do you see food for youth on online? And it’s the is the overall policy goal to lessen time spent online for youth or do you think it is more about making sure that people or younger people get to see the Right or wrong type of stuff online Do you wanna make clarification point on that?

Frances Douglas Thomson: I think that’s a very good question So I guess you could rephrase it to be like is it quality or quantity? I think that the there was a session yesterday about social media bands, and this is also something we talked a lot about At the Euro dig and youth dig should you just get children off social media completely so that it’s zero time spent on these apps I think when we think about information pollution and What content you are consuming obviously the quality matters? That’s the well yeah the first thing, but what matters more. I mean I also think there’s a lot of youth voices I don’t necessarily. I think I’d be quite happy completely off social media to be honest and I Have very limited interaction with social media, but when we were talking with the youth voices What was so good about the youth dig was that you also met a lot of people who said that’s a crazy thing for much older Politicians and policymakers to be deciding on my behalf that suddenly I as a 15 or 16 year old Now I’m not allowed into these spaces which are meant to be open accessible and free democratic spaces and even if you know the content Isn’t always good some of the good content is life-changing for some people so of course you have this argument I think that was it’s a very good example of an issue that is yeah So multifaceted and has people who feel very strongly who are young about this issue And so yeah, I think It’s difficult to just say people can’t go on it at all I think time spent on it does matter because it’s an opportunity cost you’re not spending time doing other positive things like being outside

Sandra Hoferichter: But yeah Any other intervention or question in the back, please introduce yourself as well

Audience: I m from Geneva Macro labs University of Geneva also active with the program committee in junior where Geneva people say multilateralism is dead and At the same time we see governments Often don’t have a clue. So how can we fix this if we leave? internet policy Internet policy Technology regulation to governments that don’t want to talk to each other neither to us. How how can we fix? The issues that we are have at hand

Sandra Hoferichter: Thomas that’s possibly something you could take on

Thomas Schneider: Yes, first of all, I need to say that I’ve been working for the Swiss government now for 22 three something like this years and In all these years there has always been whenever we talked with the foreign ministry, but Geneva the UN is in a crisis It is in it has never not been in a crisis But of course, that’s one thing. But of course the crisis now is slightly more serious than earlier perceived crisis is so so but and And then it may sound silly but every crisis can also be a chance It can it may force you to to rethink a few things to try and do things differently so crisis, yes, but I wouldn’t say it’s dead or crippled or something and Things may change quickly. Also if a few people that are powerful in the world change sometimes Things can change but I think it is now also the time and this is also part of the UN 80 discussions the 80s anniversary What does not work How can we try and make things work? But of course if member states don’t agree Then they will not let the UN or the IT or whatever the UNESCO do anything and this is and this is why it is Even more important that in these institutions you do not just have the governments But you have the other stakeholders you have civil society business academia because they want things done And if their own government is maybe not constructive for whatever reason actually Constructive for whatever reason actually businesses and people are more constructive than Governments that have their own interest I say this as a strong defender of direct democracy because we have we have made not such bad experiences in in my country Yeah, and who knows what of course politicians are not most knowledgeable in average about digital issues But they are neither on space issues or on how a car works and so on and so forth It is important that if they are not Experts themselves that they have experts that they listen to and that the society discusses these things I hope that answers at least partially what you Asked thing.

Sandra Hoferichter: Are there any other fantastic

Janice Richardson: Yes, Janice Richardson, expert to the Council of Europe, at the Council of Europe we believe that active participation especially of young people is really important. Do you have any great ideas to get a lot more young people involved in the type of work that you’re now involved in?

Frances Douglas Thomson: That’s a very good question. I think Youthdig is an incredible example of youth participation and achieving. I would say that something like Youthdig takes people who might not necessarily have a background in something like internet governance, provides the opportunity for them to be involved because it provides financial assistance for travel, for accommodation, it provides a space for open dialogue that isn’t top-down. And I think that’s important because if you want youth to be able to clearly express what they feel and their opinions and their perspectives, then it can’t be top-down, it can’t be someone dictating to you what you ought to think or how you ought to feel about this or how you should conceive of these ideas. It should be bottom-up basically. And I think as well another way to involve youth is not only through something like Youthdig, but also just making sure that young people feel like they’re taken seriously in these spaces. And that’s what I found so surprising about Eurodig and Youthdig was that at all times our questions were very much always answered, taken seriously, even outside of the conferences and panel discussions, conversations with older experts were encouraged, and it all felt very, very nice. So I think schemes like Youthdig, making sure that it’s feasible in terms of economics, and then also making sure that this gets out there, right? So that people who have gone post it on LinkedIn so other people can press on it, sharing it through schools, just making sure that there’s an awareness there of these kind of schemes. And maybe also encouraging young people and giving them spaces in things like the European Parliament, so that they can understand how the Parliament works, how commissions work, how councils operate, and therefore know that these kind of topics are being talked about and have a seat at the table.

Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you. There’s a gentleman in the back.

Chetan Sharma: Hello. Am I audible? This is Chetan Sharma from Data Mission Foundation Trust India. I’d like to apologize at the outset. Some of the questions that I’m asking are very frank. In this age and time when we’re seeing one humanitarian crisis unfolding after another, one crisis just right next door from where we all are assembled in Ukraine, the Internet policy dialogues or the governance platforms have, what has been their role and contribution? I’d like to just know. As opposed to even some of the mainstream media that have played a humongous role in sensitizing communities and raising up the deep humanitarian issues, we had this opportunity to build an advocacy. We had an opportunity to build opinions because this is a much closer community. Sadly, it has not happened. Now, if this was not enough, then we seem to be not even receiving proper information or the information which is transparent, accountable. We have said, no, no, this seems to be fake, AI generated, et cetera, et cetera. This is happening even on many of the social media and on the Internet platforms. I’d like to ask, sir, what is your view on this and how is it that we can prevent further degradation which seems to be exaggerating the humanitarian crisis we already are in? Thank you.

Sandra Hoferichter: Is that question directed to one specific, to Francis or to Thomas? To Thomas or to both?

Thomas Schneider: Yes, it’s quite complex, the development that you describe, if I understand it correctly. And the answer is probably also not an easy one. In the end, yeah, we do have tendencies. I’ve been talking to Wolfgang Kleinwächter actually at the IJF in Riyadh. This is an old German friend of mine and he said that, yeah, he’s losing faith in the German people, in the American people, in democracy because you elect people that do not take the truth serious, that say A, today and B, tomorrow and so on. To some extent, we may be a little bit also victims of a success in particular here in Europe where we had some decades of peace and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we maybe thought that now everything will be fine. But then people realized that working in a free competitive society is also hard. You have to struggle every day for paying your bills, for, I don’t know, competing with other people and so on. And you have lots of information, lots of media. They all struggle, also compete to survive economically. So that maybe at some point in time, people get tired of the freedom because in the Internet you could check everything where it comes from. But this takes time and if you work hard and are tired in the evening, you don’t want to be a good democrat and spend three hours informing yourself actually. So to some extent, it is a period where people maybe start forgetting the value of democracy, but also what it means, the work, the effort that it needs to keep a democracy, keep free and quality media alive. And then they are sometimes inclined to follow people that tell them, just follow me, you don’t have to worry, I will sort everything out for you, now it’s your turn. But I’m also a historian, so maybe I hope, and it has happened in the past, when people start believing simple answers by people that give them simple answers, things normally get worse. Unfortunately, some people suffer in these periods, but at some point in time people realize that the simple answers may not be the right ones. And then they will start fighting again for democracy, for freedom of expression, for quality information. So things come and go in ways and I think that also the gathering like this is, we just need to keep on fighting. We need to keep on fighting for good governance, for fairness in societies, for a public debate. Other people fight for other things. We should together fight for a society which is fair and balanced and free. So the fight will never stop. Those that think that once you have achieved something you can stop fighting, you will lose it because there are others that fight against it. So that’s a little bit of my recollection.

Sandra Hoferichter: You are not audible, gentlemen, without a microphone. And I must also say we are in the red timer now. Possibly you don’t see the timer, but I see it. We have a couple of seconds. Yes, so we give the last word to you. How are you perceiving the world and how do we turn it into a good one again? That would be interesting to hear.

Frances Douglas Thomson: Well, I just wanted to say on the topic you raised about humanitarian crisis and even war and conflict, at the EuroDIG there were quite a few sessions about conflict. And they were very important for policymakers, the private sector, and also NGOs and governments. We talked about drones, autonomous weapon systems. We had perspectives from the private sector about why they thought these should be used. We also had NGOs saying why there are serious ethical concerns and the use of these drones in current contemporary warfare. That was very important. Because then you have people of all different stakeholders discussing these issues and sharing why they are so concerned and the reasons for that. Then we had one about Internet and using Internet or taking away a country’s Internet and using that as a form of attack. This is weaponizing the Internet or lack of access to it and how that affects people and how that can create very bad humanitarian crises. And we also had one about, as you say, the proliferation of misinformation about war and humanitarian crises and how we can deal with that, how we can put in place regulation, different ideas about how people can come to know this image is fake and this is not actually a real picture from the scene. This is something that’s been generated. So I think these dialogues are very important for addressing issues in humanitarian crises and for addressing issues in conflict zones. And I don’t think that this is just a discussion. I think it actually impacts when people go away from these dialogues how they perceive this issue. So I think it does make a real change.

Sandra Hoferichter: Okay. Thank you very much. I feel it’s time to wrap up. We graciously got two more minutes of which one is already over. And since I have the mic, I have to say examples like Francis, but there are many others that are really the ones that are making us proud that we are actually going in the right direction in engaging youth. Just to let you know, for our call for application for youth, it was responded by 428, 29 applications. We had really struggled this year of inviting them, of paying the travel costs in particular for youth participants from countries that are a bit further away from Strasbourg, like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, because flight tickets are just out of the space. So if there is someone in the audience who has deep pockets, it’s good invested here. It’s good invested in the next generation. So please help us to continue bringing up programs, not just the EuroDIG, but also in particular the YouthDIG. And thank you very much. Reach out to us. We have a joint booth with the other NRIs if you would like to have a deeper discussion on this. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder approach is essential for digital governance

Speakers

– Thomas Schneider
– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

Multi-stakeholder approach is fundamental for solving digital issues, with regional diversity and NRIs being key to bringing various voices into global processes

EuroDIG addresses conflict-related issues including autonomous weapons, drones, internet weaponization, and misinformation in warfare, bringing together diverse stakeholders

Summary

Both speakers emphasize the importance of involving multiple stakeholders (governments, civil society, business, academia) in digital governance discussions rather than limiting participation to single stakeholder groups

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Human rights

Youth participation requires proper support and inclusive approaches

Speakers

– Frances Douglas Thomson
– Janice Richardson
– Sandra Hoferichter

Arguments

Youth participation requires financial assistance, bottom-up approaches, and ensuring young people feel taken seriously in policy spaces

Active participation of young people is important, and programs like YouthDIG should be promoted through schools and social media to increase awareness

EuroDIG was the 18th edition held at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, focusing on balancing innovation and regulation while safeguarding human rights

Summary

All speakers agree that meaningful youth engagement in internet governance requires structural support including financial assistance, proper promotion, and creating environments where young people are taken seriously

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

IGF and similar platforms serve as important decision-shaping forums

Speakers

– Thomas Schneider
– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

IGF should become a permanent institution rather than being renewed every 10 years, and should continue addressing emerging issues like AI and data governance

The focus should be on content quality rather than just time spent online, as complete social media bans may restrict access to valuable democratic spaces

Summary

Both speakers view internet governance platforms as valuable spaces for shaping policy discussions and decisions, even if they don’t make formal decisions themselves

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for inclusive, transparent, and participatory approaches to internet governance that go beyond traditional diplomatic or top-down processes

Speakers

– Thomas Schneider
– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

WSIS+20 process should be open, transparent, inclusive and diverse rather than happening behind closed doors among diplomats

YouthDIG provides youth-led discussions where young people determine what matters to them and express their stances on digital issues

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Sociocultural

Both speakers see internet governance platforms as spaces that can constructively address contemporary challenges including conflicts and crises through multi-stakeholder dialogue

Speakers

– Thomas Schneider
– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

Despite challenges with multilateralism and government knowledge gaps, crises can create opportunities for rethinking governance approaches

EuroDIG addresses conflict-related issues including autonomous weapons, drones, internet weaponization, and misinformation in warfare, bringing together diverse stakeholders

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Cybersecurity

Unexpected consensus

Content moderation complexity among youth

Speakers

– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

There are divided opinions among youth on content moderation – some favor strict measures against misinformation and harmful content, while others worry about freedom of speech implications

Explanation

Frances expressed surprise at discovering significant disagreement among youth participants about content moderation, challenging assumptions that young Europeans would have similar views on digital rights issues. This unexpected division led to consensus on algorithmic transparency as a compromise solution

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Democratic resilience requires continuous effort

Speakers

– Thomas Schneider

Arguments

Maintaining democracy and quality information requires continuous effort and fighting, as simple answers from authoritarian figures often lead to worse outcomes

Explanation

Thomas’s historical perspective that democracy and quality information require constant vigilance and effort represents an unexpected consensus point about the fragility of democratic institutions in the digital age

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated strong consensus on the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches, meaningful youth participation, and the value of inclusive internet governance platforms. There was also agreement on the need for transparency and openness in governance processes, and recognition that digital governance platforms can address contemporary challenges including conflicts and humanitarian crises.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on fundamental principles of internet governance, with particular strength around inclusivity, transparency, and multi-stakeholder participation. The implications suggest a mature understanding of internet governance challenges and broad agreement on democratic approaches to addressing them, though specific implementation details may still require further discussion.

Different viewpoints

Content moderation approach – strict vs. freedom-focused

Speakers

– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

There are divided opinions among youth on content moderation – some favor strict measures against misinformation and harmful content, while others worry about freedom of speech implications

Summary

Within the youth community, there’s a fundamental split between those who support strict content moderation (warnings, banning, flagging of misinformation, deepfakes, and violent content) and those who view such measures as threats to freedom of speech and expression

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Generative AI in education – beneficial tool vs. harmful dependency

Speakers

– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

Digital literacy curriculum is crucial as digital spaces increasingly become part of young people’s lives, but there’s disagreement on how to present issues like generative AI

Summary

Youth participants disagreed on whether generative AI should be presented as a positive educational assistant or as something that creates complacency and erodes critical thinking skills like source verification

Topics

Sociocultural | Human rights

Social media regulation approach – time limits vs. quality focus

Speakers

– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

The focus should be on content quality rather than just time spent online, as complete social media bans may restrict access to valuable democratic spaces

Summary

There’s disagreement between those who support complete social media bans for youth (zero time approach) and those who argue this restricts access to valuable democratic spaces, with the latter favoring quality over quantity approaches

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Role of internet governance in humanitarian crises

Speakers

– Chetan Sharma
– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

Internet governance platforms should play a stronger advocacy role during humanitarian crises, similar to mainstream media’s contribution to raising awareness

EuroDIG addresses conflict-related issues including autonomous weapons, drones, internet weaponization, and misinformation in warfare, bringing together diverse stakeholders

Summary

Chetan argues that internet governance platforms have failed to play adequate advocacy roles during crises like Ukraine, while Frances counters that EuroDIG does address conflict issues through stakeholder discussions on weapons, internet weaponization, and misinformation

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Unexpected differences

Youth division on content moderation

Speakers

– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

There are divided opinions among youth on content moderation – some favor strict measures against misinformation and harmful content, while others worry about freedom of speech implications

Explanation

Frances explicitly states this was ‘what surprised me the most’ – she expected youth to have similar views on content moderation but discovered fundamental disagreements between those favoring strict measures and those prioritizing freedom of expression

Topics

Human rights | Sociocultural

Diverse youth perspectives on digital issues

Speakers

– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

YouthDIG provides youth-led discussions where young people determine what matters to them and express their stances on digital issues

Explanation

Frances found it surprising that youth in her European network had such different ideas about fundamental issues like content moderation and digital literacy, challenging assumptions about generational consensus on digital issues

Topics

Sociocultural | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The main areas of disagreement center around content moderation approaches, the role of AI in education, social media regulation strategies, and the effectiveness of internet governance in addressing humanitarian crises. Most significantly, there are fundamental divisions within the youth community itself on key digital rights issues.

Disagreement level

Moderate to high disagreement with significant implications. The disagreements reveal deep philosophical divisions about balancing freedom versus safety online, the role of technology in education, and the responsibilities of governance platforms during crises. The unexpected youth divisions suggest that generational assumptions about digital consensus may be incorrect, requiring more nuanced policy approaches that account for diverse youth perspectives rather than treating them as a monolithic group.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for inclusive, transparent, and participatory approaches to internet governance that go beyond traditional diplomatic or top-down processes

Speakers

– Thomas Schneider
– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

WSIS+20 process should be open, transparent, inclusive and diverse rather than happening behind closed doors among diplomats

YouthDIG provides youth-led discussions where young people determine what matters to them and express their stances on digital issues

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Sociocultural

Both speakers see internet governance platforms as spaces that can constructively address contemporary challenges including conflicts and crises through multi-stakeholder dialogue

Speakers

– Thomas Schneider
– Frances Douglas Thomson

Arguments

Despite challenges with multilateralism and government knowledge gaps, crises can create opportunities for rethinking governance approaches

EuroDIG addresses conflict-related issues including autonomous weapons, drones, internet weaponization, and misinformation in warfare, bringing together diverse stakeholders

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Cybersecurity

Key takeaways

EuroDIG successfully demonstrated the value of multi-stakeholder dialogue in addressing digital governance issues, with the 18th edition focusing on balancing innovation and regulation while safeguarding human rights

The IGF should transition from 10-year mandate renewals to becoming a permanent institution to ensure continuity and better long-term planning

Youth participation in digital governance is crucial and effective when properly supported through programs like YouthDIG, which received 428-429 applications demonstrating high interest

Digital literacy curriculum development is critical as digital spaces become increasingly central to young people’s lives, though approaches to teaching about technologies like AI remain contested

Content moderation presents a fundamental tension between protecting users from harmful content and preserving freedom of expression, with transparency in algorithmic content delivery emerging as a potential middle ground

Internet governance forums like EuroDIG serve as important ‘decision-shaping’ platforms that influence policy even when they don’t make formal decisions

The WSIS+20 review process needs to be more open, transparent, and inclusive rather than conducted behind closed doors among diplomats

Maintaining democratic governance and quality information requires continuous effort and vigilance, especially during periods of crisis and political polarization

Resolutions and action items

EuroDIG community formally recommends that IGF become a permanent institution rather than requiring 10-year mandate renewals

Messages from EuroDIG 2024 have been compiled and made available both in hard copy and online for stakeholders to reference and act upon

Continued promotion of YouthDIG program through schools, social media, and professional networks to increase youth awareness and participation

Seek additional funding sources to support travel costs for youth participants from distant countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia

Unresolved issues

How to determine appropriate digital literacy curriculum content, particularly regarding the presentation of generative AI as beneficial versus potentially harmful

Where to draw the line on content moderation between protecting users and preserving freedom of expression

How to effectively engage governments that lack technical expertise in digital issues while maintaining multi-stakeholder participation

How internet governance platforms can play a more effective advocacy role during humanitarian crises and conflicts

How to address the broader crisis in multilateralism and democratic engagement that affects digital governance

Who should decide what constitutes misinformation or harmful content, and how to avoid bias in content moderation decisions

How to balance quality versus quantity of online engagement for youth

Suggested compromises

Implement transparency features that allow users to understand why algorithmic systems show them specific content, enabling more conscious engagement rather than passive consumption

Focus on improving content quality and user awareness rather than implementing blanket restrictions on social media access for youth

Combine strict content moderation for clearly harmful content (violence, misinformation) with enhanced user tools for understanding and controlling their information environment

Maintain both global and regional governance processes to ensure diverse voices can be heard while still enabling effective coordination

Yeah, I think it’s very easy as a young person to think that everyone in your network in Europe has similar ideas about things like content moderation digital literacy… And so this is what I am hoping to present today and then get your advice or opinions or perspectives on these issues.

Speaker

Frances Douglas Thomson

Reason

This comment is insightful because it challenges the assumption of generational homogeneity on digital issues. Frances reveals that even among European youth, there are significant disagreements on fundamental digital governance questions, particularly around content moderation and AI regulation. This breaks the stereotype that young people have uniform views on technology.

Impact

This comment shifted the discussion from presenting consensus youth positions to exploring nuanced disagreements within the youth community. It set up the framework for discussing controversial topics and invited audience engagement on complex issues rather than simple advocacy.

Some of us said content moderation is great… and then another group said this is very worrying for us and this idea of very harsh stringent content moderation is worrying for freedom of speech freedom of expression

Speaker

Frances Douglas Thomson

Reason

This reveals a fundamental tension within youth perspectives on one of the most critical digital governance issues. It’s thought-provoking because it shows that the traditional left-right political divide on content moderation exists even among digital natives, challenging assumptions about youth consensus on platform governance.

Impact

This comment deepened the conversation by introducing genuine complexity and controversy. It moved the discussion away from simple policy recommendations toward exploring the underlying tensions between safety and freedom that define modern digital governance debates.

In this age and time when we’re seeing one humanitarian crisis unfolding after another… the Internet policy dialogues or the governance platforms have, what has been their role and contribution?… We had this opportunity to build an advocacy… Sadly, it has not happened.

Speaker

Chetan Sharma

Reason

This is a provocative challenge to the entire internet governance community, questioning whether these forums are actually making a meaningful difference in addressing real-world crises. It forces participants to confront the potential gap between policy discussions and tangible humanitarian impact.

Impact

This comment created a pivotal moment in the discussion, forcing both Thomas and Frances to defend and contextualize the value of internet governance forums. It shifted the conversation from internal process discussions to fundamental questions about relevance and impact, leading to more substantive responses about how these dialogues address conflict and humanitarian issues.

To some extent, we may be a little bit also victims of a success in particular here in Europe where we had some decades of peace… people maybe start forgetting the value of democracy, but also what it means, the work, the effort that it needs to keep a democracy

Speaker

Thomas Schneider

Reason

This comment provides a profound historical and sociological analysis of current democratic backsliding, connecting it to complacency born from success. It’s insightful because it reframes current challenges not as failures but as consequences of previous achievements, offering a nuanced perspective on democratic fragility.

Impact

This response elevated the discussion to a higher analytical level, moving from immediate policy concerns to broader questions about democratic sustainability and civic engagement. It provided a framework for understanding current challenges that went beyond simple technological solutions.

Do you see food for youth on online? And it’s the is the overall policy goal to lessen time spent online for youth or do you think it is more about making sure that people or younger people get to see the Right or wrong type of stuff online

Speaker

Thomas (former youth delegate)

Reason

This question cuts to the heart of youth digital policy by forcing a choice between two fundamentally different approaches: time-based restrictions versus content-based curation. It’s thought-provoking because it reveals the underlying philosophical divide in how we approach youth protection online.

Impact

This question prompted Frances to articulate the complexity of youth perspectives on social media bans and parental controls, leading to a more nuanced discussion about agency, access, and the diversity of youth opinions on their own digital rights.

Overall assessment

These key comments transformed what could have been a routine policy presentation into a substantive exploration of fundamental tensions in digital governance. Frances’s revelation of youth disagreement on core issues challenged assumptions and invited deeper engagement. Chetan’s provocative questioning forced participants to justify the relevance of their work, while Thomas’s historical analysis provided broader context for understanding current challenges. The former youth delegate’s question about online time versus content quality highlighted practical policy dilemmas. Together, these comments elevated the discussion from procedural updates to philosophical debates about democracy, youth agency, content governance, and the real-world impact of policy dialogues, creating a more intellectually rigorous and practically relevant conversation.

What is one of the key topics that you would like them to see picked up in the very near future?

Speaker

Hans Seeuws

Explanation

This question seeks to identify priority areas from EuroDIG messages that should be addressed by decision-makers and intergovernmental bodies

Who decides on the syllabus for digital literacy and how do these issues get presented?

Speaker

Frances Douglas Thomson

Explanation

This addresses the governance and content of digital literacy education, particularly regarding how emerging technologies like AI are framed in educational contexts

Is the overall policy goal to lessen time spent online for youth or do you think it is more about making sure that people or younger people get to see the right or wrong type of stuff online?

Speaker

Thomas (former youth delegate)

Explanation

This question explores whether youth online safety policies should focus on quantity (time limits) versus quality (content curation) of online engagement

How can we fix internet policy and technology regulation when governments don’t have a clue and multilateralism appears to be failing?

Speaker

Audience member from Geneva Macro labs University

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental challenge of effective governance in digital policy when traditional multilateral approaches seem inadequate

Do you have any great ideas to get a lot more young people involved in the type of work that you’re now involved in?

Speaker

Janice Richardson

Explanation

This seeks practical strategies for expanding youth participation in internet governance and policy discussions beyond current programs

What has been the role and contribution of Internet policy dialogues or governance platforms in addressing humanitarian crises, and how can we prevent further degradation of information quality that exaggerates these crises?

Speaker

Chetan Sharma

Explanation

This questions the effectiveness of internet governance forums in addressing real-world humanitarian issues and the challenge of misinformation during crises

How to involve young people not just in dialogue, but also in decision-making processes?

Speaker

Thomas Schneider

Explanation

This addresses the gap between youth participation in discussions versus actual influence in policy decisions

How to deal with privacy in an environment where it’s very difficult to say what is private data versus non-private data?

Speaker

Thomas Schneider

Explanation

This highlights the technical and policy challenges of defining and protecting privacy in the context of AI and big data

Summary

This discussion centered on the launch of “NetMundial Plus 10,” a book containing multistakeholder guidelines that has been translated into the six official UN languages plus Portuguese. Rafael Evangelista from Brazil’s Internet Steering Committee opened the session by explaining that NetMundial Plus 10 represents a continuation of the original NetMundial process from 2014, resulting in the São Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines designed to strengthen internet governance and digital policy processes.

Multiple speakers emphasized that NetMundial serves as a shining example of how the multistakeholder model can deliver concrete results in a timely manner, contrasting it with other forums that may deliberate for years without reaching consensus. Pierre Bonis from AFNIC highlighted how NetMundial addressed critical moments in internet governance history, including the post-Snowden era and the recent Digital Global Compact discussions. The collaborative editing process was particularly noteworthy, with participants describing intense online sessions where committee members from around the world simultaneously edited documents in real-time.

The translation process itself proved to be more than mere linguistic conversion. Speakers noted that translating these governance concepts into different languages required deep understanding of the field and collaboration with community experts rather than just professional translators. Jennifer Chung discussed the complexity of Chinese translation, involving coordination between different script systems and regional terminology variations. Valeria Betancourt emphasized that translation carries political dimensions and increases community appropriation of the guidelines by making them accessible in native languages.

Several participants stressed the practical application of these guidelines, particularly in the context of the upcoming WSIS Plus 20 review process. The book launch represents not just a publication milestone but a call to action for implementing these multistakeholder principles across various governance levels, from local to global contexts.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Book Launch and Multilingual Publication**: The primary focus was launching the “NetMundial Plus 10” book, which contains multistakeholder guidelines and has been translated into the six official UN languages plus Portuguese, making it accessible to a global audience.

– **Success of the Multistakeholder Model**: Participants emphasized how NetMundial and NetMundial Plus 10 serve as exemplary cases of effective multistakeholder governance that can deliver concrete results in a timely manner, countering criticisms that such processes are slow or ineffective.

– **Translation as Political and Cultural Process**: Speakers highlighted that translation goes beyond literal conversion, involving cultural adaptation and political considerations. The process required collaboration within language communities (e.g., different Chinese dialects and scripts) and helps increase local appropriation of governance principles.

– **Practical Implementation and Future Applications**: Discussion centered on putting the São Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines into practice across various levels (local, national, regional, global) and using them to inform ongoing processes like the WSIS+20 review and national IGF initiatives.

– **Collaborative Process and Community Engagement**: Participants reflected on the intensive collaborative editing process that created the guidelines and emphasized the ongoing nature of the work, including invitations for additional translations and continued community involvement.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to officially launch the multilingual publication of the NetMundial Plus 10 statement and São Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines, celebrate the collaborative achievement, and encourage broader adoption and implementation of these governance principles across different linguistic and cultural contexts.

## Overall Tone:

The tone was consistently celebratory, appreciative, and forward-looking throughout the session. Participants expressed genuine enthusiasm and pride in the collaborative achievement, with frequent expressions of gratitude and mutual recognition. The atmosphere remained positive and constructive, with speakers building on each other’s comments and emphasizing the collective nature of the work. There was no notable shift in tone – it maintained an upbeat, collegial spirit from beginning to end.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Rafael de Almeida Evangelista** – Board member of CGI.br (Brazilian Internet Steering Committee), session moderator

– **Pierre Bonis** – Representative from AFNIC (French registry)

– **Jennifer Chung** – Works for .asia (registry operator for the generic top level domain .Asia)

– **Valeria Betancourt** – From Association of Progressive Communication

– **Renata Mielli** – Member of CGI.br, involved in NetMundial Plus 10 organization

– **Everton Rodrigues** – Part of NIC.br team involved in the NetMundial Plus 10 process

– **Jorge Cancio** – From the Swiss government, involved in translation process

– **Akinori Maemura** – Member of the HLAC (High-Level Advisory Committee) for NetMundial Plus 10, also involved in NetMundial 2014 EMC

– **Vinicius W. O. Santos** – Part of the secretariat/NIC.br team for NetMundial Plus 10

– **Audience** – Identified as James Ndolufuye from Africa

**Additional speakers:**

None – all speakers who spoke during the session were included in the provided speakers names list.

# NetMundial Plus 10: Multilingual Book Launch and Implementation Discussion

## Executive Summary

This session focused on the launch of “NetMundial Plus 10,” a publication containing multistakeholder guidelines translated into the six official UN languages plus Portuguese. Moderated by Rafael de Almeida Evangelista from Brazil’s Internet Steering Committee, the discussion brought together international stakeholders to celebrate this achievement and examine its implications for internet governance.

Participants emphasized NetMundial’s effectiveness as a multistakeholder process that delivers concrete results efficiently. The conversation highlighted how translation involves more than linguistic conversion, requiring cultural adaptation and community collaboration. Speakers stressed the importance of implementing these guidelines in practice rather than treating them as static documents.

## Background and Context

Rafael Evangelista explained that NetMundial Plus 10 continues the original NetMundial process from 2014, which produced the São Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines for strengthening internet governance and digital policy processes. The publication launch occurs one year after NetMundial Plus 10, with printed copies available for free and digital versions accessible at cgi.br.

The timing coincides with ongoing discussions around the Digital Global Compact and preparations for the WSIS Plus 20 review process. Pierre Bonis from AFNIC noted the post-Snowden context that influenced NetMundial’s development.

## Multistakeholder Model Effectiveness

Speakers consistently praised NetMundial as proof that multistakeholder approaches work. Pierre Bonis stated: “Sometimes people look at our model, at the multi-stakeholder model, saying, okay, that’s nice, but it doesn’t deliver anything. And NetMundial and NetMundial Plus10… you see that in four days, you get a consensus that is a solid one, that can last four years, as in other fora, you may talk for 10 years without having anything like that.”

Jennifer Chung from .asia described NetMundial as “a shining example that multi-stakeholder process works and produces tangible results,” emphasizing how the guidelines provide practical tools for improving multilateral processes. James Ndolufuye from Africa noted that “NetMundial process has become the conscience of information society regarding multi-stakeholder engagement.”

## Translation as Cultural Process

The discussion revealed sophisticated understanding of translation challenges. Valeria Betancourt from the Association for Progressive Communications explained: “Translation is not just a mere transposition, a literal transposition of specific content from one language to another. When doing the translation we are actually also expressing different views of reality, different perspectives… It’s not only a communication strategy… but for me it’s actually mostly an attempt to respond to the contextual realities of people, if we really want to be inclusive.”

Jennifer Chung detailed Chinese translation complexities, explaining how the team had to collaborate within the Chinese community because “certain terms are translated in different ways” and decisions were needed between traditional and simplified scripts, as well as different regional variations.

Pierre Bonis noted that “Internet governance concepts are better translated by field experts than general UN translators.” Vinicius W. O. Santos from NIC.br described their collaborative review process involving “multiple reviewers and field experts” working with professional translators.

The translation effort involved specific contributors including Lucien Castex (French), Manao, Christina Arida, Zena (Arabic), and Leonid Todorov (Russian). Renata Mielli from CGI.br observed that reading different language versions reveals “meaningful differences” and that “different language versions have distinct impacts and make more sense in specific contexts.”

## Collaborative Editing Process

Akinori Maemura, a member of the High-Level Advisory Committee (HLAC) for NetMundial Plus 10, described the “dynamic online editing process with global HLAC members” as a “remarkable collaborative experience” involving committee members from around the world simultaneously editing documents.

Jorge Cancio from the Swiss government characterized the process as “intensive and emotionally heavy but productive,” highlighting both the challenges and rewards of such collaboration.

## Implementation Focus

Jorge Cancio emphasized implementation responsibility: “It’s really in our hands to put them to work… if it’s just a piece of paper it will get forgotten in some years of time but if we put them to use… they will really gain some reality, they will inform what we do on a multi-stakeholder fashion at the different levels.”

He provided concrete examples, describing how the Swiss IGF is implementing the São Paulo guidelines and how his office uses the guidelines in German and French for internal discussions to ensure “bottom-up, open, inclusive” processes that “take into account asymmetries of power and influence.”

Valeria Betancourt connected the guidelines to the WSIS Plus 20 review, explaining how they “provide practical steps for making inclusion reality” and can increase representation of underrepresented communities. Jennifer Chung emphasized their relevance for capacity building in local communities.

## Ongoing Expansion

Everton Rodrigues from NIC.br emphasized the continuing nature of the project: “We had ongoing efforts in other languages as well, so please feel invited to send us those new translations to contact us also to make those translations available… the future of NetMundial is still ongoing.”

This prompted James Ndolufuye to offer translations into Swahili, Yoruba, and Hausa to “scale the approach across Africa.” The NetMundial Plus 10 website will credit new translations and make them available to the community.

## Conclusion

The session demonstrated strong support for NetMundial’s multistakeholder approach while emphasizing the need for practical implementation. The multilingual publication represents both an achievement in inclusive governance and a tool for ongoing work. Speakers committed to using the guidelines in their respective contexts, from local IGFs to international processes, ensuring the NetMundial principles continue to evolve through practical application.

The discussion highlighted how effective multistakeholder governance requires both inclusive processes and concrete outcomes, with NetMundial serving as a model for addressing complex governance challenges efficiently while maintaining broad stakeholder participation.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Hello, good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to welcome you to this launch session at the Open Stage. My name is Rafael Evangelista. I am a board member of CGI.br, the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee. This session is about the book launch, NetMundial plus 10, statement in the six UN languages. So I have here with me, helping me with the book launch, Pierre Bonis from AFNIC, Pierre, can you join us? Okay, Pierre. Thank you. Valeria Betancourt from Association of Progressive Communication, Valeria, she’s not here yet. Okay. Jennifer Chung from .asia, hi Jennifer, how are you? And Renata Mielli will join us later after her session ends. NetMundial provided an inclusive platform where relevant actors from all stakeholder groups and regions were able to convene, deliberate and reach consensus on a new set of guidelines and recommendations. These were designed to address the most pressing challenges facing governance processes in our time. The result of an extensive and collaborative process, NetMundial plus 10 culminated in the document entitled NetMundial plus 10, Mood Stakeholder Statement, Strengthening Internet Governance and Digital Policy Processes. This document is now being published within the CGI book series and it is available in the six official languages of the United Nations, in addition to Portuguese. This is the book that I’m showing here. One of the central outcomes of this process was the formulation of the Sao Paulo Mood Stakeholder Guidelines. These guidelines present a structured yet adaptable set of steps aimed at enhancing Mood Stakeholder practices across various digital governance decision-making contexts. By doing so, the NetMundial plus 10 ultimate outcomes contribute to fostering a more effective, inclusive and results-oriented model of Mood Stakeholder collaboration at the global level. The Sao Paulo Guidelines seek to strengthen governance processes by offering a flexible, inclusive and actionable framework grounded in principles of transparency, participation and adaptability, thereby reinforcing the legitimacy and effectiveness of Mood Stakeholder approaches. In light of the importance of disseminating these outcomes widely, this statement has been translated into multiple languages and compiled into a book available in both digital and print formats. Launching this publication at the Internet Governance Forum is a meaningful milestone, one that allows us to promote and discuss the NetMundial plus 10 results with a broader global community. This moment is particularly significant given that NetMundial plus 10 recognizes the IGF as a forum that ought to be further strengthened and as a central hub for Internet governance decisions. Today’s launch also serves as a timely opportunity for reflection and dialogue, making one year since the NetMundial plus 10 event. Our session will feature contributions from key stakeholders involved in the process, who will discuss the Sao Paulo Guidelines, the Mood Stakeholder statement and the challenges encountered in producing a multilingual publication of this nature. We are grateful for your presence here and engagement in this session. Printed copies of the book are available. Please feel free to request one if you have not received one yet. The digital version can also be accessed online at cgi.br. Thank you. I’ll hand out to our speakers. Perhaps Pierre can be the first one. Can you, please?

Pierre Bonis: Thank you. Obrigado. Thank you very much for welcoming us here. So it’s a little bit ironic because I’m going to speak in English. Because while we are presenting this work that I will talk about a little bit later, in the UN official language and Portuguese, this open space that is a very cool one is the one where you don’t have translation. So I will keep on speaking English. Just to share the fact that, first of all, having been invited by cgi.br and nick.br is always a pleasure. We are, at AFNIC, the French registry and we see the work that has been done by nick.br and cgi.br for years as a real example of a multi-stakeholder approach. And an inspiring one, really. Just want to share, of course we are happy to have been able to contribute to translate in French this document. But I want to testify of something that is very important to us. That NetMundial and NetMundial Plus10 are, I think, the best example of a multi-stakeholder approach that can deliver in a timely manner. And the timely manner is a very important point here. So we can be talking, and that’s always good to talk, to exchange, to dig more and more and more some subjects. But sometimes people look at our model, at the multi-stakeholder model, saying, okay, that’s nice, but it doesn’t deliver anything. And NetMundial and NetMundial Plus10, at two very important moments of the Internet governance, the first one, we remember it, it was after the Snowden thing, and just before the transition of the IANA function and the move of the American government and NetMundial Plus10, a few weeks before the adoption of the digital global compact emergency, we had to talk and to see if together, at a global level, we had something to say, to add to what we said 10 years before. The decision to bring all the stakeholders, lately, and CGI.br organized an online platform, very demanding, very efficient. And when you look at these three or four days of meetings in Sao Paulo that reached that point, you see that in four days, you get a consensus that is a solid one, that can last four years, as in other fora, you may talk for 10 years without having anything like that. So that’s why, and I will finish with that, that’s why we say, and that’s not just to be polite, even if we try to be polite, but when we say that your work is inspiring, it’s really inspiring, this way of delivering things has to be applauded, so thank you very much.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Thank you Pierre for such nice words, and please, Jennifer.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much, well that is a very hard act to follow Pierre, I feel like we can just applaud and that’s it, we can just celebrate. My name is Jennifer Chung, I work for .Asia, and .Asia is of course the registry operator for the top level domain, the generic top level domain .Asia, we have a mandate to promote internet adoption and development and capacity building in Asia Pacific, so obviously when we’re talking about translation, we’re doing the Asian languages, specifically Chinese. But taking a half step back, and really echoing a lot of things that Pierre has mentioned, NetMundial and NetMundial plus 10 is really held up to be such a shining example of what works, what actually can be done right, with the multi-stakeholder process, with the multi-stakeholder model, and the fact that the entire community comes together and produces something so beautiful is testament to the fact that it actually works, and every time there are naysayers and criticisms about, oh, you know, multi-stakeholder process is messy, it’s slow, it doesn’t produce results, this is a result, it’s beautiful, it’s a book, six languages, amazing. So taking another step back as well, to look at the Thank you very much. So, I think the multistakeholder guidelines gives us a way to measure, to look at things with a critical eye, to actually make sense of when we’re talking about multistakeholder model, we’re not talking about one model, we’re not talking about a monolith. There are different ways to look at and measure and another important part is how can we improve the multilateral process and this actually tells us very much how we can do this. In fact, sitting here, you know, in UN IGF, UN itself is multilateral but the IGF is multistakeholder and that is the beauty of it, how we are able to work together in this kind of environment and this is one of the things that really allows us to look at it in a very critical eye. I guess I’m going to turn a little bit to the translation part which is why I’m here. The interesting part about my mother tongue, Chinese, is I actually have two because I speak Cantonese because I am from Hong Kong but I also speak Mandarin which is of course the official language, the official Chinese. The script itself is also quite interesting. We have the traditional script which looks a little more complicated because when you look at the character, oh, there’s a lot more lines and of course, there’s the official script which is simplified. So when we looked into the translation process, we really had to, even within the Chinese community, do a lot of collaboration because we find that certain terms are translated in different ways and to be as inclusive as possible, we had to consult with and coordinate and cooperate with many, many different friends. So it really isn’t just .Asia doing everything, it absolutely isn’t. So it’s .Asia, there’s friends from mainland, there’s Sienic friends, there’s also friends who understand the different terminologies that is used with the Chinese-speaking community around the world. So I guess I’ll stop here with a little bit of flavor and context of the translation and hand it right back to you.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Thank you, Jennifer. We have here Valeria, she could make, and thank you for joining us and please, the floor is yours.

Valeria Betancourt: Apologies for being late, it’s just running from one session to another. I really value the opportunity to talk about my experience of assisting with the translation into Spanish, but before I dig into the specific issue, what I want to say is that, and I have been saying in different panels, that when we look back at processes that we engage in relation to shaping Internet governance and the governance of digital technologies in general, we not only remember the issues that were important for us, the people that we met, the collaborations that we established, we really remember how things happened, how the process was conducted. And I think this is at the core of the multi-stakeholder guidelines. These principles and these guidelines really help us to build different ways of running processes when it has to do with the application of the multi-stakeholder approach, not only to the conversations, but actually to the collaborations and to finding solutions, which I think help us to address specific problems, either acknowledging that there are different interests on the table, acknowledging that the dynamic of stakeholder engagement is not easy, but actually helping us to move beyond the simple dialogue and conversation which is essential and important to specific solutions to address the different and critical challenges that we face in order to crystallize the vision that many of us envisage of having governance that is inclusive, that is democratic, that is transparent, that is accountable. So all of that is at the center of these guidelines and the possibility to honor also the principles that were stated 20 years ago in relation to inclusivity in the information society, not only to sit in the different stakeholders on the table, but actually to be able to meet their interests and to respond to the realities that people face, acknowledging that the way in which tech is embedded in our lives is really rendering us in many different ways. So in relation to the translation, the translation is not just a mere transposition, a literal transposition of specific content from one language to another. When doing the translation we are actually also expressing different views of reality, different perspectives, so in that sense the translation in Spanish is not only an exercise and an attempt and an effort to expand the reach of the multi-stakeholder guidelines, but I think it is a very important effort to actually respond to the contextual realities that are needed in order to be able to make progress in democratic governance. So that’s the importance for me of having the multi-stakeholder guidelines, the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines in different languages has to do with that. It’s not only a communication strategy, it’s not only the possibility for different people to be able to relate with the principles and the guidelines in their own language, but for me it’s actually mostly an attempt to respond to the contextual realities of people, if we really want to be inclusive, if we really want to be able to make progress in terms of democratic governance. So let me leave it like that for now.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Thank you very much, Valeria. We have time for questions, yes?

Audience: Thank you. Greetings everybody. The process that took place about 11 years ago, the first Netmundia, of course those that can remember, you know it was like a conscience on the whole information ecosystem. So the Netmundia process has become the conscience of the information society vis-a-vis the multi-stakeholder engagement. So the process was great, before I forget, I’m James Ndolufuye from Africa, Africa. The process involved is really a case in point, and I’m so happy that this has been translated so that others can benefit from it. The scoping, the engagement, and the inclusivity across the region is exemplary, and we’ve been talking about this a lot in Nigeria, and government people have a dozen of it, but it’s like the reference point, and we are scaling it across Africa. And so we also offer to at least translate into Swahili, into Yoruba, into Hausa. So we will proceed with that initiative as well. Thank you very much.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Thank you. Any more comments? Everton, please. I should say that this was possible because of the great team that we have on NIC.br, all those persons who were able to do in a timely manner, and Everton was one of those, and Vinicius was the other, and many other people. So all the NIC.br team, thank you Rafa.

Everton Rodrigues: Very quickly, just as a follow-up of what Jimson was mentioning, NetMundial, the success of NetMundial depends a lot on the future of what we did one year ago. So it’s a living experience. The process didn’t stop on those two days that we gathered in Sao Paulo. Part of that is also that the process of translation is still ongoing, so we are open to keep receiving those translations in other languages. The six UN languages are published here with the book, but we have ongoing efforts in other languages as well, so please feel invited to send us those new translations to contact us also to make those translations available. They will be credited on NetMundial Plus 10 website, so join the effort, because the future of NetMundial is still ongoing. Thank you very much.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Thank you, Everton. We have here with us Jorge Cancio, who was also involved in the process of translation, and we will have a few words from him. Please, Jorge. Anything you want.

Jorge Cancio: Hello, everyone. I’m Jorge Cancio from the Swiss government. I’m very sorry that I was late. We had an open forum just discussing, amongst other things, how we can use the NetMundial Plus 10 and the Sao Paulo multistakeholder guidelines to inspire the different processes we have. It’s really in our hands, so it’s like the translations. We did one into Italian, and then our colleague, Titi Casa, really went on. document and especially the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines, which are very close to my heart Not only because of the product but because of the process we had Before Sao Paulo and in Sao Paulo last year, which was really amazing very intense very very Heavy also in emotions, but very productive It’s really in our hands to put them to work. I think that’s the the most important part of them To them because if it’s just a piece of paper It will get forgotten in in some years of time but if we put them to use be it here in the dynamic coalitions be it in the best practice for our beard in the policy networks or be it in national and regional IGF’s they will really gain some reality, they will inform what we do on a Multi-stakeholder in a multi-stakeholder fashion at the different levels. So I really invite you wherever your responsibility lies Be it at the local at the national at the regional or at the global level To really use them to put them to work and to Bring back your feedback on what works what doesn’t work where we have to improve them and here in the IGF Which is like the caretaker of the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines Thanks to the invitation of net munia plus 10. This is the place to then keep on evolving them and just Very small commercial on my side in that sense. We are trying to implement them For the Swiss IGF, so we have a role in the Swiss IGF we are part of a multi-stakeholder community there and now we are looking into how we use the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines to make sure that the Processes that affect the Swiss IGF are really bottom-up open inclusive and take into account Also the the asymmetries of power and influence of the different stakeholders Which is the first guideline from Sao Paulo, so I’ll leave it by that. Thank you

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Thank You Jorge I’ll hand out the microphone to Renata Miele who was able to join us from another session Please Renata

Renata Mielli: Well, I’m sorry I was in another session first of all, thank you everybody for being here for our Book launching and What I’m going to say I’m going to say that I’m very very very Happy to see that the work we’ve done we in net mundial plus 10 It was a hard work We joined some Marvelous people in our Agalec the the committee the high-level committee that put the the net mundial Who organized and Helped to Deline all the discussions. We we’ve made in net mundial and Some are here with us now and in the IGF and it’s very very wonderful, there is no words to say how Amazing is to see when we are on workshop and see people in all the world Making reference to the net mundial stakeholder guidelines, you know in so What we try to do when we start this discussion on CGI.br Well, let’s do another net mundial. I think we achieve our goal and in I hope this guidelines can Impact on the future of the governance of the Internet and the governance of the digital world in a way that the mood stakeholder approach can be improved and applied in Everywhere, so thank you very much. I’m very happy with the result of our collective job because only in the collective we can achieve And Things that can be Have a real impact in the society. Thank you very much

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Thank You Renata any more comments I see people here who were involved in the process anyone want to comment anything no Jennifer please

Jennifer Chung: Just a quick comment, actually, I was gonna go straight to Akinori, I wanted to acknowledge that he is also on the HLAC and I’m sure he’s gonna talk about the translation

Akinori Maemura: Okay All right Okay. Thank you very much my name is Akinori Maemura one of the member of the HLAC for the net mundial plus 10 and then I am actually the net mundial 2014 I was involved in the EMC. So this is this is my second Fabulous experience to join this this party I’d like to share two things. One is that As the whole head said the process was great I I was so totally astonished by the editing process You know, do you can you imagine that the all HLAC member is in the zoom call and Then from all over the world editing the same that a single Google document to move ahead so a lot of castles are here and there and Editing and someone doing the some edition editing in in, you know a little bit, you know a Why are you saying that the sentence of the forthcoming sentences, so it is really dynamic that dynamic process to edit and then my brain is really sizzling to Catch up the discussion. That’s one one one one thing and then another thing is I I actually contributed for the the Japanese translation of the Of the net mundial plus 10 Statement and then it is it is, you know only, you know contributing for the Japanese community for You know better Understand what is net mundial plus 10 a statement and the guidelines are but it is for me it is very important that that statement is not only the statement, but it is it is it it is Get more valuable when it was utilized made use of in their own process, so I’d like to have it Utilized in Japanese some Some a multi-stakeholder process in in in the Japanese community So if if it is utilized like that, then the value of the this this document is more and more Tangible and then a substantial one. So what that’s two points of mine. Thank you very much.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Thank you Vinicius please

Vinicius W. O. Santos: Thank you I’m Vinicius. I was part of the secretariat as they mentioned I won’t repeat many of the great sentences that you all already Brought to us here in this group, but just to add small comments related to the translation process itself we could just reach this result here this Book because we had a lot of help We needed and we had a lot of help from many people from these people here But also from other people that are not here exactly. For example, we had also Manao So just recognizing here Manao Christina Arida also Zena that were responsible for reviewing the translation to the Arabic We had the same for the Russian translator. We had a Collaborator as well his name Leonid Todorov that was also responsible for reviewing the the translation for us We had translators some some translations. It was really a collaborative process So we had some translations that were made from people here with us Also some translations made by by specific professionals hired for that but all the translations were reviewed by people of the field of this field here the internet governance community and people that were involved with the net mundial process and could Review the work and help us out with all the details because there are a lot of details and you know that So that’s it just to recognize these people and all this work because it’s a very complex and very very minimalistic work and we really need to be very Helped to to reach this kind of result. Thank you very much. That’s it

Valeria Betancourt: Thank you. Sure a very important comment that I want to make well I hope it is important But as many of you know, we are going through the plus 20 review of the World Summit on the Information Society and And I think this instrument that we have here, it has very practical and pragmatic steps and recommendations on how to make inclusion a reality. And I mention this because the opportunity that the PLAS-20 review of the WSIS present us is to precisely increase the representation of underrepresented views, perspectives, communities, and stakeholders. And I think if we really want to achieve the WSIS vision and to make progress in terms of a digital future with dignity and justice, it cannot happen if we don’t really in practice at all levels, national, regional, local, global, increase the representation of perspectives that have been overlooked or because of different reasons are not present here as they should be. So I think this is a powerful instrument for us to use in order to make sure that those voices, perspectives, and realities are taken into consideration as part of the review. So we actually can move towards a future that is truly more inclusive. Thank you.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Pierre?

Pierre Bonis: Yeah, thank you. If I can add a few words because I was so thrilled by the process that everyone talked about that I almost talk about that only, but on the translation process in French. So first of all, I want to thank Lucien Castex because it has been a work to read the translation that we asked to a professional translator. And in that process, I think we see in this document that the concept of the Internet governance are better translated that for instance, the official translation that we can find even in the UN system. Because when you had the WSIS for instance, the translation of the Geneva Declaration and Agenda of Tunis was made by very competent translators from the UN system, but not from the field. So now if you look at the words, at least in French, there is a new translation of IG concept that is closer to the field that it was before. So maybe it gives an idea for the next WSIS plus 20 process to ask some of the community of the multi-stakeholder community to read the official translation of the UN before they are published. Maybe it will be more understandable later, but anyway, thank you to have given us this opportunity to do it. And once again, thank you to Lucien who have done that brilliantly in French.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Thank you. Thank you. Jennifer, please.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you so much. Just very briefly because of what Akinori and Valeria said about going through the WSIS plus 20 process and actually this is a good time to use and actually kind of enshrine these principles, these guidelines into the input. And I wanted to take up on specifically on translation because of language. Because we are, when we live and breathe internet governance and multi-stakeholderism, we live and dream it, we are able to actually translate it into our native languages and this actually helps us with capacity building in our own communities for them to understand these concepts so they too can be leveled up to be able to substantively input into the WSIS plus 20 process. So this is such a valuable undertaking and thank you again CGI, WPR, Renata and all of those, I’m looking around, I don’t see them anymore, Everton and Vinicius and all of, oh there you are, to actually do this, to enable us to have this resource so we can uplift our own communities. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: We thank you, Jennifer. People are saying to me that I have to say to you that the copy of this book is free so please pick up one of these. We have some on our booth as well on the CGI.br but I think there are many on the tables, on the chairs and anything, anyone wants to add some more comments or from the audience? We still have five minutes, I want to ask you a question if you allow me. Is there anything in the process of translation that made more clear to you or made more important to you some of the principles that are in this book? I know that the process of translation is always a process of rethinking, reflecting on the text. So if you have something on your mind. Jorge told us about power imbalances, which is very much addressed in this book. So please.

Valeria Betancourt: I can say something, obviously as I mentioned earlier, translation, it’s also permeated by politics, your politics, your understanding of processes of existence, of issues, of problems, of your own reality, all of that is also translated into the exercise of translating content. So in that sense I think the fact that we have the NetMundial principles in different languages, it also increases the level of appropriation. And appropriation of the instruments that we have at the moment, whether they are frameworks of principles, whether they are guidelines, whether they are set of policies or practices, whatever the instrument it is, the possibility to relate with those instruments on your own language I think increases the possibility or appropriate them in a way that is meaningful. And only by being meaningful we can engage with the governance arrangements that could respond to the challenges that we face in a way that really means something for the different groups and realities. So that is what I want to highlight in terms of the translation. It’s not exempt of those politics and the political dimension that the processes have, particularly if they have to do with the governance of digital technology. Thank you.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Renata?

Renata Mielli: I want to make a comment, not about the translation process, but about the importance in having the guidelines in different languages. When I’m going to discuss the NetMundial plus 10 guidelines with Spanish people, I don’t read the guidelines in English or in Portuguese. I look for the guidelines in Spanish because I can see the difference in the impact that the very specific language has in the translation. So for us, it’s amazing to see that. When I’m going to talk about in English, I go to the English version because it’s different for the Portuguese. And the other day I made a meeting and I talked about NetMundial plus 10 for Brazilian people. And I didn’t read the Portuguese version until that moment. And I saw differences that make more sense in Portuguese. So for us, it’s also important to have this book in all these languages. It’s very interesting and an education process for me.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Jorge?

Jorge Cancio: Yeah, perhaps a similar example. We were having a discussion in the management board of my office, where we were talking about a process, a procedure that was rather internal, but that had some elements of needing inclusion and openness. And it was super handy for me because I could refer to the text, to the process steps, both in German and in French, because normally it’s the languages we work in, we discuss. And it has a completely different impact for my colleagues who are not used to work in English, so that I could show them, indicate them the text I was referring to in German or in French.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Thank you. Thank you. Any more comments? I think our time is over. So please, Renata, do you want to say something?

Renata Mielli: No. I want to say, don’t go. Let’s take a picture with everybody who is here from the HLAC before closing the session.

Rafael de Almeida Evangelista: Okay. So let’s make a picture. But thank you all for attending this presentation, and please pick up a copy of the book. Thank you. Thank you.

Agreement points

NetMundial demonstrates effectiveness of multi-stakeholder governance

Speakers

– Pierre Bonis
– Jennifer Chung
– Audience
– Renata Mielli

Arguments

NetMundial demonstrates multi-stakeholder approach can deliver results in timely manner

NetMundial serves as shining example that multi-stakeholder process works and produces tangible results

NetMundial process has become the conscience of information society regarding multi-stakeholder engagement

Collective work is essential for achieving real societal impact

Summary

All speakers agree that NetMundial represents a successful model of multi-stakeholder governance that delivers concrete results quickly and serves as an inspiring example for the global community

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Translation requires collaborative effort from field experts

Speakers

– Pierre Bonis
– Jennifer Chung
– Vinicius W. O. Santos

Arguments

Internet governance concepts are better translated by field experts than general UN translators

Chinese translation required coordination across different Chinese-speaking communities and scripts

Translation process was highly collaborative involving multiple reviewers and field experts

Summary

Speakers unanimously agree that high-quality translation of technical governance documents requires collaboration among experts from the internet governance field rather than relying solely on professional translators

Topics

Sociocultural

Multilingual resources enable meaningful community engagement

Speakers

– Valeria Betancourt
– Jennifer Chung
– Jorge Cancio
– Renata Mielli

Arguments

Having guidelines in native languages increases appropriation and meaningful engagement

Multilingual availability enables capacity building in local communities

Native language resources help colleagues who don’t work in English understand concepts better

Different language versions have distinct impacts and make more sense in specific contexts

Summary

All speakers agree that providing resources in native languages significantly enhances understanding, appropriation, and meaningful participation in governance processes

Topics

Sociocultural

Guidelines must be actively implemented to remain valuable

Speakers

– Jorge Cancio
– Akinori Maemura
– Valeria Betancourt

Arguments

Guidelines must be put to work in various contexts to gain reality and avoid being forgotten

Japanese translation contributes to better understanding in Japanese community

Guidelines provide practical steps for making inclusion reality in WSIS Plus 20 review

Summary

Speakers agree that the true value of the guidelines lies in their practical implementation across various governance contexts rather than their mere existence as documents

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize that translation is not merely technical but involves cultural and contextual adaptation that makes content more meaningful and impactful for specific audiences

Speakers

– Valeria Betancourt
– Renata Mielli

Arguments

Translation expresses different views of reality and responds to contextual realities

Different language versions have distinct impacts and make more sense in specific contexts

Topics

Sociocultural

Both speakers view NetMundial as definitive proof that multi-stakeholder processes can be effective and produce concrete outcomes, countering critics who claim such processes are ineffective

Speakers

– Pierre Bonis
– Jennifer Chung

Arguments

NetMundial demonstrates multi-stakeholder approach can deliver results in timely manner

NetMundial serves as shining example that multi-stakeholder process works and produces tangible results

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Both speakers see multilingual resources as tools for empowerment and inclusion, enabling broader participation in governance processes

Speakers

– Jennifer Chung
– Valeria Betancourt

Arguments

Multilingual availability enables capacity building in local communities

Guidelines can be used to increase representation of underrepresented communities

Topics

Development | Human rights

Unexpected consensus

Technical complexity of collaborative online editing

Speakers

– Akinori Maemura

Arguments

Dynamic online editing process with global HLAC members was remarkable collaborative experience

Explanation

While not directly contradicted by others, the detailed appreciation for the technical and logistical complexity of simultaneous global editing represents an unexpected focus on process innovation that wasn’t emphasized by other speakers

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Ongoing nature of translation efforts beyond official publication

Speakers

– Everton Rodrigues

Arguments

Translation efforts are ongoing and open to additional languages beyond UN official languages

Explanation

The commitment to continue accepting translations beyond the six UN languages represents an unexpected expansion of the project’s scope that goes beyond typical publication cycles

Topics

Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion shows remarkable consensus across all speakers on the value of NetMundial as a governance model, the importance of collaborative translation by field experts, the necessity of multilingual resources for inclusive participation, and the need for practical implementation of guidelines. There were no significant disagreements or conflicting viewpoints expressed.

Consensus level

Very high consensus with strong mutual reinforcement of key themes. This unanimous support suggests the NetMundial Plus 10 process has successfully built broad stakeholder buy-in and demonstrates the maturity of the multi-stakeholder governance community in recognizing effective practices. The consensus has significant implications for legitimizing and scaling multi-stakeholder approaches globally.

Different viewpoints

Translation approach – professional vs community-based

Speakers

– Pierre Bonis
– Vinicius W. O. Santos

Arguments

Internet governance concepts are better translated by field experts than general UN translators

Translation process was highly collaborative involving multiple reviewers and field experts

Summary

Pierre emphasizes the superiority of field expert translations over professional UN translators, while Vinicius describes a hybrid approach using both professional translators and community reviewers. They differ on the optimal translation methodology.

Topics

Sociocultural

Unexpected differences

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkably high consensus among speakers with only minor methodological differences regarding translation approaches

Disagreement level

Very low disagreement level. The speakers demonstrated strong alignment on core principles of multi-stakeholder governance, the value of multilingual accessibility, and the importance of practical implementation. The minimal disagreements were constructive and focused on methodology rather than fundamental principles, suggesting a mature and collaborative community working toward shared goals.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize that translation is not merely technical but involves cultural and contextual adaptation that makes content more meaningful and impactful for specific audiences

Speakers

– Valeria Betancourt
– Renata Mielli

Arguments

Translation expresses different views of reality and responds to contextual realities

Different language versions have distinct impacts and make more sense in specific contexts

Topics

Sociocultural

Both speakers view NetMundial as definitive proof that multi-stakeholder processes can be effective and produce concrete outcomes, countering critics who claim such processes are ineffective

Speakers

– Pierre Bonis
– Jennifer Chung

Arguments

NetMundial demonstrates multi-stakeholder approach can deliver results in timely manner

NetMundial serves as shining example that multi-stakeholder process works and produces tangible results

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Both speakers see multilingual resources as tools for empowerment and inclusion, enabling broader participation in governance processes

Speakers

– Jennifer Chung
– Valeria Betancourt

Arguments

Multilingual availability enables capacity building in local communities

Guidelines can be used to increase representation of underrepresented communities

Topics

Development | Human rights

Key takeaways

NetMundial Plus 10 successfully demonstrates that multi-stakeholder processes can deliver concrete, timely results and produce tangible outcomes

The Sao Paulo Multi-stakeholder Guidelines provide a practical, actionable framework for improving governance processes with principles of transparency, participation, and adaptability

Translation into multiple languages is not merely linguistic conversion but enables cultural appropriation and contextual understanding of governance concepts

Collaborative translation processes involving field experts produce better results than standard institutional translations

The guidelines serve as a living document that gains value through practical implementation rather than remaining theoretical

Multi-language availability significantly increases community capacity building and enables broader participation in governance processes

The NetMundial process represents a successful model for inclusive, bottom-up decision-making that can be replicated at various levels

Resolutions and action items

Continue accepting and publishing translations in additional languages beyond the six UN languages

Implement the Sao Paulo Guidelines in various contexts including national IGFs (specifically Swiss IGF mentioned)

Use the guidelines as input for the WSIS Plus 20 review process to increase representation of underrepresented communities

Apply the guidelines in dynamic coalitions, best practice forums, and policy networks

Provide feedback on implementation experiences to evolve and improve the guidelines

Utilize the IGF as the platform to continue developing and refining the multi-stakeholder guidelines

Unresolved issues

How to effectively scale the NetMundial model to other regions and contexts beyond the examples mentioned

Specific mechanisms for collecting and incorporating feedback from implementation experiences

How to ensure sustained engagement and prevent the guidelines from being forgotten over time

Methods for measuring the effectiveness of the guidelines in addressing power imbalances and asymmetries

Coordination mechanisms for ongoing translation efforts in additional languages

Suggested compromises

None identified

Sometimes people look at our model, at the multi-stakeholder model, saying, okay, that’s nice, but it doesn’t deliver anything. And NetMundial and NetMundial Plus10… you see that in four days, you get a consensus that is a solid one, that can last four years, as in other fora, you may talk for 10 years without having anything like that.

Speaker

Pierre Bonis

Reason

This comment directly addresses a fundamental criticism of multi-stakeholder governance – that it’s inefficient and doesn’t produce concrete results. By contrasting NetMundial’s 4-day consensus with other forums that ‘talk for 10 years without having anything,’ Pierre provides a powerful counter-narrative that reframes the discussion from theoretical benefits to practical effectiveness.

Impact

This comment established a defensive yet confident tone for the entire discussion, positioning NetMundial as proof-of-concept for multi-stakeholder effectiveness. It influenced subsequent speakers to emphasize concrete outcomes and practical applications rather than just theoretical principles.

Translation is not just a mere transposition, a literal transposition of specific content from one language to another. When doing the translation we are actually also expressing different views of reality, different perspectives… It’s not only a communication strategy… but for me it’s actually mostly an attempt to respond to the contextual realities of people, if we really want to be inclusive.

Speaker

Valeria Betancourt

Reason

This insight transforms the discussion from viewing translation as a technical process to understanding it as a political and cultural act. Valeria introduces the concept that language carries worldviews and that true inclusivity requires acknowledging these different realities, not just linguistic accessibility.

Impact

This comment elevated the entire conversation about translation, leading other speakers to reflect more deeply on their translation experiences. It prompted Renata to later observe how different language versions had different impacts on audiences, and influenced the discussion toward viewing translation as a tool for democratic governance rather than just communication.

It’s really in our hands to put them to work… if it’s just a piece of paper it will get forgotten in some years of time but if we put them to use… they will really gain some reality, they will inform what we do on a multi-stakeholder fashion at the different levels.

Speaker

Jorge Cancio

Reason

This comment shifts the focus from celebrating the achievement to acknowledging the responsibility for implementation. Jorge introduces urgency and agency, warning against the common fate of policy documents that remain unused, and emphasizes the need for active application across different governance levels.

Impact

This comment created a turning point in the discussion, moving from retrospective celebration to forward-looking action. It prompted speakers to discuss practical applications and inspired concrete examples of implementation, such as Jorge’s own work with the Swiss IGF and references to using the guidelines in WSIS+20 processes.

The interesting part about my mother tongue, Chinese, is I actually have two because I speak Cantonese… The script itself is also quite interesting. We have the traditional script… So when we looked into the translation process, we really had to, even within the Chinese community, do a lot of collaboration because we find that certain terms are translated in different ways.

Speaker

Jennifer Chung

Reason

This comment reveals the complexity hidden within seemingly simple categories like ‘Chinese translation.’ Jennifer exposes how even within a single language community, there are multiple variants, scripts, and terminologies that require extensive collaboration and negotiation, demonstrating that inclusivity requires attention to intra-community diversity.

Impact

This comment deepened the discussion about translation complexity and reinforced Valeria’s earlier point about translation as a collaborative, political process. It led to greater appreciation for the collaborative nature of the entire translation effort and influenced later comments about the importance of community involvement in translation work.

We had ongoing efforts in other languages as well, so please feel invited to send us those new translations to contact us also to make those translations available… the future of NetMundial is still ongoing.

Speaker

Everton Rodrigues

Reason

This comment reframes NetMundial from a completed project to an ongoing, living process. By opening the door for additional translations and emphasizing continuity, Everton transforms the book launch from an endpoint to a milestone in an continuing journey, emphasizing the dynamic nature of the initiative.

Impact

This comment energized the discussion and led to immediate offers of additional translations (James Ndolufuye offering Swahili, Yoruba, and Hausa). It shifted the conversation from retrospective to prospective, encouraging active participation and expanding the scope of the initiative beyond the current publication.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by transforming it from a simple book launch celebration into a sophisticated dialogue about governance effectiveness, cultural politics of translation, and ongoing responsibility for implementation. Pierre’s opening defense of multi-stakeholder efficiency set a confident tone that influenced all subsequent speakers to emphasize concrete outcomes. Valeria’s insight about translation as cultural-political work elevated the entire conversation about language and inclusivity, leading to richer reflections from other translators. Jorge’s call for active implementation created a crucial pivot from celebration to action, while Jennifer’s detailed account of Chinese translation complexity and Everton’s invitation for ongoing contributions transformed the event from a conclusion to a beginning. Together, these comments created a dynamic flow that moved the discussion through multiple layers – from defending multi-stakeholder governance, to understanding translation as political work, to accepting responsibility for future implementation – ultimately positioning the NetMundial guidelines as both a proven model and a living tool for democratic governance.

How can the NetMundial Plus 10 guidelines be effectively implemented and utilized in various multi-stakeholder processes at local, national, regional, and global levels?

Speaker

Jorge Cancio

Explanation

Jorge emphasized that the guidelines need to be put to work in practice rather than remaining as documents, and invited feedback on what works, what doesn’t work, and where improvements are needed when implementing them in real processes

How can the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines be applied to improve the Swiss IGF processes?

Speaker

Jorge Cancio

Explanation

Jorge mentioned they are actively trying to implement the guidelines for the Swiss IGF to ensure processes are bottom-up, open, inclusive, and take into account asymmetries of power and influence

How can the NetMundial Plus 10 guidelines be used as input for the WSIS Plus 20 review process?

Speaker

Valeria Betancourt and Jennifer Chung

Explanation

Both speakers highlighted the opportunity to use these practical guidelines to increase representation of underrepresented communities and ensure more inclusive participation in the WSIS Plus 20 review

How can translation into additional local languages (Swahili, Yoruba, Hausa) be coordinated and implemented?

Speaker

James Ndolufuye

Explanation

James offered to translate the guidelines into African languages to scale the approach across Africa, indicating a need for coordination of additional translation efforts

How can the multi-stakeholder community contribute to improving official UN translations of internet governance concepts?

Speaker

Pierre Bonis

Explanation

Pierre suggested that the community could review official UN translations before publication to make them more understandable and closer to field terminology, particularly for the WSIS Plus 20 process

How can the guidelines be utilized in Japanese multi-stakeholder processes to make their value more tangible and substantial?

Speaker

Akinori Maemura

Explanation

Akinori emphasized that the document becomes more valuable when utilized in actual processes and expressed interest in applying it to Japanese community multi-stakeholder processes

What feedback and lessons learned can be gathered from ongoing implementations of the guidelines in various contexts?

Speaker

Jorge Cancio

Explanation

Jorge called for bringing back feedback on implementation experiences to continue evolving and improving the guidelines based on real-world application

Summary

This panel discussion focused on the intersection of artificial intelligence and environmental sustainability, exploring how AI can both contribute to and help solve climate challenges. The moderator introduced the central paradox that while AI offers opportunities to address environmental risks, it simultaneously contributes to the problem through high energy and water consumption.

Mario Nobile from Italy’s digital agency outlined his country’s four-pillar AI strategy emphasizing education, research, public administration, and enterprise applications. He highlighted efforts to transition from energy-intensive large models to smaller, vertical domain-specific models for sectors like manufacturing, health, and tourism. Marco Zennaro presented TinyML technology, which runs machine learning on extremely small, low-power devices costing under $10, enabling AI applications in remote areas without internet connectivity. He shared examples from a global network of 60 universities developing applications like disease detection in livestock and anemia screening in remote villages.

Adham Abouzied from Boston Consulting Group emphasized the value of open-source solutions, citing a Harvard study showing that recreating existing open-source intellectual property would cost $4 billion, but licensing it separately would cost $8 trillion. He advocated for system-level cooperation and data sharing across value chains to optimize AI’s impact on sectors like energy. Ioanna Ntinou discussed her work on the Raido project, demonstrating how knowledge distillation techniques reduced model parameters by 60% while maintaining accuracy in energy forecasting applications.

Mark Gachara from Mozilla Foundation highlighted the importance of measuring environmental impact, referencing projects like Code Carbon that help developers optimize their code’s energy consumption. The panelists agreed that sustainable AI requires active incentivization rather than emerging by default, emphasizing the need for transparency in energy reporting, open-source collaboration, and policies that promote smaller, task-specific models over large general-purpose ones. The discussion concluded that achieving sustainable AI requires coordinated efforts across education, policy, procurement, and international cooperation to balance AI’s benefits with its environmental costs.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **AI’s dual role in climate challenges**: The discussion explored how AI presents both opportunities to address environmental risks (through optimization and efficiency) and contributes to the problem through high energy and water consumption, creating a complex “foster opportunity while mitigating risk” scenario.

– **Small-scale and efficient AI solutions**: Multiple panelists emphasized moving away from large, energy-intensive models toward smaller, task-specific AI applications, including TinyML devices that cost under $10, consume minimal power, and can operate without internet connectivity in remote areas.

– **Open source collaboration and data sharing**: The conversation highlighted how open source approaches can significantly reduce costs and energy consumption by avoiding duplication of effort, with examples showing potential savings from $4 billion to $8 trillion through shared intellectual property.

– **Policy frameworks and governance models**: Panelists discussed the need for comprehensive governance including procurement policies, regulatory frameworks, transparency requirements, and incentive structures (both “carrots and sticks”) to promote sustainable AI development and deployment.

– **Transparency and measurement imperatives**: A key theme was the critical need for transparency in AI energy consumption, with calls for standardized reporting of energy use at the prompt level and better assessment tools to enable informed decision-making by developers, policymakers, and users.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to explore practical solutions for balancing AI’s potential benefits in addressing climate change with its environmental costs, focusing on how different stakeholders (governments, researchers, civil society, and industry) can collaborate to develop and implement more sustainable AI technologies and governance frameworks.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a consistently optimistic and solution-oriented tone throughout. While acknowledging the serious challenges posed by AI’s environmental impact, panelists focused on concrete examples of successful implementations, practical policy recommendations, and collaborative approaches. The moderator set an upbeat tone from the beginning by emphasizing hope and “walking the talk” rather than dwelling on problems, and this constructive atmosphere persisted as panelists shared specific use cases, technical solutions, and policy frameworks that are already showing positive results.

Speakers

– **Mario Nobile** – Director General of the Agents for Digital Italy (AGIDS)

– **Leona Verdadero** – UNESCO colleague, in charge of the report “Smarter, Smaller, Stronger, Resource Efficient Generative AI in the Future of Digital Transformation”

– **Marco Zennaro** – Next Edge AI Expert at the Abdus Salam International Center of Theoretical Physics, also works for UNESCO, works extensively on TinyML and energy efficient AI applications

– **Audience** – Jan Lublinski from DW Academy in Media Development under Deutsche Welle, former science journalist

– **Adham Abouzied** – Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group, works at the intersection of AI, climate resilience and digital innovation with focus on open source AI solutions

– **Moderator** – Panel moderator (role/title not specified)

– **Ioanna Ntinou** – Postdoctoral researcher in computer vision and machine learning at Queen Mary University of London, works with Raido project focusing on reliable and optimized AI

– **Mark Gachara** – Senior advisor, Global Public Policy Engagements at the Mozilla Foundation

Additional speakers:

None identified beyond the provided speakers names list.

# AI and Environmental Sustainability Panel Discussion Report

## Introduction

This panel discussion examined the intersection between artificial intelligence and environmental sustainability, addressing what the moderator described as a central paradox: while AI offers opportunities to tackle climate challenges, it simultaneously contributes to environmental problems through substantial energy and water consumption. The moderator emphasized the need to move beyond theoretical discussions toward practical solutions, setting a solution-oriented tone for the conversation.

The panel brought together perspectives from government policy, academia, civil society, and industry to explore how different stakeholders can collaborate on more sustainable AI technologies and governance frameworks.

## National Strategy and Policy Frameworks

### Italy’s Four-Pillar Approach

Mario Nobile, Director General of Italy’s Agency for Digital Italy (AGID), outlined Italy’s comprehensive AI governance strategy built on four pillars: education, scientific research, public administration, and enterprise applications. He emphasized that the contemporary debate has evolved, stating: “Now the debate is not humans versus machines. Now the debate is about who understands and uses managed AI versus who don’t.”

Nobile highlighted Italy’s substantial financial commitment, with 69 billion euros allocated for ecological transition and 13 billion euros for business digitalization from the National Recovery Plan. He noted the challenge of implementing guidelines across Italy’s 23,000 public administrations and described plans for tax credit frameworks to incentivize small and medium enterprises to adopt AI technologies.

A key element of Italy’s strategy involves transitioning from large, energy-intensive models to what Nobile called “vertical and agile foundation models” designed for specific sectors including manufacturing, health, transportation, and tourism. Italy’s Open Innovation Framework enables new procurement methods beyond conventional tenders for public administration, addressing regulatory challenges around data governance and cloud usage.

## Technical Solutions and Innovations

### TinyML: Small-Scale AI Applications

Marco Zennaro from the Abdus Salam International Centre of Theoretical Physics presented TinyML (Tiny Machine Learning) as an approach to sustainable AI. This technology enables machine learning on small, low-power devices costing under $10, consuming minimal energy, and operating without internet connectivity.

Zennaro described a global network of over 60 universities across 32 countries developing practical TinyML applications, including:

– Disease detection in cows in Zimbabwe

– Bee population monitoring in Kenya

– Anemia screening in remote villages in Peru

– Turtle behavior analysis for conservation in Argentina

He posed a fundamental question: “Do we always need these super wide models that can answer every question we have? Or is it better to focus on models that solve specific issues which are useful for SDGs or for humanity in general?”

The TinyML approach emphasizes regional collaboration and south-to-south knowledge sharing, with investment in local capacity building using open curricula developed with global partners.

### Model Optimization Research

Ioanna Ntinou from Queen Mary University of London presented research from the Radio project demonstrating how knowledge distillation techniques can achieve significant efficiency gains. Her work showed that model parameters could be reduced by 60% while maintaining accuracy in energy forecasting applications.

Ntinou raised concerns about current evaluation frameworks, noting: “If we are measuring everything by accuracy, and sometimes we neglect the cost that comes with accuracy, we might consume way more energy than what is actually needed.” She emphasized that sustainable AI development requires active intervention and new success metrics that balance performance with environmental impact.

## Open Source Collaboration and Economic Perspectives

### The Economics of Shared Development

Adham Abouzied from Boston Consulting Group presented economic evidence for open source collaboration, citing research showing that recreating existing open source intellectual property would cost $4 billion, while licensing equivalent proprietary solutions separately would cost $8 trillion. He argued that “open source solutions optimize energy costs by avoiding repetitive development.”

Abouzied emphasized that meaningful AI applications in sectors like energy require system-level cooperation and data sharing across value chains, noting that “AI breakthroughs came from training on wealth of internet data; for vertical impact, models need to see and train on data across value chains.”

## Civil Society and Environmental Justice

### Community-Centered Approaches

Mark Gachara from Mozilla Foundation brought environmental justice perspectives to the discussion, emphasizing that “the theater of where the most impact of climate is in the global south and it would be a farmer, it would be indigenous and local communities.”

Gachara shared a specific example from Kilifi, Kenya, where communities used AI tools for ecological mapping to advocate against a proposed nuclear reactor project. He highlighted how civil society can leverage AI for evidence generation while ensuring that communities most affected by climate change have agency in developing responses.

He referenced tools like Code Carbon that help developers measure their code’s energy consumption, demonstrating how transparency can drive behavioral change at the individual developer level.

## Transparency and Measurement Challenges

### The Need for Energy Reporting

A recurring theme was the urgent need for transparency in AI energy consumption reporting. Ntinou highlighted that the current lack of visibility into energy usage per prompt or model interaction makes it impossible to develop effective legislation or make informed decisions about AI deployment.

The panelists agreed that assessment of energy usage in widely used public models is essential before focusing on regulatory frameworks. Without standardized evaluation methods and transparent reporting, stakeholders cannot compare the environmental impact of different AI systems.

An audience question from Jan Lublinski raised the possibility of carbon trading mechanisms for AI, asking whether transparency in energy consumption could enable market-based solutions for reducing AI’s environmental impact.

## UNESCO Report Preview

Leona Verdadero participated online to provide a preview of UNESCO’s forthcoming report on resource-efficient generative AI. While details were limited in this discussion, she indicated the report would provide evidence about optimized AI models and their potential for improved efficiency.

## Key Themes and Future Directions

### Emerging Consensus

The discussion revealed broad agreement across speakers on several key principles:

– The value of smaller, task-specific AI models over large general-purpose systems

– The critical importance of transparency in energy consumption measurement

– The benefits of open source and collaborative approaches

– The need for comprehensive policy frameworks that balance innovation with sustainability

### Implementation Challenges

Several challenges remain unresolved, including the fundamental tension between AI model accuracy and energy consumption when accuracy remains the primary success metric. Regulatory challenges around data governance and cross-border data transfer continue to limit AI implementation, particularly in emerging economies.

The lack of transparency in energy consumption reporting for widely used AI models represents a critical gap that must be addressed before effective policy interventions can be developed.

## Conclusion

The discussion demonstrated that achieving sustainable AI requires coordinated efforts across education, policy, procurement, and international cooperation. The panelists agreed that sustainable AI will not emerge by default and requires active incentivization through both regulatory frameworks and market mechanisms.

The conversation revealed convergence toward practical, implementable solutions emphasizing efficiency over scale, transparency in measurement, open collaboration, and equitable access. The path forward involves not just technical innovation but fundamental changes in how success is measured and resources are allocated in AI development.

As the discussion highlighted, the solutions exist across multiple scales—from tiny, efficient models addressing specific local challenges to policy frameworks enabling sustainable AI adoption at national levels. What remains is coordinated implementation at the scale and speed required to address both AI’s environmental impact and its potential to help solve climate challenges.

Moderator: Good morning, everyone. A pleasure to be here with you all, in the audience, online, but also with this fantastic group of panelists. I’m sure if you read any of these reports about the most important issues of our times, you will certainly find the issues that we are discussing here today. Some reports will say governance of artificial intelligence is one of the most important issues we need to deal with. Certainly, climate change, many of these reports will say it’s one of the most important policy issues we have in front of us, as well as it’s one of the most threatening risks for humanity. Energy resources and scarce resources, and water is probably another of those issues that you’ll see in different reports here and there. The challenge for this gentleman and lady here is how to combine all those things together. And of course, with you, I hope we are going to have a very interesting conversation about that. So, I don’t want to use a cliché here, but voilà, artificial intelligence offers, maybe needless to say, interesting opportunities for addressing some of these environmental risks, and we can speak about that, how the models can help us, and us as the climate scientists, as the policy makers, as the civil society, to solve this very complex equation on how we solve the planetary crisis that we are in the middle of, but tragically, or ironically, the same technology that can help us to address the issue is contributing to the problem, because it consumes a lot of energy, and water, and so on. So, again, as I said, it’s a cliché, but our job is how we can foster the opportunity and mitigate the risk. And as usual, in these very complex lives we have right now, it’s easy to say, but not necessarily easy to do. The good news is that these people in this panel and online, they do have some interesting solutions to propose to you, and some of them are already implementing it. So, since I’m optimistic by nature, when my team asked me to moderate and I saw what they prepared, I was very happy that it was not only dark and terrible, but it was also about how we can actually walk the talk, right? So, this session is a lot about this, to have a dialogue with this group of different actors here that are dedicated to think about this problem, and how we can… and I think we can suggest and underline in the one hour we have some of these issues. Of course, let’s look into the implications of AI technologies for these problems. We will try to showcase some tools and frameworks. UNESCO with the University College of London, we are going to launch very soon a very exciting issue brief called Smarter, Smaller, Stronger, Resource Efficient Generative AI in the Future of Digital Transformation that my dear colleague Leona, who is online, unfortunately she couldn’t be here today also to reduce UNESCO’s carbon footprint of people travelling all over the world, but she is the person in charge of this report and you can ask further questions and interact with her on that. And also again, as I said, try to highlight the different approaches that we can take to address these issues. So I’m sure we are going to have an exciting panel and since we need to be expeditive, I will stop here and go straight to my panellists and let me start with you, Mario. So Mario Nobile is the Director General of the Agents for Digital Italy, AGIDS, I guess I say like that. Correct. And Mario, let’s first start on what you are already doing at the strategic level, right? So how your agency is trying to cope with these not easy challenges. Buongiorno, over to you.

Mario Nobile: Buongiorno, thank you and good morning to all. Our Italian strategy rests on four pillars. Education, first of all. Scientific Research, Public Administration and Enterprises. And these efforts aim to bridge the divide, ensuring inclusive growth and empowering individuals to thrive in an AI-driven economy. For the first, scientific research, our goal is promoting research and development of advanced AI technologies. You before mentioned technology evolves really fast. So now we are dealing with agentic AI. We started with large language models, then large multimodal models. Now there is a new frontier about small models for vertical domains. So we met also with Confindustria, which is the enterprises organization in Italy. And we are trying applications about manufacturing, health, tourism, transportation. And this is important for energy-consuming models. For public administration, we are trying to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public services. For companies, Italy is the seventh country in the world for exports. So we must find a way to get to the application layer and to find concrete solutions for our enterprises. And education, first of all. I always say that now the debate is not humans versus machines. Now the debate is about who understands and uses managed AI versus machines. who don’t. Okay. And in Italy, the AI strategy is, we wrote it in 2024, we have also a strategic planning, the three year plan for IT in public administration. And we emphasize the importance of boosting digital transition using AI in an ethical and inclusive way. This is important for us. We have three minutes, so I go to the conclusion. And we are stressing our universities about techniques like incremental and federated learning to reduce model size and computational resource demands. This is the first goal. And so this approach minimizes energy consumption and we are creating the conditions to transition from brute force models, large and energy consuming, to vertical and agile foundation models with specific purposes, health, transportation, tourism, manufacturing. This is the point. Now, I was saying technology evolves faster than a strategy. So we have a strategy, but we are dealing with agentic AI, which is another frontier.

Moderator: Thank you very much, Mario. And I’m glad to hear the conclusion in terms of what you are working with your universities. Because I mean, I’m just the international bureaucrat here, right? I don’t understand anything about these things. But I did read the report that my team prepared and they were making recommendations towards what you were saying. And one of my questions to them is, is this Marco Zennaro, Next Edge AI Expert at the Abdus Salam International Center of Theoretical Physics. He also works for UNESCO. My children, they always tell me, why don’t you do these kind of interesting things? Because they don’t understand what I do, right? Because maybe not even I, but people like Marco are the ones walking the talk in UNESCO. So Marco, you have worked extensively on 10 ml and energy efficient AI applications, also in African contexts. So can you tell us, and especially for a person like me that is no political scientist, we don’t understand anything. So how you can understand the benefits of what you are doing?

Marco Zennaro: Sure, sure. Definitely. Thank you very much. So let me introduce TinyML first. So TinyML is about running machine learning models on really tiny devices, on really small devices. And when I say small, I say really small. So devices that have, you know, few kilobytes of memory, that have really slow processors, but they have two main advantages. The first one is that they’re extremely low power. So we’re talking about, you know, green AI, these devices consume very little power. And second advantage is that they’re extremely low cost. So one of these chips is less than a dollar, and one full device is about $10. So, you know, that’s, of course, very positive. And they allow AI or machine learning to run on the devices without the need of internet connection. So we heard, you know, during IGF that a third of the world is not connected. And if we want to have, you know, data from places that are remote, where there’s no internet connection, and we want to use AI or machine learning, that is a really good solution. So you ask about application. And so in 2020, together with colleagues from Harvard University and Columbia University, we created a network of people working on TinyML with a special focus on the Global South. Now we have more than 60 universities in 32 different countries. So we have many researchers working on TinyML in different environments. And they worked on very diverse applications. So just to cite a few, there’s colleagues in Zimbabwe that worked on TinyML for food and mouth disease in cows. So, you know, sticking this device in the mouth of the cow and detecting the disease. There’s colleagues in Kenya working on counting the number of bees that you have in a beehive. There’s colleagues in Peru that use TinyML to detect anemia through the eyes in remote villages. We have colleagues in Argentina that use TinyML on turtles to understand how they behave. So very diverse applications. Many of them have impact on SDGs. And again, using low cost and extremely low power devices.

Moderator: Thank you. This is fascinating. As you said, we are having in this IGF, which I think is a good thing, lots of discussions regarding, I mean, in this UN language, how we do these things, leaving no one behind. And these are very concrete examples, right? Because it’s about the cost, it’s about being low intensive on energy. So very glad to hear that. And again, to see that those things are possible. And this offers us a bit of hope, because as I said in the beginning, I’m always concerned that we are only looking to the side of the problems and the terrible risks, but without looking into what is already happening to address the issues, right? So let me move now to have a different setting to our online guests. We have One speaker that is speaking from the internet space, from the digital world. And he is Adham Abduzadeh, and he is Managing Director and Partner at the Boston Consulting Group. Welcome, Adham, to this conversation. And I know that the BCG, the Boston Consulting Group, is very much concerned about these issues as well. You are putting a lot of effort on that. And you yourself have worked at the intersection of AI, climate resilience and digital innovation. And with a specific focus on the open source AI solutions. So how you can tell us in your three minutes the connection of these issues with the main topic of this panel, that of course is the relationship with sustainability, environmental sustainability. Welcome and over to you.

Adham Abouzied: Thank you very much. Honored and very happy to join this very interesting panel. And I must say I enjoyed so much the interventions of the panelists before me. I think you asked a very, very interesting question. I will start my answer by basically the results of a study that has been recently made by Harvard University, which is around the value of the open source wealth that exists on the ground today. The study basically estimates that if we would recreate only one time the wealth of open source intellectual property that is available today on the Internet, it would cost us $4 billion. But it does not stop there, because if you assume or if you imagine that this material. was not open source, and that every player who would want to use it would either recreate it or pay a license, then basically you would increase this $4 billion of cost to $8 trillion just because of the repetition. So in a sense, having something that is open source optimizes significantly the amount of work that is required to get the value out of these AI algorithms or digital technologies in a larger sense. So instead of doing the thing one time, you will have communities that are actually contributing and building on top of the, I would say, intellectual creation of each other. First, I mean, to be able to get to broader impact at a much lower cost and a much lower energy cost as well. Now, from experience also, and building specifically on what Mario is saying, for you to be able to implement vertically focused AI models that generate value across a certain system or a certain value chain, you need to have some kind of system level cooperation, which means that today all of the, I would say, AI breakthroughs that we have been seeing basically through very large, generic foundational models, it’s there because they were trained on the data that is available out there on the internet, the wealth of text, the wealth of images, the wealth of videos, and basically these models are good at this generic, generative, tasks because of what these models have been able to see and train on. But now for you to be able to have a meaningful impact with models that have a vertical focus and can create value across a certain system, they have to basically see and train on data and build on top of the decisions that are made across a value chain. Let me give a concrete example that relates to this basically your starting speech. Let’s take the energy sector today. If you want to have or if you’re seeking to have basically an AI development that rather than creating a burden on the energy system, actually it’s becoming more optimised, then you also need to allow AI to create value within the energy sector, basically help optimise the decisions from the generation to the transmission to the actual usage. And if I take this energy system as an example, basically currently in very few countries in the world, you can see basically cooperation, data exchange, IP exchange across the different steps of the value chain. This would be essential and if it is allowed through policies, through protocols, like when we first started the internet with TCP IP, then the vertical models can create much more significant value that would allow, as a big example, the energy sector to optimise its income and will allow the AI algorithms not only to consume less energy by themselves, but also to help the energy sector itself. I would say, optimise its output and become greener.

Moderator: Thank you. Very interesting. So at the end of the day, we need to move from the lose-lose game to the win-win game, right? And you mentioned some keywords that I’m sure Jona will talk about, optimisation, cooperation, so that’s a very interesting segue. Let me just make one remark on the open source and the openness, on the open solutions, that is very interesting. We witnessed the concrete global example during the pandemic, right? When the scientists decided to open, the vaccines were produced in a record time in human history. So here, mutatis, mutandis, we need to use the same logic to fix this huge problem. So, Jona, in TINU, it’s correct? It’s TINU. OK, sorry about that. So Jona is a postdoctoral researcher in computer vision and machine learning at the Queen Mary University in London. And you work with Raido project, which focuses on reliable and optimised AI, again, the word. So, again, can you walk us through the specific use case from the project where you managed to show this connection with the efficiency and so on? Over to you.

Ioanna Ntinou: Yes, thank you. I’m happy to be here. So, as you said, Raido stands for reliable AI in data optimisation. And what we’re trying to do is to be a bit more conscious when we develop AI models on the energy consumption that the models are going to use. And by the end of the project, we will have developed a platform that we are going to test it against for real-life use cases. We call it pilots. And that they are spun in different domains. This can be… Institute of Technology, Robotics, Healthcare, Smart Farming, and Critical Infrastructure. Today, I will focus in one specific domain, which is the energy grid, and we’re working with two companies from Greece. One is an energy company, the National Energy Company, which is called PPC, and the other is like a research center called CERF. So, what we have is an optimized model for day ahead forecasting of energy demand and supply, particularly in smart homes that they have a microgrid. And what we were given was a big time series model that would predict the energy demand of small electronic devices that we have in our house, including, let’s say, a bulb. The problem with this model was that it was a bit big. It was very good in accuracy, but it was quite big, and it would need quite often retraining because, as you know, when we calculate the energy consumption of a device, this is dependent on the seasonality, this is dependent on the different habits that someone can have in a house. And what we did was simply a knowledge distillation. We took this model and we used it as a teacher to train a smaller model to produce more or less the same results. It was quite close in accuracy, but we reduced the number of parameters to 60%. So, we got a much smaller model, we call it the student now, that has more or less the same performance, and we got several benefits from this process. First, we have a smaller model that consumes much smaller energy. Secondly, this model is easier to deploy in small devices, as we discussed before in the panel, right, which is very critical because then you can democratize the… access to AI to a lot of houses, right? Because if you have a small model, you can deploy it much easier. And also, by maintaining the accuracy, we somehow help these companies have a more accurate forecast of the energy demand that they will be around. And in that way, they can consume or they produce energy having this into their mind. So we are happy with this and we hope that we will help also the rest of the pilots get good models and have good results.

Moderator: Thank you. Fascinating. And so it’s also a bit about evidence-based next steps, either for the companies or for policymaking. I remember a few years ago, before the AI times, but already in the open data environment, a Ministry of Energy of a particular country launched a hackathon with open data so that people could help to improve the efficiency of energy consumption and so on in the public sector. So transparency always sheds light, sometimes in very funny ways. And after they did the hackathon and the people did the run the models and so on, they found out that the ministry that consumed more energy in that country was the Ministry of Energy and Environment, which was a big shame for them. But then they actually implemented some very concrete policies to resolve these issues. So that’s also interesting. We need to connect these conversations with the conversation of transparency and accountability and so on. So, Mark, last but not least, Mark Gachara is a senior advisor, Global Public Policy Engagements at the Mozilla Foundation. And we are going to get back to the conversation, I guess, of open source because Mozilla has a long experience on that. And this mission of Mozilla

Mark Gachara: We had a number of grantees think about this particular area. We had, for example, an organization from France called Code Carbon. And within this theme of environmental justice, they were thinking about, when I write code, how much energy am I using? Because at the end of the day, fossil fuels are used to generate the energy. So a developer can actually optimize their code. And it’s an open source project that’s available that people can. before they harm the environment. These are just examples of practical use cases that are measuring because in management they have told us if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Probably you also can’t manage the risk. So I think being able to run this kind of action research that can talk to policy eventually then sheds light to make like environmental justice part of a core definition of how we roll out AI solutions.

Moderator: Thank you. Thank you. Super interesting and if I hear you correctly there are two important issues. There may be a energy efficiency AI by design right from the moment you are writing the code which is an interesting story also from the human rights perspective to be by design but also the capacity of having decent risk assessments for these things. So let’s now what’s going to happen we are going to have a second round here very quickly ping pong and then we are going to open to you so please start thinking about your questions to these fantastic people here. Mario you are also the regulator so and regulators can use sticks but they also can use carrots. So I guess my question for you is about the carrots.

Mario Nobile: Thank you. I’ll try to connect some dots and And my answer, I have three answers for this, but I want to connect. I fully agree with the other panelists, with Adam. The first one is education, and I connect with the answer from Adam. We are writing with public consultation guidelines for AI adoption, AI procurement, and AI development. So think about public administration. In Italy, we have 23,000 public administrations. Everyone must adopt. Everyone must do procurement. Some of them must develop. I think ministries like Environment and Energy, of course, but also the National Institute for Welfare. And what Adam was saying before is also about the interaction between cloud and edge computing. This is important. But we have also other challenges, and I’m thinking about the energy model. About which are the challenges now for a good use of artificial intelligence? Data quality and breaking the silos. These two points are really important for us. So the first answer is education, collaboration, sharing. New questions about what can I do with my data and with my data quality? What can I do about the cloud and the edge services I can develop? The second one, and the Agency for Digital Italy is working on it, is the Open Innovation Framework. It’s about new applications, not the classic tender about buying something, but the Open Innovation Framework, so I can enable public administration to carry for planned procedures and facilitate the supply and the demand in a new way. The third one is money. So the carrot is money. We are using in Italy a big amount of money from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. We have 69 billion euros for ecological transition and 13 billion euros for business digitalization. Now we are working on a new framework about tax credit for enterprises for a good start of using AI in the small and medium enterprises. Thank you very much. This is fascinating, and also finishing with the money always gives people hope.

Moderator: But I wanted to underline the aspect of procurement, because in 99% of the UN member states, the public sector is still the biggest single buyer. So if we can have decent procurement policies, it’s already a lot, right? So congrats on that. Marco, on your side of the story, with your experience, if you can tell us what are the key enablers for this story, right? So what are the drivers? If someone needs to start looking into that, the policy makers and the scientists, what would you…

Marco Zennaro: and I’m going to be very concrete and practical. So the first one is investing in local capacity building in embedded AI. So capacity building has been mentioned many, many times in the last few days. But I would say the new aspect from my side is to give priority to funding for curricula that is co-developed with global partners. So not reinventing the wheel, but using the data to make the decision. So not reinventing the wheel, but using existing and open curricula such as the one that we developed with the TinyML Academic Network, which is completely open and can be reused. The second one is to promote open, low-cost infrastructure for TinyML deployment. So people need to have these devices in their hands, and very often that’s not easy. So, you know, subsidizing the access to these open source TinyML tools and low-power hardware would be extremely useful. Because, of course, this lowers the barriers, the entry barriers, and stimulates local innovation with these, you know, SDG-related challenges. The third one is to integrate TinyML into national digital and innovation strategies. So people, when they design a strategy, please don’t forget that you also have this kind of alternative model of really tiny devices running AI. So that’s, you know, a component that should be included. Next one is to fund context-aware pilot projects in key development sectors. We heard from Mozilla about, you know, funding kind of pilots and, you know, testing new solutions. Well, that’s possible for TinyML. Again, we have seen many, many interesting applications. So, you know, funding even more would be extremely useful. And finally, facilitating regional collaboration and knowledge sharing. So we had a few activities which were, like, tailored for specific regions with the idea that, you know, people from the same region have the same issues. And that has been extremely successful. So, you know, supporting this south-to-south collaboration and, you know, focusing on specific regions so that they can use TinyML. to solve their common issues.

Moderator: Super, very interesting. So co-working in many levels, right, as you said, but also interesting because I’ve been participating in several discussions about the DPI, digital public infrastructure, or also public interest infrastructures. And to be honest, I have not been hearing a lot about what you are saying. So I think it’s an interesting way also to connect the dots if this can be more and more presented as a potential solution. So Adam, let me get back to you now. I know that from where you are sitting in the Boston Consulting Group, you are also looking to governance models for this issue. So what are key features there of obviously in three minutes? It’s always a challenge, but that you can tell us on the governance side of the story.

Adham Abouzied: Yeah, yeah, very clear. I think we’ve been mainly looking at basically how to inspire what is the right governance for a systems level change to basically push forward, accelerate the adoption of open source data sharing, intellectual wealth sharing across different systems. And I think the most important thing and is to have the, I would say, the right policies and the right sharing protocols across every industry. And to be very well designed, well enforced, as you said before, with the carrot and the stick at the same time. It is also very important to make sure that the different players are actually incentivized to adopt. And actually, as Mario was saying also earlier, have the right, I would say, set up the right regulatory reference for them to adopt on their own level. And then afterwards, also sharing the outcomes, the insights, the data with others. We have faced so many difficulties in so many sectors while trying to apply AI applications, whether it’s generative or whether it’s other techniques with facing the current regulation. The cloud is one, basically having the proper data governance, data classification, understanding what is sensitive, what should be on the cloud, what should not be on the cloud and under which levels or layers of security. Even worse in several countries and specifically emerging countries that basically do not have hyperscalers or do not have actual physical wealth of data centers implemented locally and to have actual regulation against the data traveling, their data traveling cross border, wouldn’t even allow the, I would say, the prompts, the queries that would go up to query foundational models or other models that are sitting in the cloud somewhere outside of the country. So regulating this, what type of prompts should actually cross the border, which ones shouldn’t, and for which you maybe need to go for local alternatives that are more focused and smaller models, maybe less efficient. you start there until the regulation evolves is something that is that is very, very important. But I mean, after all, what is really, really important is to have certain rules across the players in a value chain about what they can share in which format. And what are the, I would say the rights and responsibilities that go with it as it moves through the value chain, and for them to believe that actually, sharing is a win-win situation. It is not the opposite of, I would say, a free market. I would say competitiveness and keeping your intellectual property and conservative, conserving your competitiveness, it actually contributes to it, it gives you a wealth of information on top of which a layer on top of which you can develop a competitive edge.

Moderator: Thank you. Very, very interesting. And again, I guess, Marco was with me yesterday in another panel about AI and the issue of standardization and rules appeared a lot, right? So we will need to deal with that rather sooner than later. So, Leona, again, as you noticed, the second round is a lot about lessons learned and insights for the different stakeholders. So in your case, what is what you would tell to policymakers from the perspective of what you are doing in Raido? What are key lessons to share with them?

Ioanna Ntinou: As you said, I have more of a technical background, right? So I think that one of the key lessons that I have learned from Raido or working as an AI developer is that sustainable AI is not going to emerge by default. We need to incentivize and it needs to be actively supported. And the reason that even when I train a model, I will opt for a bigger model. I will opt for more data. is the way we are actually measuring success, which is measured by accuracy. So if we are measuring everything by accuracy, and sometimes we neglect the cost that comes with accuracy, we might consume way more energy than what is actually needed. Like, in some cases, a small improvement comes with a huge increase in energy, and we have to be careful with this trade-off. And I think that one of the first steps that we need to do is to actually simply assess how much energy is used in widely used public models. And what I mean is that we… I will give you a concrete example, right? There is now GPT-4, or there is DeepSeq, that they might have 70 billion parameters, and they consume massive amounts of electricity during training and during inference, but we don’t really know how much energy is used when we put a simple prompt on GPT. We are not aware of this. So I think that we should start by having some transparency in the way we report energy. So by simply developing evaluation standards at prompt level, it will be a great first step, because it will develop awareness and transparency. And after this, we can see what can be done with this. But without having the knowledge of how much energy is actually used, I think we cannot focus on legislation, right?

Moderator: Super. Of course, I mean, it’s very important, because the transparency generates the evidence that is needed, right? And it’s a good segue for you, Marc, because the question for you was precisely how the civil society can be even stronger in demanding more transparency and accountability for this company.

Mark Gachara: Yeah, so I will answer the question in two parts. I will start with… The things that as Mozilla we see are missing so right now there’s there’s a lot of money going into climate or smart agriculture or climate AI solutions But it’s to make them more efficient more effective as opposed to how do we mitigate? The harms that they are causing and and the owner has just mentioned a little bit about that So It is important from our end to to think about how the solutions We build can prevent they can also improve transparency and then they can make Also it more visible over the impact on the environment over over the work that you are doing And this could come Through policy work through research and also strengthening community work like strengthening community civil society Organizations that are working with communities on the ground and I’ll give an example of somebody that we worked with Last year, but this is ongoing. So so in Kilifi Kenya, we have the Center for Justice governance and environmental action They Are working on climate justice issues and these plants in Kenya to build a nuclear reactor somewhere in Kilifi in the sea and and one of the things that this CSO did was to Do an ecological mapping of an area in the Indian Ocean and they used AI to do this and they have come up with a report and they are saying that We think that this is ill-advised and they’ve given the reasons why it’s ill-advised We should actually be focusing on using renewable energy sources because Kenya has is is net is a net producer of renewable energy, so Thank you very much. This is what civil society can do, for example. They are pushing back. It’s still a work in progress right now. But you can generate evidence to be able to do advocacy. Unfortunately, once the ship has left the dock for civil society, you are left trying to push back, which is unfortunate. But again, I come back to the three things. How do we use such kind of evidence to advise policy? How can we do action research? And how do we put money into preventive, into making these issues more transparent? So that actually the taxpayers and government can actually quantify the issue in front of them. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you. Very interesting. And also the need to do that in an unfortunate, shrinking space for the civil society. And with less funds for this accountability and transparency, including for journalism. So now is the time for you. Questions? Leona, also on the online space, do we have questions for the panel? You have two mics here. I know that this setting looks like we are very distant, but we welcome your thoughts and questions. And Leona, from the online, I don’t know if you are hearing us.

Leona Verdadero: Yes, hi. No questions yet.

Moderator: So while maybe you guys are getting less shy, can I ask you, Leona, to be on the screen and give us a teaser of one minute about the report that we are going to launch soon about these issues?

Leona Verdadero: Yes. Hi. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yes. Okay, great. Great to see all of the panelists. and thank you so much for joining. And I think just to also echo UNESCO’s work and really our work on being a laboratory of ideas and also trying to push the envelope on actually being able to define what do we mean by all these sustainable, low-resource, energy-efficient solutions. So yes, we’ve been doing this research in partnership with the University College of London where we’re doing experiments actually looking at how can we optimize the inference space, right, of AI. So inference is what other colleagues have mentioned since when we are interacting with these systems. But really what we are uncovering is which and I really love this conversation so far because most of you have echoed the need to be more efficient climate conscious and looking at AI in a smaller, stronger, smarter way. So here we’re looking at energy efficient techniques such as, you know, optimizing the models, making them smaller with quantization, distillation, all of these technical things. But what we are really seeing here is that these different experiments that we’ve done actually make the models smaller and also just more efficient and better performing. And what that means especially for stakeholders working in low resource settings, right, where you have limited access to compute and infrastructure, these types of models are made more accessible to you. And so it’s really also part of the answering the question, you know, what type of model, what type of AI do we need for the right type of job, right? So also trying to demystify the thought that, you know, bigger is better. It’s not necessarily better, right? So also that’s what you’re seeing now in terms of, you know, all these large language models are power hungry and water thirsty. So, you know, here’s where we’re trying to, you know, merge two things together. So one is very technical research, how we’re able to translate that in a policy setting, what it means for policymakers, if you’re thinking about exactly developing, deploying, procuring AI systems for your use cases. So if we’re able to, by presenting evidence, try to move the needle by promoting more eco-conscious AI choices, right, and model usage, then I think that’s one very concrete start to actually have this bigger push to look very concretely on what it means to use smaller and smarter AI. And so actually also in the chat, we’re going to put here a sign-up link so all of you will be notified when we launch this report. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you, Leona, for the teaser, and I strongly recommend you’ll see the report. By the way, it’s also beautifully designed by one of our colleagues that is an expert in designing. So it shows, tried to show also through cartoons, etc., in a user-friendly way, some of these issues that are sometimes complex to understand. Questions from here? Otherwise, I have Brent, Jan. Please take a mic.

Audience: Hello, my name is Jan Lublinski. I work for DW Academy in Media Development under the roof of Deutsche Welle, but I’m also a former, in my earlier life, I was a science journalist, that’s 10 years ago, and I’m used to hearing new things, and I must say I’m thinking while I talk because most of what you told us is new to me. So that’s really exciting, and congratulations for the report and putting together the panel the way you have done, and I’m trying to remember other technological revolutions we’ve seen in the past and how they could be made more transparent, like, I don’t know, heating systems in houses. You know, in Germany we have passes for every house where you can see how energy-efficient a house is, and it’s obligatory in the EU, I think, and I think we can think of many other technologies where we made, step by step, made it more transparent to then actually see what it means so people take conscious decisions, and that’s why I’m really glad, again, that you… Stress the transparency issue, but of course next thought I have is we also trade carbon as a negative good, right? So we force the industry To become more efficient by giving them certificates on their carbon emissions, and I wonder would By everything you know now so far about this topic Do you think we can take transparency on energy consumption by this far that we can one? One day actually trade the right to consume energy on behalf of with AI technologies And then and by that way forced industry to you know develop more small models and and be really conscious of whether as you say We really need to take the last step that will be very expensive to get the very Extreme accuracy that we might not need so not in the way to advance in the direction that you all point to Maybe our colleague from Boston starting group has ideas on this as he’s looking at the overarching strategies. Thank you

Moderator: Thank you. Yeah, so we have five minutes and 39 seconds So it’s one minute per person to interact with Jan’s question and our maybe already Offer us one takeaway and maybe if you don’t necessarily want to interact with young questions I would ask you something related to what he said What are the questions you think science journalists should be asking about this issue So Mari over to you

Mario Nobile: Well in one minute is very tricky, but I’ll try I Think that the key words are related so we have sustainability calls for transparency calls for awareness calls for Policies also government policies, and I think that the good question is not when but now we must think about Sustainability, energy consumption, and the AI potential, the potential for AI to displace jobs. Everything is related. We cannot think about energy consumption without job losses. Okay, so I think that the journalist can ask for a solution to job losses, energy consumption, awareness from people. It’s very complicated. We need two hours and not one minute.

Moderator: Thank you, but interesting. And well, that’s the job of the journalists to find the time to do it.

Marco Zennaro: Well, my kind of question would be what kind of models do we need? So in TinyML, of course, in these small devices, you can only have like models which are very specific to an application. Again, you know, coffee leaves or, you know, turtles. So my point is, do we always need these super wide models that can answer every question we have? Or is it better to focus on models that solve specific issues which are useful for, you know, SDGs or for humanity in general?

Moderator: Small is beautiful, right? There was an article in the New Yorker a few years ago. Fantastic. I recommend not about this, about overall small is beautiful. Adam, your one minute.

Adham Abouzied: Yeah, I think it’s very interesting. I would reiterate again what I’m saying. I think, yes, smaller focused models is something that would create significant value and would be much more optimized to get there. They need to have access to data that is currently not necessarily out there. And for this to happen, we need to have in place the policy, the governance. that would make this happen, because there isn’t a wealth of data out there that would allow this. And honestly, to be, I mean, to consume the energy that is required for AI to deliver real value within the systems and value chains that helps develop on the SDGs and help the daily lives is a much more important, I would say, use than consuming this energy for the large models to create videos and images on the internet.

Moderator: Thank you. Ioana?

Ioanna Ntinou: I think that my question will be, as a researcher, if we focus so much on having smaller models, if we actually neglect all the progress that has been done so far with the large language models, what all the revolution that has done so far. But then I guess the answer to this is that task-specific small models have still a great value. And I’m actually, I’m talking about actual value. You see our mobile phones, the technology there is small models, because they are bounded from the battery life and the processor that the phone has. We can see that our phones are actually having small task-specific models, meaning that there is still a lot of things to learn, except for the energy part, in terms of science and knowledge and the things that we can achieve as humans from pushing the boundaries of research. So I also think that we should give another type of value on this, which is actually the knowledge and the learning out of this process.

Moderator: Thank you. Mark?

Mark Gachara: Yeah, on my end, to respond a bitto the question that was asked. The theater of where the most impact of climate is is in the global south and it would be a farmer, it would be indigenous and local communities. So it come back and say like how do we have funds that support grassroots organizers and indigenous communities to actually build some of these solutions together. It’s already been said like the problems are really localized and we can focus on local solutions and then we need to foster funding strategies that could actually look into research and creating science that actually solves this climate solutions with these local communities. And procurement has already been mentioned which was a good thing, public procurement. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Moderator: We come to the end of this fascinating discussion. I want to personally thank you a lot each one of you because I have learned a lot. I hope it was the same with the audience and those online. Thank you Adam, thank you Leona for your online participation and here Mario and Marco and Iona and Mark and for all of you to be listening to us attentively and let’s try to make this greener world while still trying to have the good benefits of this fantastic digital and AI revolution. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of the IGF. Thank you. Export animation Critical Shirt Critical Birth Critical Birth Main animation Critical Birth Last one

Agreement points

Need for smaller, more efficient AI models over large general-purpose models

Speakers

– Mario Nobile
– Marco Zennaro
– Adham Abouzied
– Ioanna Ntinou
– Leona Verdadero

Arguments

Transition from large energy-consuming models to vertical and agile foundation models for specific purposes like health, transportation, and manufacturing

Question whether super-wide models answering every question are needed versus specific models solving targeted issues

AI optimization in energy sector from generation to transmission to usage requires cooperation and data exchange across value chains

Knowledge distillation can reduce model parameters by 60% while maintaining accuracy, as demonstrated in energy grid forecasting

UNESCO’s upcoming report “Smarter, Smaller, Stronger” demonstrates that optimized models can be smaller, more efficient, and better performing

Summary

All speakers agreed that the future of sustainable AI lies in developing smaller, task-specific models rather than continuing to scale up large general-purpose models. They emphasized that these smaller models can maintain effectiveness while dramatically reducing energy consumption.

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Economic

Critical importance of transparency and measurement in AI energy consumption

Speakers

– Ioanna Ntinou
– Mark Gachara
– Moderator

Arguments

Need for transparency in energy reporting and evaluation standards at prompt level to develop awareness of AI energy usage

Developers can optimize code energy consumption through tools like Code Carbon to measure environmental impact

Transparency in technology adoption generates evidence needed for effective policymaking, similar to energy efficiency standards in other sectors

Summary

Speakers unanimously agreed that without proper measurement and transparency of AI energy consumption, it’s impossible to make informed decisions about AI usage or develop appropriate legislation. They emphasized the need for standardized measurement tools and reporting mechanisms.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Infrastructure

Necessity of open source and collaborative approaches for sustainable AI development

Speakers

– Marco Zennaro
– Adham Abouzied
– Mark Gachara

Arguments

Investment in local capacity building using open curricula co-developed with global partners prevents reinventing the wheel

Open source solutions optimize energy costs by avoiding repetitive development, potentially saving trillions in licensing costs

Developers can optimize code energy consumption through tools like Code Carbon to measure environmental impact

Summary

Speakers agreed that open source approaches are essential for sustainable AI development, as they prevent duplication of effort, reduce costs, and enable collaborative problem-solving while minimizing energy consumption through shared resources and knowledge.

Topics

Economic | Development | Infrastructure

Need for comprehensive policy frameworks and governance structures

Speakers

– Mario Nobile
– Adham Abouzied
– Marco Zennaro

Arguments

Need for guidelines on AI adoption, procurement, and development across 23,000 public administrations in Italy

Right policies and sharing protocols across industries are needed with proper regulatory frameworks and incentives

Integration of TinyML into national digital and innovation strategies is essential for comprehensive AI planning

Summary

All speakers emphasized the critical need for comprehensive governance frameworks that include proper policies, guidelines, and regulatory structures to support sustainable AI development and deployment across different sectors and scales.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic | Development

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of supporting local and regional communities, particularly in the Global South, to develop context-appropriate AI solutions that address their specific challenges and needs.

Speakers

– Marco Zennaro
– Mark Gachara

Arguments

Regional collaboration and south-to-south knowledge sharing has proven extremely successful for TinyML applications

Support for grassroots organizers and indigenous communities to build localized climate solutions through targeted funding

Topics

Development | Human rights | Sustainable development

Both speakers advocated for innovative approaches to cooperation and procurement that move beyond traditional methods to enable better collaboration and data sharing across organizations and sectors.

Speakers

– Mario Nobile
– Adham Abouzied

Arguments

Open Innovation Framework enables new procurement approaches beyond traditional tenders for public administration

System-level cooperation and data sharing across value chains is essential for meaningful vertical AI models

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic | Development

Both speakers emphasized that sustainable AI development requires deliberate intervention and active promotion, challenging the current paradigm that prioritizes model size and accuracy over efficiency and sustainability.

Speakers

– Ioanna Ntinou
– Leona Verdadero

Arguments

Sustainable AI will not emerge by default and needs active support and incentivization beyond just accuracy metrics

UNESCO’s upcoming report “Smarter, Smaller, Stronger” demonstrates that optimized models can be smaller, more efficient, and better performing

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory | Economic

Unexpected consensus

Integration of social and environmental concerns in AI development

Speakers

– Mario Nobile
– Mark Gachara
– Ioanna Ntinou

Arguments

Need to address job displacement alongside energy consumption as interconnected challenges requiring comprehensive solutions

Civil society can use AI for ecological mapping and evidence generation to advocate against environmentally harmful projects

Focus on smaller, task-specific models while not neglecting progress made with large language models

Explanation

Unexpectedly, speakers from different backgrounds (government regulator, civil society advocate, and technical researcher) all emphasized the need to consider AI’s social, environmental, and technical impacts as interconnected rather than separate issues. This holistic view was surprising given their different professional perspectives.

Topics

Economic | Development | Sociocultural

Practical implementation focus over theoretical discussions

Speakers

– Mario Nobile
– Marco Zennaro
– Ioanna Ntinou
– Mark Gachara

Arguments

Italy allocates 69 billion euros for ecological transition and 13 billion for business digitalization from National Recovery Plan

TinyML applications include disease detection in livestock, bee counting, anemia detection, and turtle behavior monitoring across 60+ universities in 32 countries

Smaller models deployed in smart homes for energy demand forecasting help companies make more accurate production decisions

Civil society can use AI for ecological mapping and evidence generation to advocate against environmentally harmful projects

Explanation

All speakers, regardless of their institutional background, focused heavily on concrete, practical applications and real-world implementations rather than theoretical discussions. This consensus on pragmatic approaches was unexpected in an academic/policy setting where abstract discussions often dominate.

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Economic

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated remarkable consensus across multiple key areas: the need for smaller, more efficient AI models; the critical importance of transparency and measurement; the value of open source and collaborative approaches; and the necessity of comprehensive policy frameworks. They also shared unexpected agreement on integrating social and environmental concerns and focusing on practical implementation.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with strong implications for sustainable AI development. The agreement across speakers from different sectors (government, academia, civil society, private sector) suggests these principles have broad support and could form the foundation for coordinated action on sustainable AI. The consensus indicates a mature understanding of the challenges and a convergence toward practical, implementable solutions rather than competing approaches.

Different viewpoints

Balance between large foundational models and small specialized models

Speakers

– Ioanna Ntinou
– Marco Zennaro
– Adham Abouzied

Arguments

Focus on smaller, task-specific models while not neglecting progress made with large language models

Question whether super-wide models answering every question are needed versus specific models solving targeted issues

AI breakthroughs came from training on wealth of internet data; for vertical impact, models need to see and train on data across value chains

Summary

Ioanna expressed concern about neglecting progress from large language models while focusing on smaller ones, whereas Marco questioned the necessity of super-wide models, and Adham emphasized the value of large foundational models for breakthrough innovations while supporting vertical specialization

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Economic

Unexpected differences

Scope of open source collaboration versus national strategic control

Speakers

– Mario Nobile
– Adham Abouzied
– Marco Zennaro

Arguments

Need for guidelines on AI adoption, procurement, and development across 23,000 public administrations in Italy

Open source solutions optimize energy costs by avoiding repetitive development, potentially saving trillions in licensing costs

Investment in local capacity building using open curricula co-developed with global partners prevents reinventing the wheel

Explanation

While all speakers supported collaboration, there was an unexpected tension between Mario’s emphasis on national strategic control and standardized guidelines versus Adham and Marco’s push for more open, collaborative approaches that transcend national boundaries

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed remarkable consensus on core goals (energy efficiency, sustainability, accessibility) with disagreements primarily focused on implementation approaches and the balance between different technical strategies

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. Most conflicts were constructive and focused on technical approaches rather than fundamental goals. The main tension was between preserving innovation from large models while promoting efficiency through smaller ones. This suggests a healthy debate that could lead to complementary rather than competing solutions, with implications for developing comprehensive AI sustainability policies that accommodate multiple technical approaches.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of supporting local and regional communities, particularly in the Global South, to develop context-appropriate AI solutions that address their specific challenges and needs.

Speakers

– Marco Zennaro
– Mark Gachara

Arguments

Regional collaboration and south-to-south knowledge sharing has proven extremely successful for TinyML applications

Support for grassroots organizers and indigenous communities to build localized climate solutions through targeted funding

Topics

Development | Human rights | Sustainable development

Both speakers advocated for innovative approaches to cooperation and procurement that move beyond traditional methods to enable better collaboration and data sharing across organizations and sectors.

Speakers

– Mario Nobile
– Adham Abouzied

Arguments

Open Innovation Framework enables new procurement approaches beyond traditional tenders for public administration

System-level cooperation and data sharing across value chains is essential for meaningful vertical AI models

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic | Development

Both speakers emphasized that sustainable AI development requires deliberate intervention and active promotion, challenging the current paradigm that prioritizes model size and accuracy over efficiency and sustainability.

Speakers

– Ioanna Ntinou
– Leona Verdadero

Arguments

Sustainable AI will not emerge by default and needs active support and incentivization beyond just accuracy metrics

UNESCO’s upcoming report “Smarter, Smaller, Stronger” demonstrates that optimized models can be smaller, more efficient, and better performing

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory | Economic

Key takeaways

AI governance requires a multi-pillar approach combining education, research, public administration, and enterprise engagement to ensure inclusive growth

Energy-efficient AI solutions like TinyML and model optimization can significantly reduce power consumption while maintaining performance – demonstrated by 60% parameter reduction with maintained accuracy

Open source approaches can save trillions in development costs by avoiding repetitive creation of AI solutions across organizations

Transparency in AI energy consumption reporting is essential before effective legislation can be developed – current lack of visibility into energy usage per prompt or model interaction

Smaller, task-specific AI models often provide better value than large general-purpose models for solving specific problems like healthcare, agriculture, and environmental monitoring

System-level cooperation and data sharing across value chains is necessary for vertical AI models to create meaningful impact in sectors like energy optimization

Civil society can leverage AI tools for evidence generation and advocacy, particularly for environmental justice issues in developing regions

Public procurement policies represent a powerful lever for promoting sustainable AI adoption given governments’ role as largest buyers

Resolutions and action items

UNESCO and University College London to launch ‘Smarter, Smaller, Stronger’ report on resource-efficient generative AI

Italy to implement guidelines for AI adoption, procurement, and development across 23,000 public administrations

Italy developing tax credit framework for small and medium enterprises to incentivize AI adoption

Promotion of open Innovation Framework to facilitate new procurement approaches beyond traditional tenders

Integration of TinyML into national digital and innovation strategies

Investment in local capacity building using open curricula co-developed with global partners

Funding for context-aware pilot projects in key development sectors

Development of evaluation standards for energy consumption at prompt level

Unresolved issues

How to balance the trade-off between AI model accuracy and energy consumption when accuracy remains the primary success metric

Regulatory challenges around data governance, cloud usage, and cross-border data transfer that limit AI implementation

Lack of transparency in energy consumption reporting for widely used public AI models like GPT-4

How to address job displacement concerns alongside energy consumption as interconnected challenges

Whether focusing on smaller models might neglect important progress made with large language models

How to ensure adequate funding reaches grassroots organizations and indigenous communities for localized climate solutions

Implementation of carbon trading mechanisms for AI energy consumption similar to other industries

Suggested compromises

Transition gradually from large energy-consuming models to smaller vertical models while maintaining research progress on both fronts

Use large models as ‘teachers’ through knowledge distillation to create smaller ‘student’ models that maintain performance

Implement hybrid approaches combining cloud and edge computing to optimize energy usage

Focus AI energy consumption on delivering real value within systems that support SDGs rather than general content generation

Develop task-specific models for mobile and resource-constrained environments while continuing research on larger models

Balance accuracy requirements with energy costs by questioning whether maximum accuracy is always necessary for specific use cases

Now the debate is not humans versus machines. Now the debate is about who understands and uses managed AI versus machines. who don’t.

Speaker

Mario Nobile

Reason

This reframes the entire AI discourse from a fear-based narrative about AI replacing humans to a more nuanced understanding about digital literacy and AI competency. It shifts focus from existential concerns to practical skill development and education.

Impact

This comment established education as a central theme throughout the discussion. It influenced subsequent speakers to emphasize capacity building, local training, and the democratization of AI knowledge, moving the conversation from technical solutions to human empowerment.

The study basically estimates that if we would recreate only one time the wealth of open source intellectual property that is available today on the Internet, it would cost us $4 billion. But it does not stop there… you would increase this $4 billion of cost to $8 trillion just because of the repetition.

Speaker

Adham Abouzied

Reason

This provides concrete economic evidence for the value of open-source collaboration, transforming an abstract concept into tangible financial terms. It demonstrates how sharing and collaboration can create exponential value while reducing resource consumption.

Impact

This comment shifted the discussion from individual technical solutions to systemic collaboration. It influenced other panelists to emphasize knowledge sharing, regional cooperation, and the importance of breaking down silos between organizations and sectors.

Sustainable AI is not going to emerge by default. We need to incentivize and it needs to be actively supported… if we are measuring everything by accuracy, and sometimes we neglect the cost that comes with accuracy, we might consume way more energy than what is actually needed.

Speaker

Ioanna Ntinou

Reason

This challenges the fundamental assumption in AI development that bigger and more accurate is always better. It exposes the hidden costs of the current success metrics and calls for a paradigm shift in how we evaluate AI systems.

Impact

This comment introduced critical thinking about measurement frameworks and success criteria. It led to discussions about transparency in energy reporting and the need for new evaluation standards that balance performance with sustainability.

Do we always need these super wide models that can answer every question we have? Or is it better to focus on models that solve specific issues which are useful for, you know, SDGs or for humanity in general?

Speaker

Marco Zennaro

Reason

This question fundamentally challenges the current trajectory of AI development toward ever-larger general-purpose models. It connects technical decisions to broader humanitarian goals and sustainable development.

Impact

This question became a recurring theme that influenced multiple speakers to advocate for task-specific, smaller models. It helped establish the ‘small is beautiful’ philosophy that ran through the latter part of the discussion and connected technical choices to social impact.

The theater of where the most impact of climate is is in the global south and it would be a farmer, it would be indigenous and local communities… we need to foster funding strategies that could actually look into research and creating science that actually solves this climate solutions with these local communities.

Speaker

Mark Gachara

Reason

This comment brings crucial equity and justice perspectives to the technical discussion, highlighting that those most affected by climate change are often least represented in AI development. It challenges the panel to consider who benefits from and who bears the costs of AI solutions.

Impact

This intervention grounded the entire discussion in real-world impact and social justice. It influenced the conversation to consider not just technical efficiency but also accessibility, local relevance, and community empowerment in AI solutions.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by challenging conventional assumptions about AI development and success metrics. They moved the conversation from a purely technical focus to a more holistic view that encompasses education, collaboration, sustainability, and social justice. The comments created a progression from individual technical solutions to systemic thinking about governance, measurement, and community impact. Most significantly, they established a counter-narrative to the ‘bigger is better’ approach in AI, advocating instead for targeted, efficient, and socially conscious AI development that prioritizes real-world problem-solving over technical prowess.

How can we transition from brute force models to vertical and agile foundation models with specific purposes across different sectors like health, transportation, tourism, and manufacturing?

Speaker

Mario Nobile

Explanation

This is crucial for reducing energy consumption while maintaining AI effectiveness in specific domains, representing a key strategic shift in AI development approach.

How can we effectively break data silos and improve data quality to enable better AI applications in public administration?

Speaker

Mario Nobile

Explanation

Data quality and interoperability are fundamental challenges that need to be addressed for successful AI implementation in government services.

What are the specific energy consumption metrics at the prompt level for widely used public models like GPT-4?

Speaker

Ioanna Ntinou

Explanation

Without transparency in energy reporting at the individual query level, it’s impossible to make informed decisions about sustainable AI usage and develop appropriate legislation.

Can we develop a carbon trading system specifically for AI energy consumption to incentivize more efficient models?

Speaker

Jan Lublinski (Audience)

Explanation

This would create market-based incentives for developing energy-efficient AI systems, similar to existing carbon trading mechanisms in other industries.

Do we always need super wide models that can answer every question, or is it better to focus on models that solve specific issues useful for SDGs?

Speaker

Marco Zennaro

Explanation

This fundamental question challenges the current trend toward large general-purpose models and could reshape AI development priorities toward more sustainable, task-specific solutions.

How can we establish proper data governance and classification standards for cross-border AI applications, especially in emerging countries?

Speaker

Adham Abouzied

Explanation

Current regulations often prevent effective AI implementation due to unclear data governance rules, particularly affecting countries without local hyperscaler infrastructure.

What evaluation standards should be developed to assess energy consumption at the prompt level for AI models?

Speaker

Ioanna Ntinou

Explanation

Standardized evaluation methods are needed to create transparency and enable comparison of energy efficiency across different AI systems.

How can funding strategies be developed to support grassroots organizers and indigenous communities in building localized AI climate solutions?

Speaker

Mark Gachara

Explanation

Since climate impacts are most severe in the Global South and among indigenous communities, research funding should prioritize supporting these communities in developing their own solutions.

What are the optimal policies and sharing protocols needed across industries to accelerate adoption of open source AI solutions?

Speaker

Adham Abouzied

Explanation

System-level cooperation requires well-designed governance frameworks to incentivize data and intellectual property sharing while maintaining competitive advantages.

How can we balance the trade-off between model accuracy and energy consumption in AI development?

Speaker

Ioanna Ntinou

Explanation

Current success metrics focus primarily on accuracy, often neglecting the disproportionate energy costs of marginal improvements, requiring new evaluation frameworks.

Summary

This lightning talk focused on Universal Acceptance and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), presented by Regina Filipova Fuchsova from the .eu registry and Esteve Sanz from the European Commission. The discussion centered on the importance of enabling internet users worldwide to navigate online entirely in their local languages, moving beyond ASCII-only domain names to support various scripts including Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese, and Arabic characters. Universal Acceptance refers to the principle that all domain names and email addresses should be treated equally by internet-enabled applications, devices, and systems, regardless of the script or characters used.

Sanz emphasized that multilingualism is fundamental to EU identity, with the bloc’s motto being “united in diversity” across 24 official languages. He highlighted that 88% of European country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) technically support IDNs, yet adoption remains slow due to limited user awareness. The speakers presented findings from the freshly published IDN World Report 2025, which revealed concerning trends including flat or negative growth in IDN registrations, high market concentration among a few top-level domains, and persistent technical barriers.

The report found an estimated 4.4 million IDNs worldwide, with 70% under ccTLDs, but showed negative growth rates of nearly 1% for ccTLDs and 5.5% for generic TLDs. Technical challenges persist, with over half of registries not supporting Unicode email addresses and three-fourths not permitting Unicode symbols in contact emails. The main barriers to adoption were identified as technical compatibility issues, low public awareness, and entrenched habits of using ASCII characters. The presenters concluded with a call for action to share IDN stories and expand data collection to better understand and promote multilingual internet adoption.

Keypoints

**Major Discussion Points:**

– **Universal Acceptance and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)**: The core focus on enabling domain names and email addresses in non-ASCII scripts (like Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Chinese) to work seamlessly across all internet applications and systems, allowing users to navigate the internet entirely in their local languages.

– **European Union’s Multilingual Digital Policy**: Discussion of how the EU’s “united in diversity” motto translates into digital infrastructure, with 24 official languages requiring support, and how regulations like the Digital Services Act incorporate provisions for linguistic diversity online.

– **IDN World Report 2025 Findings**: Presentation of key research results showing concerning trends including negative growth rates for IDNs (-1% for ccTLDs, -5.5% for gTLDs), high market concentration (top 10 TLDs account for 75% of all IDNs), and significant technical barriers to adoption.

– **Technical and Adoption Barriers**: Identification of major obstacles including compatibility issues with browsers and email services, low public awareness, entrenched habits of using ASCII/English domains, and insufficient promotion by registries and registrars due to limited business cases.

– **Cultural Preservation and Digital Inclusion**: Emphasis on preserving linguistic heritage online, with examples like Sámi language and the concept that local language internet access could potentially reduce internet shutdowns by increasing user connection to digital spaces.

**Overall Purpose:**

The discussion aimed to raise awareness about Universal Acceptance and IDN implementation in Europe, present research findings on the current state of multilingual internet infrastructure, and advocate for better support of linguistic diversity online to ensure digital inclusion for all language communities.

**Overall Tone:**

The tone was professional and educational throughout, with speakers maintaining an informative and collaborative approach. The presenters demonstrated expertise while acknowledging challenges and limitations in their research. The tone remained constructive even when discussing concerning trends like negative growth rates, and concluded with an encouraging call-to-action for community involvement and cooperation.

Speakers

– **Regina Filipova Fuchsova**: Works for the .eu registry, involved in Universal Acceptance and IDN (Internationalized Domain Names) research and advocacy

– **Esteve Sanz**: Works for the European Commission, focuses on EU digital priorities and multilingual internet policies, from Catalonia region of Spain

– **Tapani Tarvainen**: From Electronic Frontier Finland, also a non-commercial stakeholder group member in ICANN, expertise in internet governance and minority language digital rights

Additional speakers:

None identified beyond the speakers names list.

# Universal Acceptance and Internationalized Domain Names Discussion

## Introduction and Context

This lightning talk session focused on Universal Acceptance and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), featuring presentations by Regina Filipova Fuchsova from the .eu registry and Esteve Sanz from the European Commission. The session centered on enabling internet users worldwide to navigate online in their local languages, moving beyond ASCII-only domain names to support diverse scripts including Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese, and Arabic characters. The discussion included questions from audience members, notably Tapani Tarvainen of Electronic Frontier Finland and ICANN’s non-commercial stakeholder group.

## Core Technical Concepts

### Universal Acceptance Framework

Regina Filipova Fuchsova explained that Universal Acceptance refers to the principle whereby all domain names and email addresses should be treated equally by internet-enabled applications, devices, and systems, regardless of the script or characters used. This framework enables domain names to utilize special characters and different scripts beyond ASCII. Unicode versions have to be transferred via so-called Punicode to ASCII characters for DNS processing.

However, significant technical barriers remain. Over half of registries do not support Unicode addresses in email servers, while three-fourths of registries do not permit Unicode symbols as contact emails in their registry database. These limitations represent fundamental obstacles to achieving Universal Acceptance.

## European Union’s Multilingual Digital Policy

### Policy Foundation

Esteve Sanz emphasized that multilingualism forms the cornerstone of EU identity, with the bloc’s motto “united in diversity” encompassing 24 official languages. The European Commission requires all official EU content to be available in every official language, demonstrating institutional commitment to digital linguistic equality.

Sanz noted that the Digital Services Act includes provisions that incentivize platforms to promote linguistic diversity. He also highlighted that most European domains technically support IDNs, with 88% of European ccTLDs able to register names with local characters according to the latest statistics.

## IDN World Report 2025: Key Findings

### Market Statistics and Trends

Regina Filipova Fuchsova presented findings from the IDN World Report 2025, a recurring research project produced by URID (the .eu registry) with partners including UNESCO since 2011. The report, which has evolved from PDF format to a website, revealed concerning trends in the global IDN landscape.

The report estimated 4.4 million IDNs worldwide, with 70% operating under country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs). However, the market shows negative growth rates, with almost minus 1% yearly growth for ccTLDs and minus 5.5% for generic TLDs.

The IDN market exhibits high concentration, with the top 10 TLDs accounting for 75% of all IDNs globally. For the .eu registry specifically, IDN adoption remains at approximately 1% of total registrations, despite technical support being available.

### Technical Implementation Status

The report identified that 67% of Whois services display both Unicode and Punicode versions of domain names. However, significant gaps remain in email infrastructure support, with many registries unable to handle Unicode addresses or contact emails.

## Barriers to IDN Adoption

Three primary barriers hinder IDN adoption:

– Technical compatibility issues with browsers and email services

– Low public awareness of IDN capabilities

– Entrenched habits favoring ASCII/English domains

Additionally, insufficient promotion by registries and registrars, often due to unclear business cases, contributes to low adoption rates.

## Cultural Preservation and Minority Languages

### Indigenous Language Concerns

The discussion emphasized multilingual internet access as crucial for digital inclusion and cultural heritage preservation. Tapani Tarvainen raised specific concerns about minority language support, referencing the Sámi song performed at Monday’s opening ceremony at the town hall and questioning ICANN’s policies regarding IDN top-level domains.

Tarvainen highlighted that small minority languages face particular challenges, noting that characters like the Sámi letter Eng may become less usable due to lack of advocacy, observing that “nobody out there cares” about very small minority languages.

Regina Filipova Fuchsova acknowledged that IDN variant tables, last updated in 2008, require updating to better support special characters used in minority languages.

### Digital Rights Perspective

Esteve Sanz shared an interesting perspective he had heard from others about the connection between local language internet access and internet shutdowns. He explained: “We’re very worried about Internet shutdowns… And very intelligent people that know the local characteristics of these shutdowns, they tell us that if the Internet was in our local language, we would not see a shutdown. Because people would really feel the Internet as themselves, and politicians could not perform that shutdown.”

## Call to Action

Regina Filipova Fuchsova made specific requests for expanding IDN research and awareness:

– More TLDs to participate in IDN World Report data collection

– Communities to share their IDN stories and case studies for publication on the IDN World Report website

– Help reaching out to more ccTLDs to participate in annual research surveys

She also committed to follow-up discussion on Sámi language character support in IDN policies, addressing the minority language concerns raised during the session.

## Conclusion

The discussion highlighted both the technical capabilities and practical challenges of implementing Universal Acceptance and IDN adoption. While strong policy support exists, particularly within the EU framework, significant barriers remain in technical implementation, commercial incentives, and user awareness. The specific concerns raised about minority language support demonstrate how technical governance decisions can impact linguistic diversity and cultural preservation online.

Moving forward, bridging the gap between policy intentions and practical implementation will require coordinated efforts across technical, commercial, and advocacy domains to ensure that Universal Acceptance principles benefit all language communities.

Regina Filipova Fuchsova: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this lightning talk on Universal Acceptance and IDN Word Report. My name is Regina Fucsova, I work for the .eu registry and together with Esteve Sanz from the European Commission, we will try our best to put this topic in the European context and also provide you with some exclusive insights in the freshly published IDN Word Report 2025. Before we dive into the world of IDNs and Universal Acceptance, let me just shortly put us in the place where we speak about in the context of Internet infrastructure. You can see an example of a web address leading to also quite freshly published report on the digital decade by the European Commission. And if we start from the right hand side, you can see .eu, which we refer to as top level domain, and to the left hand side, Europa. This Europa is referred to as second level domain. Together, Europa.eu is what we commonly refer to as a domain name. And this is also something what you read as the ccTLD registries. The top level domain doesn’t need to have only two letters. We have .org, .net, or maybe you saw around a booth with, for example, .post, one of the new gTLDs. To have it a bit more complicated even, this domain name doesn’t need to be in ASCII codes only. It can have special characters, such as this O in Lilleström, or it can be in a completely different script, Chinese, Arabic, or if we speak about the official European Union languages, Cyrillic or Greek. Another example you can see on the slide is a favorite salty snack, soleti.eu in a Bulgarian language. This soleti.eu in Cyrillic is referred to as Unicode version of the domain name. But for the DNS system to process it, it has to be transferred via so-called Punicode to ASCII characters, and you can see that it starts with xn and two dashes. This will be important for some of the findings of the report later on. In any case, IDNs are necessary for multilingual Internet. The concept of universal acceptance goes a bit further. It says that all domain names and also email addresses should be treated equally and used by all Internet-enabled applications, devices, and systems, regardless of the script or characters. The point is that users around the world should be able to navigate the Internet entirely in their local language. It has a big relevance to IGF and the WSIS. For example, on Tuesday in one of the sessions, it was among the two most voted WSIS-related initiatives. Universal acceptance included Internet infrastructure as for the initiatives which need more support. It was considered as the way how to attract the next billion of Internet users, and throughout this week, you might have repeatedly heard in the sessions the words like linguistic accessibility, digital inclusion, part of a concept that nobody is left behind, both in Internet governance and usage of the Internet, and it has also a strong link to sustainable development goals. Do you remember this lady from our Monday opening ceremony at the town hall? Just to illustrate that multilingualism has a face, we enjoyed a very beautiful song sung in a Sámi language. It’s very important for Norway because most of the Sámi population lives in Norway. It’s actually the only indigenous peoples in the EU, and I bet that you would agree with me that even for enjoying songs in English, it’s a very nice experience. It would be a big pity not to be able to enjoy the one which we heard on Monday. And since the offline and online world are more and more interconnected, then it’s just a logical thing to try our best as much as the technical equipment allows us to preserve the cultural heritage also in the online world. Now I would like to give the floor to Esteve to tell us how this concept is in line with the European digital priorities.

Esteve Sanz: Thank you so much, Regina. Thank you so much for hosting this lightning talk. I’m really looking forward to hear more about the report, which I don’t know about yet, so that will be a premiere for me as well. The EU, DNA really, our identity is based on multilingualism. Our motto is united in diversity. We have 24 official languages in the EU. There are many more languages, and this multilingual priority of the EU carries, of course, into the digital realm. EU policy and funding strongly support online multilingualism in many different aspects, in universal acceptance, but also in other regulations that I will talk about in a minute. And we require, of course, that all official EU content in every language, official language of the EU, and the capacity for everyone intervening in the policy process to exercise that right in that language. This is the DNA, really, of the EU multilingualism, and we are very proud to also support universal acceptance as a core value. As Regina was explaining, universal acceptance means all domain names and email addresses work everywhere online, whether in Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, or any script. This is crucial for Europe, where scripts and accented characters vary, so that French accents, Greek or Cyrillic languages work as smoothly as example.com. Today, 68% of domain registries say universal acceptance is the top factor for boosting multilingual domains. We need every app, browser, and form to accept all EU languages. Most European domains technically support IDNs, 88% of European ccTLDs, according to the latest statistics, can register names with local characters, yet uptake is slow. User awareness of universal acceptance is normally what we are told is the limiting factor. that it’s blocking that, and that’s why we’re happy to have this lightning talk to address that awareness. There are interesting, successful stories in the multilingual internet space in the EU. I’m from Catalonia, a region of Spain, and Catalan has built an extremely strong online presence. There is a dedicated .cat domain with 100,000 sites, and today 66% of websites in Catalonia have a Catalan version, up to only 39% in 2002. We have successful examples in Irish Gaelic, which went from limited to use in the EU to a full EU language, and then this also boosts online presence. There is a lot of coordination with member states. Many countries are championing their language online, whether Spain is supporting co-official languages like Catalan and Basque, or Baltic countries developing AI for the language, for their languages. The EU complements this funding. For example, we have the European language data space, but also injects in the new rules that we have this multilingual element. It’s not well known, but the Digital Services Act, which is our flagship when it comes to digital regulation, has several provisions that incentivize platforms to actually promote linguistic diversity. So, you know, situations, the policies are there, the political intentions are there. We need to bridge that gap. This is extremely important for the EU. It’s also extremely important, if I have to say, for things that we normally don’t think about. So we’ve engaged a lot with Global South players these days in the IGF, as we constantly do. And we heard one very interesting idea that I just wanted to put to you. We’re very worried about Internet shutdowns, that, you know, despite all these commitments, they continue to be on the rise. And very intelligent people that know the local characteristics of these shutdowns, they tell us that if the Internet was in our local language, we would not see a shutdown. Because people would really feel the Internet as themselves, and politicians could not perform that shutdown. I thought that was a very powerful idea.

Regina Filipova Fuchsova: It’s a very interesting aspect. Thank you. Maybe we can consider it for the future to have a look in the study in this aspect. It actually hasn’t come to our mind. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Esteve, for your explanation. So, in the remaining time, I would like to show you the findings of the report. Just briefly, why URID cares at all, and who we are. I mentioned that we are running .eu, a top-level domain. We are already since 2005 by the appointment of the European Commission, and from the very beginning, we are committed to provide our support in all official EU languages. Throughout the years, we have introduced first IDNs under .eu, then also the Cyrillic version of the top-level domain, and then also the Greek version. In total, we account for 3.7 million of registrations, and about 1% out of them are IDNs. This might seem really low, 1%, but it’s actually in line with what our CCTLDs are experiencing. Also taking into account the technical and other issues, the uptake is not as it could be. And it’s a part of our strategy to bring European values to open, safe, and inclusive Internet. So this corresponds together. The IDN World Report already has a history since 2011, when we started it at that time in a PDF printed form together with UNESCO and other partners. We have got more partners over the years. The aim is to enhance the linguistic diversity through advocacy of internationalized domain names and their usage. This report, which is now in the form of a website, you can see on the right-hand side idnworldreport.eu brings news, registration trends, also information on technical readiness, and also we have added quite recently a kind of sentiment analysis. The outcomes of the 2025 report can be on a very high level grouped in three main topics. One is that many TLDs are experiencing flat or even negative growth trends. Second, the IDN market is highly concentrated, so to say in the hands of a few TLDs. And third, there are still challenges in user awareness and adoption. Some illustration of this, and I have to say at the beginning that the study has its limitation by the number of TLDs which provide us with the data. So this is also a call for action. Whoever from you can address in your communities people and organizations dealing with IDNs, please direct us to our study. So based on the data set, we had over 400 TLDs. There is an estimated 4.4 million of IDNs worldwide, and roughly 70% are under country code TLDs. The growth is indeed negative, almost minus 1% for yearly growth for ccTLDs, and even 5.5% for gTLDs. The top 10 TLDs, which is in line with the concentration I mentioned, account for over 3.3 million of domain names, so 75% more or less of all the IDNs. And the top 5 IDNs are in the Cyrillic version of Russian top-level domain .com.de and the 4th and 5th place belongs to Chinese registrations. We are also following technical aspects of IDN implementation and found out that over half of the registries do not support Unicode addresses in Vail mail servers at all. Unicode was with Soleti.eu in the Cyrillic script, so the form which is readable for humans. Three-fourths of the registries do not permit Unicode symbols as contact emails in their registry database, and actually none of the ccTLDs stated that they would offer support to EIA, stands for email addresses in international form, so it means that they have this Unicode quotation also in the email addresses also before the ad. And the last piece of information in these slides refers to the display of IDNs in this form of Unicode and also the Unicode xn-quotation I was mentioning. When it comes to Whois services, when the registries display both versions in 67% of cases and slightly lower rates are for registry databases. interfaces display and user interfaces display. So only on this information you can already see why the uptake is not as it could be, because if you cannot use the domain name and the connected email address in all the services you are used to, not only connected to registration, but also to the services by big platforms, for example, then it makes less sense. And then also the users who otherwise cannot access internet because of the language barriers are disadvantaged. We also asked how the CCTLDs or TLDs in general, which answered the survey, see the main barriers to adoption. And we identified three main fields. One are technical issues, the compatibility with browser and email services. Second, low public awareness. And also the habit to use ASCII, like English, is so rooted with the users that it’s very difficult to overcome this. One of the case studies we have on our IDN World Report website refers to the introduction of a top-level domain in Hebrew. And even though it was extremely also politically important for the country to introduce this, they reported back that it was extremely difficult to bring to the users that there is this possibility and that it can work in the domains in Hebrew. And the third barrier identified is also a modest level of promotion, both from registries and registrars, which is actually quite understandable. With the registries, it’s a bit better because they have, especially CCTLDs, in their DNA embedded support to local communities. But for registrars who are commercial companies, if there is not a business case, it’s difficult for them to find the resources for the support. This is to illustrate what you can find in the report. We have listed all the results, so you can see that indeed the majority voted for low awareness. Then also one of the sentiment questions was how organizations promote IDN. The most voted for marketing and also presence in events. These complete answers are there for all the questions we have asked. Shortly to the sources and methodology for CCTLD data, we are cooperating, apart from the forum, with the center and other regional organizations in Asia, Latin America, also Africa. And we also take the GTLD data from Mark Datysgeld and also from Zooknik. The mechanism or the season is that in January, the research team circulates two forms. One is about the IDN implementation in technical terms, and one is the sentiment survey. And then it’s complemented with the data, registration data, available via the regional registries organizations. And then also, as much as it is possible, the research team follows up with the CLTLDs to get a better understanding for the data. As our time is almost expired, and I still would like to give a space if there is some question, I will just refer you to also the recent articles and case studies in the website, including our colleagues from .cat, which have a very interesting way to promote and they put a lot of effort there. And also, I think the presentation will be available in the recording of the session, so some useful links. There is a lot of information on the ICANN website. There is also a recently formed CODI group. There were some changes in the universal acceptance steering group at ICANN, so you can have a look for further information. So I would like to finish with a call for action. If you have your IDN story from your country, please share it with us. We will be happy to publish it. Also, if you will be able to reach out so that we can address more CLTLDs, that would be very helpful. So thank you very much for your attention, and if you have a question to Esteve or to me, we still have space to answer it. Yes? I think, can I ask you? Thank you.

Tapani Tarvainen: Okay. Tapani Tajvainen from Electronic Frontier Finland, and also a non-commercial stakeholder group in ICANN. Have you been following the use of IDN top-level domains and ICANN’s policies in that regard? You mentioned Sámi, and in particular, there is a policy going on that looks like the Sámi letter Eng will be much less usable than some other special characters because nobody out there cares, basically. So that these very small minority languages and their characters would need someone to speak for them.

Regina Filipova Fuchsova: It’s a very good point, because there are also languages which cannot be put in written form, of course, and still deserve preservation. But since you mentioned Sámi, actually, I was in a session. It was in Tampere, so what, two years ago? Sandra can help me with Eurodic in Tampere, two years ago. And there was a session, and there was a young lady researcher who did research for the Sámi language. It was herself, I think not a Mavratan, but her family’s Mavratan. And there was obviously some movement of young people to preserve the language and raise awareness. So even though it will not become widely spread, I think especially via the young people, if they are interested in preserving this heritage online, we, as well, I can speak for the technical community, I think are obliged just to do our part of the work to enable this. But otherwise, you are right, some languages are even difficult to bring over to written form. So the content, actually, it starts and finishes with the content, of course, available. Do we have the mic already switched off?

Tapani Tarvainen: Okay, just to follow up. Sámi does not have a problem of not being able to write it. It just uses a bunch of special characters, and these are not well supported. That was the point.

Regina Filipova Fuchsova: But it’s a technical thing, right, to include them in the next version of the ID&A variant? Okay, we can talk about it. We had the last one in 2008, so high time to update. But thank you very much. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Esteve, for your contribution. And please reach out to us. There is an email address. We will be happy to share and cooperate. Thank you.

Agreement points

Multilingualism as fundamental to digital inclusion and cultural preservation

Speakers

– Regina Filipova Fuchsova
– Esteve Sanz

Arguments

Multilingual internet access is crucial for digital inclusion and preserving cultural heritage online, as illustrated by indigenous languages like Sámi

EU’s identity is fundamentally based on multilingualism with 24 official languages, and this priority extends into the digital realm

Summary

Both speakers strongly emphasize that multilingualism is essential for digital inclusion and maintaining cultural diversity online, with specific focus on preserving indigenous and minority languages in the digital space

Topics

Multilingualism | Cultural diversity | Development

Technical barriers significantly hinder IDN adoption and universal acceptance

Speakers

– Regina Filipova Fuchsova
– Esteve Sanz

Arguments

Over half of registries don’t support Unicode addresses in email servers, and three-fourths don’t permit Unicode symbols as contact emails

Main barriers to IDN adoption include technical compatibility issues, low public awareness, and entrenched habits of using ASCII domains

Summary

Both speakers acknowledge that technical implementation gaps and compatibility issues are major obstacles preventing widespread adoption of internationalized domain names

Topics

Infrastructure | Multilingualism

Need for advocacy and support for minority languages in technical policies

Speakers

– Regina Filipova Fuchsova
– Tapani Tarvainen

Arguments

Multilingual internet access is crucial for digital inclusion and preserving cultural heritage online, as illustrated by indigenous languages like Sámi

Small minority languages face particular challenges with special character support in IDN policies and need advocacy

Summary

Both speakers recognize that minority and indigenous languages require dedicated advocacy and technical support to ensure their preservation and accessibility online

Topics

Multilingualism | Cultural diversity | Infrastructure

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for comprehensive universal acceptance where all languages and scripts should be equally supported across internet infrastructure and applications

Speakers

– Regina Filipova Fuchsova
– Esteve Sanz

Arguments

Universal acceptance means all domain names and email addresses should work equally across all internet applications regardless of script or characters

EU policy and funding strongly support online multilingualism, requiring all official EU content to be available in every official language

Topics

Infrastructure | Multilingualism | Legal and regulatory

Both speakers recognize the need for broader distribution and support of multilingual internet infrastructure beyond current concentrated markets

Speakers

– Regina Filipova Fuchsova
– Esteve Sanz

Arguments

The IDN market is highly concentrated, with top 10 TLDs accounting for 75% of all 4.4 million IDNs worldwide

EU policy and funding strongly support online multilingualism, requiring all official EU content to be available in every official language

Topics

Infrastructure | Multilingualism

Unexpected consensus

Connection between local language internet and resistance to internet shutdowns

Speakers

– Esteve Sanz
– Regina Filipova Fuchsova

Arguments

Local language internet could potentially reduce internet shutdowns because people would feel more ownership of the internet in their native language

Explanation

This represents an unexpected and innovative connection between multilingual internet access and internet freedom/human rights, suggesting that linguistic ownership could serve as a protective factor against government censorship

Topics

Multilingualism | Human rights principles | Freedom of expression

Overall assessment

Summary

Strong consensus exists among all speakers on the fundamental importance of multilingual internet access for digital inclusion, cultural preservation, and universal acceptance. All speakers agree on the technical barriers hindering IDN adoption and the need for advocacy for minority languages.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with complementary perspectives rather than disagreement. The speakers represent different stakeholder groups (registry operator, policy maker, civil society) but share aligned views on core issues. This strong consensus suggests potential for coordinated action on universal acceptance and IDN promotion, though implementation challenges remain significant due to technical and awareness barriers identified by all speakers.

Different viewpoints

Unexpected differences

Overall assessment

Summary

This discussion showed remarkably high consensus among speakers, with no direct disagreements identified. All speakers shared a common vision of multilingual internet access and universal acceptance.

Disagreement level

Very low disagreement level. The discussion was characterized by complementary perspectives rather than conflicting viewpoints. Regina provided technical and registry perspectives, Esteve contributed EU policy context, and Tapani raised specific advocacy concerns for minority languages. This high level of agreement suggests strong consensus within the technical and policy communities about the importance of multilingual internet infrastructure, though it may also indicate that more challenging implementation debates occur in other forums.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for comprehensive universal acceptance where all languages and scripts should be equally supported across internet infrastructure and applications

Speakers

– Regina Filipova Fuchsova
– Esteve Sanz

Arguments

Universal acceptance means all domain names and email addresses should work equally across all internet applications regardless of script or characters

EU policy and funding strongly support online multilingualism, requiring all official EU content to be available in every official language

Topics

Infrastructure | Multilingualism | Legal and regulatory

Both speakers recognize the need for broader distribution and support of multilingual internet infrastructure beyond current concentrated markets

Speakers

– Regina Filipova Fuchsova
– Esteve Sanz

Arguments

The IDN market is highly concentrated, with top 10 TLDs accounting for 75% of all 4.4 million IDNs worldwide

EU policy and funding strongly support online multilingualism, requiring all official EU content to be available in every official language

Topics

Infrastructure | Multilingualism

Key takeaways

Universal Acceptance is critical for digital inclusion and multilingual internet access, requiring all domain names and email addresses to work equally across applications regardless of script or characters

The IDN market faces significant challenges with negative growth trends (-1% for ccTLDs, -5.5% for gTLDs) and high concentration (top 10 TLDs control 75% of market)

Technical barriers remain substantial – over half of registries don’t support Unicode addresses in email servers, and three-fourths don’t permit Unicode contact emails

Main adoption barriers are technical compatibility issues, low public awareness, and entrenched habits of using ASCII domains

EU’s multilingual digital policy strongly supports Universal Acceptance as aligned with its ‘united in diversity’ identity and 24 official languages

Multilingual internet access has broader social implications, potentially reducing internet shutdowns by increasing local ownership and preserving cultural heritage online

Resolutions and action items

Call for more TLDs to participate in the IDN World Report data collection to improve research comprehensiveness

Request for communities to share their IDN stories and case studies for publication on the IDN World Report website

Need to reach out to more ccTLDs to expand participation in the annual research surveys

Follow-up discussion needed on Sámi language character support in IDN policies between presenters and Tapani Tarvainen

Unresolved issues

How to overcome the low uptake of IDNs despite technical availability (88% of European ccTLDs support IDNs but adoption remains around 1%)

How to incentivize commercial registrars to promote IDNs when business case is unclear

Specific technical solutions for supporting minority language characters like Sámi letter Eng in IDN policies

How to bridge the gap between policy intentions and actual implementation of multilingual internet infrastructure

Strategies for increasing user awareness and changing entrenched ASCII domain usage habits

Suggested compromises

None identified

We’re very worried about Internet shutdowns, that, you know, despite all these commitments, they continue to be on the rise. And very intelligent people that know the local characteristics of these shutdowns, they tell us that if the Internet was in our local language, we would not see a shutdown. Because people would really feel the Internet as themselves, and politicians could not perform that shutdown.

Speaker

Esteve Sanz

Reason

This comment is profoundly insightful because it connects linguistic accessibility to political resistance and digital rights in an unexpected way. It suggests that when people have genuine ownership of the Internet through their native language, it becomes much harder for authoritarian governments to justify shutting it down. This reframes Universal Acceptance from a technical convenience issue to a fundamental tool for digital freedom and resistance to censorship.

Impact

This comment significantly elevated the discussion from technical implementation challenges to geopolitical implications. It prompted Regina to acknowledge this was a completely new perspective they hadn’t considered for future studies, showing how it opened new research directions. The comment transformed the conversation from focusing on European multilingualism to considering global digital rights and political freedom.

Have you been following the use of IDN top-level domains and ICANN’s policies in that regard? You mentioned Sámi, and in particular, there is a policy going on that looks like the Sámi letter Eng will be much less usable than some other special characters because nobody out there cares, basically. So that these very small minority languages and their characters would need someone to speak for them.

Speaker

Tapani Tarvainen

Reason

This comment is thought-provoking because it exposes a critical gap between the idealistic goals of Universal Acceptance and the harsh reality of implementation. It highlights how minority languages face systemic disadvantage not just from market forces, but from the very governance structures meant to support linguistic diversity. The phrase ‘nobody out there cares’ starkly illustrates how technical decisions can perpetuate linguistic marginalization.

Impact

This intervention shifted the discussion from celebrating progress in multilingual internet to confronting uncomfortable truths about whose languages actually get supported. It forced the speakers to acknowledge the limitations of current approaches and the need for active advocacy for minority languages. The comment introduced a note of urgency and activism that wasn’t present in the earlier technical presentation.

This might seem really low, 1%, but it’s actually in line with what our CCTLDs are experiencing. Also taking into account the technical and other issues, the uptake is not as it could be.

Speaker

Regina Filipova Fuchsova

Reason

While seemingly a simple statistic, this admission is insightful because it reveals the stark disconnect between the technical capability (88% of European ccTLDs support IDNs) and actual usage (only 1%). This honest acknowledgment of failure challenges the narrative of progress and forces a reckoning with why, despite years of development and policy support, multilingual domains remain largely unused.

Impact

This statistic served as a reality check that grounded the entire discussion. It shifted the focus from what’s technically possible to why adoption remains so low, leading to the detailed analysis of barriers (technical issues, low awareness, ASCII habits). It provided the empirical foundation that made the subsequent discussion of challenges more credible and urgent.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally transformed what could have been a routine technical presentation into a nuanced exploration of the complex barriers to digital linguistic equality. Esteve’s insight about Internet shutdowns elevated the stakes from convenience to freedom, while Tapani’s intervention about Sámi characters exposed the gap between policy intentions and implementation reality. Regina’s honest acknowledgment of low adoption rates provided the empirical grounding that made these critiques meaningful. Together, these comments shifted the discussion from celebrating technical achievements to confronting systemic challenges, from European focus to global implications, and from abstract policy goals to concrete advocacy needs. The result was a much richer conversation that acknowledged both the importance of Universal Acceptance and the significant obstacles that remain in achieving true digital linguistic equality.

Could the relationship between Internet shutdowns and local language Internet usage be studied further?

Speaker

Esteve Sanz

Explanation

Esteve mentioned an interesting idea from Global South players that if the Internet was in local languages, politicians might be less likely to perform shutdowns because people would feel the Internet belongs to them. This concept wasn’t previously considered and could be valuable for future research.

How can more ccTLDs be encouraged to participate in the IDN World Report data collection?

Speaker

Regina Filipova Fuchsova

Explanation

Regina noted that the study has limitations due to the number of TLDs providing data and made a call for action to address more ccTLDs in their communities to participate in the study.

What are ICANN’s policies regarding IDN top-level domains, particularly for minority languages like Sámi?

Speaker

Tapani Tarvainen

Explanation

Tapani raised concerns about ICANN policies that may make certain characters (like the Sámi letter Eng) less usable than others, suggesting that small minority languages need advocates to speak for them in policy discussions.

When will the IDN variant tables be updated to better support special characters used in minority languages?

Speaker

Regina Filipova Fuchsova (in response to Tapani Tarvainen)

Explanation

Regina acknowledged that the last update was in 2008 and it’s ‘high time to update’ the IDN variant tables to include better support for special characters used in languages like Sámi.

How can IDN stories from different countries be collected and shared?

Speaker

Regina Filipova Fuchsova

Explanation

Regina made a call for action asking participants to share IDN stories from their countries, indicating a need for more case studies and examples to be documented and published.

Summary

This discussion at IGF 2025 focused on the challenge of regulating artificial intelligence in ways that are both ethical and innovation-enabling, examining whether current AI governance frameworks adequately balance these competing demands. The session brought together speakers from multiple regions to explore the tension between AI ethics as surface-level principles versus regulation grounded in ethical foresight that creates real accountability.

Alexandra Krastins Lopes emphasized that ethical foresight must be operationalized rather than theoretical, requiring proactive mechanisms built into organizational governance structures throughout AI systems’ lifecycles. She highlighted the need for global AI governance platforms that can harmonize minimum principles while respecting local specificities, noting that regulatory asymmetry creates concerning scenarios of unaddressed risks and international fragmentation. Moritz von Knebel identified key regulatory gaps including lack of technical expertise among regulators, reactive rather than anticipatory frameworks, and jurisdictional conflicts that create races to the bottom. He advocated for adaptive regulatory architectures and the establishment of shared language around fundamental concepts like AI risk and systemic risk.

Vance Lockton stressed the importance of regulatory cooperation focused on influencing AI design and development rather than just enforcement, noting the vast differences in regulatory capacity between countries. Phumzile van Damme called for binding international law on AI governance and highlighted the exclusion of Global South voices, advocating for democratization across AI’s entire lifecycle including development, profits, and governance. Yasmin Alduri proposed moving from risk-based to use-case frameworks and emphasized the critical need to include youth voices in multi-stakeholder approaches.

The speakers collectively agreed that overcoming simple dichotomies between innovation and regulation is essential, as safe and trustworthy frameworks actually enable rather than hinder technological advancement.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Ethical Foresight vs. Surface-Level Ethics**: The distinction between treating AI ethics as a superficial add-on versus embedding ethical foresight as a foundational, operational process that anticipates risks before harm occurs and involves all stakeholders from design to deployment.

– **Regulatory Fragmentation and the Need for Shared Language**: The challenge of different countries and regions developing incompatible AI governance frameworks, creating regulatory gaps, jurisdictional conflicts, and the absence of consensus on basic definitions like “AI systems,” “systemic risk,” and regulatory approaches.

– **Inclusion and Global South Participation**: The exclusion of marginalized communities, particularly from the Global South and Africa, from AI governance discussions due to policy absence, resource constraints, and the dominance of Western perspectives in shaping AI regulatory frameworks.

– **Cross-Border Regulatory Cooperation**: The mismatch between globally operating AI platforms and locally enforced laws, requiring new approaches to international regulatory cooperation that focus on influencing design and development rather than just enforcement actions.

– **Innovation vs. Regulation False Dichotomy**: Challenging the narrative that regulation stifles innovation, with speakers arguing that safe, trustworthy frameworks actually enable innovation by providing predictability and building consumer trust, similar to other regulated industries like aviation and nuclear power.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to explore how to develop AI governance frameworks that are both ethically grounded and innovation-friendly, moving beyond reactive approaches to create proactive, inclusive regulatory systems that can address the global, borderless nature of AI technology while respecting local contexts and values.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a professional, collaborative tone throughout, characterized by constructive problem-solving rather than adversarial debate. Speakers acknowledged significant challenges while remaining optimistic about finding solutions through multi-stakeholder cooperation. The tone was academic yet practical, with participants building on each other’s points and seeking common ground. There was a sense of urgency about addressing AI governance gaps, but this was balanced with realistic assessments of the complexity involved in international coordination and inclusive policymaking.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Vance Lockton** – Senior technology policy advisor for the office of the Privacy Commissioner in Canada

– **Alexandra Krastins Lopes** – Lawyer at VLK Advogados (Brazilian law firm), provides legal counsel on data protection, AI, cybersecurity, and advising multinational companies including big techs on juridical matters and government affairs. Previously served at the Brazilian Data Protection Authority and has a civil society organization called Laboratory of Public Policy and Internet

– **Deloitte consultant** – AI Governance Consultant at Deloitte, founder of Europe’s first youth-led non-profit focusing on responsible technology

– **Phumzile van Damme** – Integrity Tech Ethics and Digital Democracy Consultant, former lawmaker

– **von Knebel Moritz** – Chief of staff at the Institute of AI and Law, United Kingdom

– **Moderator** – Digital Policy and Governance Specialist

– **Online moderator 1** – Mohammed Umair Ali, graduate researcher in the field of AI and public policy, co-founder and coordinator for the Youth IGF Pakistan

– **Online moderator 2** – Haissa Shahid, information security engineer in a private firm in Pakistan, co-organizer for the Youth IGF, ISOC RIT career fellow

**Additional speakers:**

– **Yasmeen Alduri** – AI Governance Consultant, Deloitte (mentioned in the moderator’s introduction but appears to be the same person as “Deloitte consultant” in the speakers list)

# AI Governance Discussion at IGF 2024

## Balancing Ethics and Innovation in Artificial Intelligence Regulation

### Executive Summary

This session at the Internet Governance Forum brought together international experts to examine how to develop AI governance frameworks that balance ethical responsibility with technological advancement. The hybrid session featured speakers from Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Pakistan, representing perspectives from government agencies, law firms, consultancies, and civil society organizations.

The discussion challenged the assumption that regulation necessarily stifles innovation, with speakers arguing that well-designed governance frameworks can actually enable technological progress. While participants agreed on the need for international cooperation and multi-stakeholder engagement, they offered different approaches to implementation, from flexible principle-based frameworks to binding international agreements.

### Session Structure and Participants

The session experienced initial technical difficulties with audio setup for online participants. The discussion was moderated by a Digital Policy and Governance Specialist, with online moderation support from Mohammed Umair Ali and Haissa Shahid from Youth IGF Pakistan.

**Key Speakers:**

– **Yasmeen Alduri**: AI Governance Consultant at Deloitte and founder of Europe’s first youth-led non-profit focusing on responsible technology

– **Alexandra Krastins Lopes**: Lawyer at VLK Advogados in Brazil, previously with the Brazilian Data Protection Authority

– **Phumzile van Damme**: Integrity Tech Ethics and Digital Democracy Consultant and former lawmaker from South Africa

– **Vance Lockton**: Senior Technology Policy Advisor for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in Canada

– **Moritz von Knebel**: Chief of Staff at the Institute of AI and Law in the United Kingdom

### Key Themes and Speaker Perspectives

#### Moving Beyond Theoretical Ethics to Operational Implementation

Alexandra Krastins Lopes emphasized that ethical foresight “cannot be just a theoretical exercise” but must involve “proactive mechanisms” embedded in organizational structures. She argued for the need to operationalize ethics through concrete governance processes rather than treating it as an add-on to existing AI development.

Yasmeen Alduri reinforced this point by highlighting implementation challenges, noting that “if the developers cannot implement the regulations because they simply do not understand them, we need translators.” She advocated for moving from risk-based to use case-based regulatory frameworks that better account for how AI systems are actually deployed.

#### Regulatory Fragmentation and International Cooperation

Moritz von Knebel provided a stark assessment of current AI regulation, describing it as having “more gaps than substance” with “knowledge islands surrounded by oceans” of uncertainty. He identified critical shortcomings including lack of technical expertise among regulators and reactive rather than anticipatory frameworks.

Vance Lockton emphasized the importance of regulatory cooperation that focuses on “influencing design and development rather than just enforcement actions.” He highlighted the vast differences in regulatory capacity between countries as a critical factor in designing effective international cooperation mechanisms.

Alexandra Krastins Lopes proposed addressing fragmentation through “global AI governance platforms capable of harmonizing minimum principles on safety, ethics, and accountability while respecting local specificities.”

#### Global South and Youth Inclusion

Phumzile van Damme delivered a powerful critique of current AI governance processes, arguing that “there hasn’t been a proper democratization” of AI. She noted that while there may have been “somewhat of a democratization in terms of access,” true democratization requires addressing “the lifecycle” including “democratization of AI development, democratization of AI profits, and democratization of AI governance itself.”

Van Damme called for “binding international law on AI platform governance” and highlighted the systematic exclusion of African and Global South voices from AI governance discussions.

Yasmeen Alduri emphasized the exclusion of youth voices, noting that “multi-stakeholder approaches” often “forget about youth” despite young people having solutions and being disproportionately affected by AI systems.

#### Challenging the Innovation-Regulation Dichotomy

Multiple speakers challenged the narrative that regulation inherently stifles innovation. Moritz von Knebel argued that “you can have innovation through regulation,” citing examples from the nuclear and aviation industries where “they took off after we had safety standards in place.”

This perspective reframes regulation as potentially enabling innovation by providing predictability, building trust, and creating level playing fields that reward responsible development practices.

### Areas of Agreement and Disagreement

**Consensus Areas:**

– Need for multi-stakeholder engagement across civil society, private sector, and public sector

– Importance of international cooperation while respecting local contexts

– Inadequacy of current reactive regulatory approaches

– Need for adaptive rather than static frameworks

**Different Approaches:**

– **Regulatory mechanisms**: Flexible principle-based approaches versus binding international law

– **Framework design**: Risk-based versus use case-based categorization

– **Implementation focus**: Early-stage development influence versus enforcement cooperation

### Questions and Audience Interaction

The session included questions from online participants about practical implementation challenges and the role of friction between tech companies and regulators. Yasmeen Alduri noted that such friction is expected and that “democratic states specifically live from this friction,” while emphasizing the need for constructive dialogue.

Participants also discussed the challenge of balancing innovation incentives with necessary safety regulations without creating regulatory arbitrage where companies seek the most permissive jurisdictions.

### Practical Recommendations

Speakers proposed several concrete steps:

– Establishing global AI governance platforms for harmonizing minimum principles

– Creating independent technical advisory groups and capacity building programs for regulators

– Developing international dialogues to establish consensus on key AI definitions and terminology

– Creating spaces for meaningful co-creation between different stakeholders

– Shifting narratives around AI from inevitability to focus on desired societal outcomes

### Unresolved Challenges

The discussion highlighted several ongoing challenges:

– How to achieve definitional consensus across different regulatory traditions and cultures

– Addressing vast disparities in regulatory capacity and resources between countries

– Developing practical mechanisms for meaningful Global South and youth inclusion

– Implementing effective cross-border enforcement while respecting national sovereignty

### Conclusion

The discussion demonstrated both the potential for collaborative AI governance and the complexity of implementation. While speakers found common ground on fundamental principles, they revealed significant challenges in translating shared values into coordinated action. The session’s emphasis on inclusion and its challenge to the innovation-regulation dichotomy provide important foundations for future AI governance efforts, though substantial work remains to develop practical, implementable frameworks that serve global needs.

Moderator: I hope everyone can hear me. Hello, everyone. Good morning and welcome to this session, Digital Dilemma, AI Ethical Foresight versus Regulatory Ruling. I’m a Digital Policy and Governance Specialist, and this is a conversation that I’ve been looking forward for many weeks. Today is the final day of IGF 2025, and it’s fitting that we’re closing with one of the most important global governance challenges. How to regulate artificial intelligence in a way that’s both ethical and enabling? Is that even possible? As the awareness of AI’s power has risen, the dominant response has been to turn to AI ethics. Ethics, simply put, is a set of moral principles. We’ve seen governments, companies, and institutions roll out principles, guidelines, and frameworks meant to guide responsible AI development. But here is the problem. When ethics is treated as a surface-level add-on, it often lacks the teeth to create real accountability or change, and that’s where regulation grounded in ethical foresight becomes essential. We’ll be unpacking the challenge today through insights from multiple regions and perspectives. I’m joined in person by three incredible speakers, Yasmeen Alduri, AI Governance Consultant, Deloitte, Alexandra Krastins Lopes lawyer at… and VLK Advogados, and Phumzile van Damme, Integrity Tech Ethics and Digital Democracy Consultant, who will be joining us in just a short while. We also have a vibrant virtual component, my colleagues, Mohammed Umair Ali and Haissa Shahid, are the online moderators. Umair, over to you to introduce yourselves and our online speakers.

Online moderator 1: Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. Just mic testing. Am I audible? Yes. Great. So welcome, everyone. Welcome to our session. I’m Mohammed Umair Ali. I’ll be serving as the co-host and online moderator for this very session. Briefly about my introduction. I’m a graduate researcher in the field of AI and public policy. I’m also the co-founder and the coordinator for the Youth IGF Pakistan. And by my side is Haissa Shahid. Haissa, can you turn on your camera?

Online moderator 2: Hello, everyone. Sorry, I can’t turn on the camera right now. But hello from my side. I’m Haissa Shahid from Pakistan. And I’m also the co-organizer for the Youth IGF. Along with that, I’m serving as an information security consultant. I’m also the co-founder and the coordinator for the Youth IGF Pakistan. And by my side is Haissa Shahid. Haissa, can you turn on your camera? Hello, everyone. Sorry, I can’t turn on the camera right now. But hello from my side. I am serving as an information security engineer in the private firm in Pakistan. And I’m also an ISOC RIT career fellow this year. So, I’ll bring forward the session ahead. Thank you.

Online moderator 1: And moving towards the introduction of our speakers, so we are joined by speakers from the United Kingdom and Canada. To start with Mr. Vens, who is the senior technology policy advisor for the office of the Privacy Commissioner in Canada. And Mr. Meritz from the United Kingdom, who is the chief of staff in the intelligence division of the ICT division. Please welcome Mr. Meritz. Thank you so much for having me today. Hello, everyone. Mr. Meritz is the chief of staff at the Institute of AI and Law. Welcome aboard, everyone. Over to you, Taiba. Taiba, am I audible?

Moderator: Thank you so much for letting me know. I’m going to repeat myself. We’ll begin with a round of questions for each of our five speakers. One question each, about five minutes per speaker towards the end. We will be taking pictures, speakers with the audience, so please don’t run off too quickly at the end. Alexandra, I’ll start with you. So many of the AI frameworks we see today cite ethics as a very important aspect. But when you look at it a bit closely, ethics often feels like an add-on rather than like a foundational principle. From your perspective, is that enough? And more importantly, what does it look like to truly embed ethical foresight into governance structures so that it shapes the direction of AI development from the very start?

Alexandra Krastins Lopes: Great, thanks. It’s an honor to contribute to this important discussion. And while I have a proudly funded civil society organization called Laboratory of Public Policy and Internet, and served for a few years in the Brazilian Data Protection Authority, today I speak from the private sector perspective. I represent Felicade Avogados, a Brazilian law firm where I provide legal counsel on data protection, AI, cybersecurity, and advising multinational companies including big techs on juridical matters and government affairs. And when we talk about embedding ethical foresight into AI governance, we’re not talking about simply including a list of ethical principles in a regulation or policy document. We’re talking about building a proactive and ongoing process, one that is operational, not theoretical. Ethical foresight means anticipating risks before harm occurs. So it requires mechanisms that allow organizations to… to ask the right questions before AI systems are deployed. Are these systems fair? Are they explainable? Do they reinforce historical discrimination? Are they safe across different contexts? And this ethical foresight must be built into organization governance structures, including AI ethics committees, impact assessments, internal accountability protocols that operate across the entire lifecycle of AI systems. It also requires clarity about roles and responsibilities within organizations. Therefore, ethical foresight is not just the job of the legal or the compliance team, it needs engagement from product designers, data scientists, business leaders, and most importantly, it needs board-level commitment. At the same time, foresight must be context-aware. Many global frameworks are still shaped primarily by Nord countries’ perspectives, with assumptions about infrastructure, economic and regulatory capacity, and also risk tolerance that do not necessarily reflect the realities of the global majority. So the regulatory debate should be connected to social context. In Brazil, for example, historical inequalities, specific challenges for entrepreneurship, and limited institutional enforcement power. Besides that, embedding ethical foresight in governance requires abstract principles. That is, by setting minimum requirements rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all model. And tools can be adapted to specific conditions, such as voluntary codes of conduct, soft law mechanisms, AI ethics boards, and flexible risk-based approaches. Additionally, national policies may have different strategic goals, such as technology development, This regulatory asymmetry creates a highly concerning scenario of unaddressed ethical and social risks, international regulatory fragmentation, and direct normative conflicts. Embedding AI foresight requires international coordination with minimum safeguards, promotion of technological progress, investment, and global competitiveness. Considering this scenario, the proposal I bring for reflection today is the need to establish global AI governance platforms capable of harmonizing minimum principles on safety, ethics, and accountability while respecting local specificities. Besides that, incentivize tools such as voluntary codes of practice, which allow business to anticipate and mitigate risks without restricting innovation. Additionally, there should be parameters for cross-border regulatory cooperation for enforcement and accountability, since jurisdictional fragmentation makes enforcement difficult, especially when platforms operate globally, but accountability is local. In my experience advising companies, I’ve seen that while they are willing to act responsibly and ethically, international cooperation and legal certainty are essential for that to happen. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you so much, Alexandra, and as she mentioned, ethical foresight is not just the job of a legal team, but truly a multi-stakeholder process. Now we’ll turn to our online speaker, Moritz, if you’re there, you’ve been keeping a very close view on how AI regulatory frameworks are evolving and also where they’re falling short. From where you sit, from your perspective, what are some of the key loopholes or blind spots in current AI regulation and what would it take in terms of practical terms to close these gaps and build a governance model that builds digital trust and resilience? Over to you.

von Knebel Moritz: Yeah, thank you and thanks for having me. People have often asked this question, what are the regulatory gaps that we see? And I think that assumption already is a bit flawed and mistaken because that would assume that around these gaps we have well thought out systems and processes and frameworks. And I don’t think we have. And so I will employ a metaphor used by a former professor of mine who said that he does not have knowledge gaps because it would be just too large. But he has knowledge islands and those are surrounded by a lot of ocean that we don’t know about. And then if those islands are well connected enough, then you can travel back and forth and it still kind of works. But there are more gaps than there is actual substance. So with that caveat, let’s look at where those gaps are clearest or where the ocean is deepest, so to speak. And I think on the domestic level, I would identify two big items. One is a lack of technical expertise. And so regulators often lack the deep technical understanding that is needed to effectively oversee those rapidly evolving AI systems. That’s especially true in countries that have historically not had the kind of capacity and resources to build up that infrastructure. And those institutions that then in turn creates a reliance on industry for setting standards for self-reporting, for self-assessing the safety of their models. And that makes it very difficult to craft meaningful technical standards on the. on the political level. That’s one of these very, very deep, deep sea areas. Another one is that we often see reactive frameworks. So current approaches largely respond to known harms and try to track when a harm occurs. But they do little in terms of anticipating emerging risks. And if you think that that is where a huge amount of the risk in the future is going to come from, then frameworks need to be adaptive to that. And the pace of AI development, which proceeds at a breakneck speed, consistently outstrips the pace at which regulatory systems can adapt, which is a huge challenge. On the international level, I think there’s one big item that then feeds into other problems, which is jurisdictional conflicts or races to the bottom. And then that turns into sometimes unjustified, sometimes justified fears of overregulation. And so different national approaches, but also international approaches like the one that the EU has taken, create a lot of complexity for compliance and regulation. And China’s governance system, which focuses on algorithms, differs fundamentally from the EU, which is more risk based. The US, the UK have emphasized innovation friendly approaches, and that creates a regulatory patchwork that is difficult to navigate, but also creates room for regulatory arbitrage. So similar to how you would move your country to your company to a country that has very low tax rates, you might do the same when it comes to regulation. And so that then creates incentives also for countries to to water down and then weaken their regulation. All of this is amplified by the fact that we just do not know enough. So a lot of the terms that are used in the concepts like risk, systemic risk, are insufficiently defined and there’s no consensus on what that actually means. So on that maybe a bit gloomy note, I’ll move on to what we can take to close these gaps or rather to to build bridges between those. that we already have with the UAI Act and some other frameworks that exist around the globe. One thing is I think we need adaptive regulatory architectures, which means that rather than having static rules, we need frameworks that can evolve with technology and rather quickly. And so that could mean that you have principle-based regulations, and then technical implementation standards can be updated through streamlined processes in secondary regulation. You could also have regulatory sandboxes where you try out new approaches and see what works, and have very quick feedback loops, which maybe governments aren’t historically good at, but are definitely getting better at as we speak. There’s a general need for capacity building. So I’ve talked about how expertise is lacking in governments often, but it’s also lacking elsewhere. So creating independent technical advisory groups could be useful that include the perspectives of different people. And that also means that we need inclusive and novel approaches to engage stakeholders. We need dialogues and diplomatic efforts. So I’ve said that some terms are just not sufficiently defined. And so without a shared language, the landscape will remain fragmented and incentives to cut corners will remain. So we see some work on this with international reports coming out and the international dialogues on air safety, for instance, but much more of this is needed to establish consensus on the key questions, because only then can we start to think about regulatory frameworks. And one last thing, because I do work on AI, so I have to flag this. There might also be ways to leverage AI for these processes. And I think relatively little work has gone into this and much more is needed. There are many more gaps and many more solutions that we could talk about, but I’ll leave it at that for now. And I’m happy to receive questions about any or all of these in the Q&A.

Moderator: Thank you, Moritz. I have a question. You mentioned a shared language. Can you elaborate more on that? Because it sounded really interesting.

von Knebel Moritz: Yeah, so this runs the gap. It basically spans from the very fundamental, what is the risk? What is an AI system? Luckily, the OECD provides a definition that most people are happy with. But when it comes to, I’ll give you a concrete example, the definition of systemic risks in the European Union under the AI Act, this will influence a lot on how future AI models are governed and deployed and developed. And so since that is the case, it really matters what people think of as systemic risk. And it’s not a field that has centuries of research behind it, but rather decades. And so some people understand very different things under systemic risk as others do. And so unless you have some consensus on this, it’ll be very, very difficult. That’s on the sort of fine grained regulation and a specific legislative framework. But there’s also high level conversations about what are even the most important risks and to try to create consensus on this. Again, different cultures, different countries see AI in a very different way. And if you consider that, that makes it difficult to cooperate and collaborate internationally. And so to establish a shared language around what does AI risk mean? And I’m specifically focused on risk here, but the same goes for benefits. What are the benefits that we care most about? That will be needed. And that, again, also touches on the technical expertise, because a lot of this requires a kind of technical knowledge and you need to know what accountability is and what adversarial robustness is of an AI model. So that further complicates things.

Moderator: Thank you so much, Moritz. Very enlightening. And the main key takeaway I could see was that different countries see AI in a very different way. And I think we really need to explore this further. Vance, I’m going to go to you now. Given how borderless technology is, there’s a real challenge around jurisdiction and enforcement. And I know Moritz also touched upon it. In a way, that platforms operate globally, but the laws don’t. What opportunities do you see for cross-border regulatory cooperation, and how can regulatory cooperation help tackle jurisdictional conflicts and enforcement barriers, especially for digital platforms that may be lightly regulated in one country, but highly impactful globally? Over to you, Vance.

Vance Lockton: Sure, thanks. So, it’s a very interesting question when we get into this idea of regulatory cooperation, because, I mean, as Moritz has been flagging, not only are the understandings of artificial intelligence difference across countries, there’s such a difference on what regulatory frameworks actually exist, and what can be applied, that once we’re into the realm of enforcement, certainly, there are some countries that have attempted to do shared, make shared enforcement efforts, but I don’t think those are necessarily where we need to focus our efforts. They’re not necessarily going to be the most effective way to address some of these issues. I think what really needs to be happening, when we’re talking about regulatory enforcement, rather than shared enforcement actions, it really has to be, how can regulators have more influence over the design and development and deployment decisions that are being made when these systems are being created or adopted in the first place? And that’s something that a lot of organizations are starting to try to, try to wrap their heads around. I look at a document like the OECD has a framework for anticipatory governance of emerging technologies. I don’t have any particular connection to it. The OPC, my organization, doesn’t have it particularly endorsed this document, but it just kind of creates this useful framework for me of saying, you know, the elements that they set out in this framework of what this regulatory governance needs to look like, saying, you know, it needs to establish guiding values, have strategic intelligence, bring in stakeholder engagement, agile regulation, international cooperation. Again, I don’t want to walk through this framework in particular, but I do think there are useful pieces that come out of that. Because from a regulatory perspective, one of the challenges that we always face is that we don’t really get to set the environment in which we work. Generally speaking, regulators are not going to be the ones who are drafting the laws that they’re overseeing. We may be able to provide input into their drafting, but by and large, we’re going to be handed a piece of legislation over which we have to have oversight. So, there are elements, but even within that, though, there are elements of discretion as far as what kinds of resources can be applied or what strategies can be applied to particular problems. Or there are often, in a lot of statutes, there will be considerations with respect to appropriateness or reasonableness. I think that’s going to be a critical piece for AI governance, for particularly the challenge that you’ve set out, this idea of international impacts of AI systems, where, you know, frankly, as a regulator in a Western nation, we aren’t necessarily going to be able to have that direct visibility, that direct insight into the impacts of that system on the global majority. So we aren’t necessarily going to have, again, that full visibility into what safeguards you need to be pushing for, or what appropriate purposes or what reasonableness actually means in the context of these AI systems, when we aren’t seeing what the true impacts of these systems are. So having those kind of dialogues amongst regulators to share that cultural knowledge is going to be a critical piece of this going forward. And, you know, just the sheer regulatory cooperation of understanding amongst regulators who has what capacities in AI, as Moritz flags, for a lot of regulators, there isn’t necessarily going to be that technical expertise. And that can be quite understandable. You know, for a lot of newer data protection authorities or some of the less resourced authorities, you might have a dozen staff for the entire regulatory agency. And that’s not a dozen staff on AI. That’s a dozen staff covering privacy or data protection as a whole. And obviously, data protection isn’t the only piece of AI regulations. It’s just kind of the piece I’m most familiar with. That’s why I’m kind of focused on it. So, you know, you might have a dozen staff. Canada has about 200 staff, but we have a dedicated tech lab that’s designed to be able to kind of get into these systems. It can take them apart and really understand what’s happening kind of under the hood of a lot of these AI systems. Then you look at something like the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which has well over a thousand staff. So, well over a thousand staff and a lot of programs set up for ways that you can kind of have more innovative engagements with regulators around things like regulatory sandboxes and things along those lines. So, again, being able to understand amongst regulators who has what capacity within AI is going to be a critical piece. And I think having that shared understanding of who can do what and what the true risks and benefits are going to be is such a critical piece because, you know, I think one of the biggest challenges for me that I’m kind of seeing from a regulatory perspective is – again, from a Western regulatory perspective, I’ll say is that there’s this narrative that’s coming out that AI is such an essential piece of future economic prosperity of a nation or even security, future security of a nation. That there’s this idea that any regulation that creates restrictions on the development of AI is a threat as opposed to this opportunity or as opposed to this necessary thing to get to responsible innovation. And so being able to have that real understanding of what the potential risks are, what the potential harms are, and realistically what benefits we’re trying to achieve, that are not simply just, again, making stock prices for a handful of companies go up or making overall GDP of a country raise.

Moderator: Vance, I’m so sorry. You have 30 seconds left.

Vance Lockton: Yeah, no problem. Not a problem. So, again, we need to have that ability to counter that narrative. And, you know, within countries, regulators are getting better at having that cooperation amongst various sectors. So we are working towards having better cooperation internationally and finding those soft mechanisms, finding those ways to have influence over design and development. Again, it’s a work in progress, but my overall message is going to be we just need to reframe regulatory cooperation away from enforcement cooperation and to finding opportunities to influence that design and development. And I’ll stop there.

Moderator: Thank you so much, Vance. Phumzile, thank you so much for joining us. I’d love to talk to you about power and participation, shifting the lens to inclusion, which is, you know, a very important part of artificial intelligence. So we see that AI governance conversations are often dominated. by a handful of powerful perspectives. In your view, whose values are shaping the way AI is being regulated now, and what would it take to ensure that voices of marginalized or under-representative communities are not just included but also influence decision-making?

Phumzile van Damme: Thank you. I would just like to start with what I view as the ideal on AI governance. I think previous speakers have kind of highlighted a major challenge in that there is one, a lack of shared language. There is the idea that AI, like all technology, knows no jurisdictional borders. It’s global. So what I think the ideal would be is some form of international law around AI governance. And through that process, perhaps run through the UN, there is the ability to get a more inclusive process that includes the language, the ideals, the ethical systems of various countries. So I think that is the direction we need to be going. I think the experience from kind of over the last years with social media and the governance around that and the difficulty with different countries, either in some instances not having any laws, regulations or policies in place and others doing that, is that there is a lack of proper oversight. So I think it’s an opportunity now for international law to be drafted around that. But as it stands right now, outside of what I think is the utopia, my utopia, what I think would be the great thing to have around AI governance, I think there are two challenges of inclusion right now. One is that in the global south, particularly in Africa, there is policy absence. I know in many African countries, AI is just not a consideration, and that’s not because, you know, it’s just something that’s not viewed as important. There is a conflict with bread and butter issues. Most of these are countries that are more concerned or more, you know, they’re more focused on those types of issues. So I think because of that, then there is a exclusion in those discussions because, you know, that’s just a process that hasn’t taken place in those countries. So I think I’d like to see more African countries, countries in the global South, including themselves in those conversations by beginning to begin the process of drafting those policies, crafting those laws. And I always say that it may appear incredibly complex, but I think there is a way of looking at what other jurisdictions have done and kind of amending those laws to reflect local situations. I don’t think it’s a situation where there needs to be a reinvention of the wheel. I used to be a lawmaker, and I don’t want to say this in a polite way, but there’s a bit of, I don’t want to say that tech is, I don’t know, tech literacy is not the right phrase, but it’s just not something that’s…

Moderator: You can be candid. It’s okay.

Phumzile van Damme: Yeah. It’s just, it seems like a very difficult topic to handle, and it’s just avoided. So just to kind of encourage that it’s not that difficult, there are frameworks in existence that can be amended to fit the requirements in each country. So one, so there’s that exclusion. And I think there’s… The theoretical misnomer around what has been seen as a democratization of AI, and I think that is the wrong phrase to use, there hasn’t been a democratization. While there may have been somewhat of a democratization in terms of access, in terms of access to tools, gen AI tools, particularly like ChatGPT and all of those, there hasn’t been a proper democratization. So if we’re going to talk democratization and AI governance, we need to talk about it through the life cycle. So there needs to be democratization, I wrote this down, not only democratization of AI use, democratization of AI development, so that in the creation of AI tools, there’s a really diverse voice is included in those design choices, and large language models that there is someone at the table that says, you need to look at African languages, you need to look at languages from different countries, there needs to be a democratization of AI profits. You know, it can’t be a situation where countries are merely seen as sources of income, and there’s no way to kind of share profits, so there needs to be a democratization of AI profits, and the democratization of AI governance itself. So the way I kind of summarize it, I think there needs to be a deliberate effort by the global South, by African countries, by other countries, to insert themselves forcefully into the discussion, and that requires them beginning those processes where it hasn’t begun, and indeed for there to be a deliberate inviting of those voices to say, come take part in the discussions, and the discussion is not only at the stage where the technology is being deployed from, but through the entire, to the entire lifetime.

Moderator: Thank you. Very insightful. I actually have a question, but we’re running a bit short on time, so I’m probably going to leave it towards the end. But I really like the way that you said that the inclusion of gender inclusion or diversity of perspectives is not very difficult to do so, but it just seems very difficult to do so in real world in making sure that regulations or frameworks actually include a part of that as well. Thank you so much. Yasmin, we’re going to move on to you. We’re going to wrap up this round. We’ve talked a lot about the challenges, what’s not working, but let’s imagine what could. If you had a blank slate to design an ideal AI regulatory framework, one that’s forward-looking, ethically grounded and innovation-friendly, I mean huge to ask what are the three most essential features you would include?

Deloitte consultant: Good morning everyone. My name is Yasmin Alduri. I’m an AI governance consultant at Deloitte and I’m the founder of Europe’s first youth-led non-profit focusing on responsible technology. So we’re basically trying to bring young voices to the responsible tech field and have them basically share their ideals, their fears and their ideas on how to make this world a better place, let’s just say like that. I’m really happy van Damme actually brought up the point of international law because yes, in an ideal world we would all get along and in an ideal world we would have some kind of definition on AI governance, specifically on the international law, but there are two aspects that are really, really, I wouldn’t say problematic but that make this utopia hard to achieve. I wouldn’t say It’s not a possibility to achieve it, but it’s hard to achieve it. And that’s the first part is definitions. We need to get to a point where everyone defines the same aspects the same way. So just the definition of AI systems is a huge, huge issue. We saw this with the European laws already, with the EU AI Act. Then the second part, which is also an issue, is are countries actually upholding international law already? And if we look at the past years, we will see that in a lot of countries we see a huge increase in countries actually not upholding international law. So the first part would be to actually question and to basically push for more accountability from countries. So this is one aspect. I also wanted to bring up one point because I love the fact that also Saba Tiku Beyene brought up the aspect of inclusion. We need to set a base, which is infrastructure. If we don’t have infrastructure in different countries who are lacking the access to AI, we’re not able to democratize the access to AI. So this would also be a base for me. Okay, let’s come to the actual question. Ideal frameworks. As I said, in an ideal world, we wouldn’t have an approach that is so reactive, as Moritz called it earlier, but we would have one that is adaptive. So in this case, what we have right now is a risk-based approach. So we basically look at AI systems and we categorize them in different risks or straight up just prohibit them. And while I do see why we’re doing that, the ideal form would actually be a use case framework. So we actually look at AI systems and we look at them, how they’re used and in what sectors they’re used. The idea behind it is that AI systems, the same AI system, can be used in different use cases and in different ways, which means it can have different harms to different stakeholders. And the idea here is to make sure that we can actually use these systems. AI systems but we make sure that we really do uphold all the different scenarios that could happen and a use case approach would actually make this easier for us. It would also make it easier to keep and check the impact assessments that you have to do as someone who’s actually implementing those laws. That brings me actually to the second part which is we need frameworks that are actually implementable and understandable. So what exactly do I mean? At the end of the day those regulations and laws are being implemented by the people who are developing AI systems because those are the ones who are actually building it and those are the ones who have to uphold it. So if the developers cannot implement the regulations because they simply do not understand them, we need translators. So people like me or Alex who like go down and like try to explain or be the bridge between tech and law. But if we in an ideal world we would have developers who already understand this. We would have developers who would be able to implement each aspect, each principle in a way that is clearly not only defined but understandable. So this is the second part. The third part and I know that some of you will laugh already because you have heard this so many times over the past days. We need to include all stakeholders, multi-stakeholder approaches. So civil society, private sector and the public sector need to come together. Now here’s the thing where I disagree with most multi-stakeholder approaches. We talk a lot about including all stakeholders yet we forget to include the youth. And this is one of the biggest issues I see because in my work within the responsible technology hub I see not only the potential of youth but I see that they mostly even understand the technology better and they know how to implement it better. So we need to include them to not only future-proof our legislation but to make sure that they’re included in means of okay these are their fears, these are their not only ideas but these could be possible solutions. And from my work I can tell you that youth, young people, and young professionals have a lot of ideas for solutions that we’re facing, they’re just not heard. So we need to give them platforms. We need an older generation that leads by example but also gives platform. We need a young generation that refreshes this discourse every time. And we need spaces that are spaces of real co-creation. So these kind of discussions that we’re having right now, they’re a great base. But we need spaces where we actually create, where we have enough space to talk, to discuss, but at the same time to bring different disciplines and different sectors together. So in my work specifically, I see this working actually very well. So having a space where academia comes, where the public sector comes, where the private sector comes, and where we have intergenerational solutions for issues. And we’re actually building solutions together. So with that in mind, those would be the three aspects of, I would say, the ideal AI governance framework for me specifically.

Moderator: Right on time. Thank you so much to all our speakers. So many valuable takeaways. Now we open it up to the floor. The mics are on either side of the room. Please introduce yourself. And if you’re joining virtually, feel free to post in the chat or raise your hand. Omer, do we have any questions?

Online moderator 1: Yes, absolutely. We do have questions. I have received questions in the direct message and the chat box, but do we have any questions from the on-site participants before we move on to the online participants?

Moderator: We’re warming up here. So you know, start with the question. Right, so one of the questions that I received is,

Online moderator 1: and I think it might be for Moritz to, you know, maybe answer this better. The question is that, just like the concept of internet fragmentation, do you see that we are heading towards an era of AI fragmentation due to absence of consensus-based definition, absence of shared language, and if that is the case, how do you suggest to move forward with it?

von Knebel Moritz: Yes, I do think that we do see fragmentation, but I also think that it’s maybe a little bit reductive. I think this often gets portrayed as a fragmentation alongside country lines or jurisdictions like EU, US, China, whereas there are often splits between different factions and their interests and what they see as the ideal governance system, and all these factions have input. And so I see a fragmentation happening on multiple levels, so it goes beyond different countries and or jurisdictions. I am fairly concerned about fragmentation because, as I said, it creates the wrong incentives to race to the bottom. It doesn’t build a great base for trust between different partners, again, different countries, but also different sectors, the non-profit sector, industry, academia, government. So yes, I see this as a concern. In terms of what can be done, I think it goes back to identifying the areas where people already agree on and then building up from there. There’s never going to be perfect agreement and total unison on these things, but I think sometimes there’s more room and more overlap people are willing to give credit for. So in the foreign policy or diplomatic domain, Track 1.5, Track 2 dialogues have been pretty successful, I think, in identifying these areas of consensus. And yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it’s also events and fora like IGF, where people get together and hopefully get to, at some point, establish a shared language or at least hear what other people, I think sometimes people are also too ambitious here, right? They want everybody to speak the same language and cultural anthropologists and other people will tell us that that is not actually what we should be aiming for, right? It is okay for people to speak different languages. But I think if you dial back your ambition and say, no, we don’t have to have a complete agreement, the first step is hearing how the other side sees things. Then I think having more of these conferences and as other people have said, diverse representation of voices at these conferences and events can be very useful in charting a path forward towards a shared language. It’s an iterative, it’s a painful process. It’s not going to come overnight, but it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t invest energy in it.

Online moderator 1: All right. So, there is another question here and it says that, right. So, yeah, can you, can any of the speakers point towards any exemplary AI policy that balances innovation and ethics? I understand this is quite a broad-ended question, but if anyone would like to take that up.

Moderator: Anyone from the onsite speakers would like to take this question?

Deloitte consultant: Perfect. Let me take this off first. So, can I point any regulation out there that brings in good governance and with the news lately, so even there we have still discussions on how to implement specific laws and there is still a lot of room. So for example with the Middle East, we barely have any official AI governance there. We see a trend of discussions. We saw this at the last IGF where a lot of Middle Eastern and North African states came together and started having a discussion but this discussion relied more on principles rather than actual frameworks that could be implemented. So there is still, for whoever who asked this question, there is still a lot of room to actually co-create and to bring regulation into the market.

Moderator: Great, Harsha, I believe you got a question from the chat as well, do you want to go?

Online moderator 2: Yeah, we have another question. So Ahmed Khan asked, there has been a recent trend of boringness and putback from tech companies against what they call excessive regulation which restricts innovation and goes against development. So is there a way forward with Harmony or are we going to see a similar friction in the AI space as we have seen in social media and tech space versus government regulation?

Moderator: Anyone from the on-site speakers want to take this ahead or have a comment to make on this? Going to go online as well. Moritz or Vance, do you want to answer this question? Harsha, can you please repeat the question again, though? We didn’t understand it quite as the connection got a bit fuzzy.

Online moderator 2: So the question is, is there a way forward with Harmony, or are we going to see a similar friction in the AI space as we have seen in social media and tech spaces versus government regulations?

Moderator: So what I understand is that, you know, in the past we’ve seen that there has been some friction between platform regulation or platform governance as well. Are we going to be seeing a similar sort of friction in AI framework, AI regulation as well, as we move forward in the future? Do you think so? You don’t think so? You know, just a one word answer would be great as well.

Alexandra Krastins Lopes: Let me answer that one. I hope not. That’s why we’re here, having this multi-stakeholder discussion, so we can achieve some kind of consensus. And also complementing the last question about different kinds of legislations and which one would provide safeguards and would not hinder innovation. I believe that the UK has been taking a good approach by not regulating with a specific bill of law. There is no bill of law going on right now. They are letting the sectoral authorities handle the issues and also they did not define the concepts, so it won’t be a closed concept. So it can let the technology evolve and we can evolve concepts as well. So I hope that, I believe that a principle-based approach and not a strict regulation would be the best approach and that would prevent the friction we’re talking about.

Moderator: Okay, great, perfectly concise answer and good thing too because we’re running a bit short on time. So we’re going to move towards the final stretch. I’d like to hear one last thought from each speaker. Please restrict your answer to one sentence or two sentences at max. Yasmin, we’re going to start with you. What is the most urgent action we must take today to align AI governance with ethical foresight?

Deloitte consultant: To give a quick, quick answer to the last question about the friction between tech companies and regulators, yes, we see the friction. Yes, there will be more friction and I would be surprised if we didn’t have it, if specifically in democratic states specifically live from this friction. So we will see it and hopefully we will find a common ground to discuss these regulations. But what I do think is critical and what we need specifically as a society regardless of government regulation or tech regulation or whatnot, we need to make sure that we’re critically assessing what we’re consuming and we need to make sure that we critically assess what we say, what we perceive and what we create because what we’re seeing right now is very worrisome in means of how we’re using specific AI systems without questioning their outputs, we’re publicizing them without questioning what whether the contexts are right or not. So I believe one of the most important things right now as citizens is to make sure that we’re bringing critical thinking back again.

Moderator: Phumzile, would you want to go next?

Phumzile van Damme: Yeah, I’m gonna restrict it to one sentence. I’ve already gone into it. Binding international law on platform governance, AI platform governance.

Moderator: Perfect. Alexandra, would you want to go next?

Alexandra Krastins Lopes: I would like to leave you with a key action point that we must move from ethical intention to institutional implementation. I think ethical foresight cannot remain a theoretical aspiration or a paragraph and a regulation or a corporate statement. We need to build core structures of governance within companies and organizations in general.

Moderator: Rightly so. Ethical foresight should not be just a corporate statement. Thank you so much, Alexandra. And we’re going to go online to our online speakers. Vance, if you want to go ahead with two or three sentences to this question, what is the most urgent action we must take today to align AI governance with ethical foresight?

Vance Lockton: I’d say it’s to shift the narrative around AI away from AI being either an inevitability or a wholly necessary piece of future economies, to think about… what outcomes we want from future societies and how AI can build into those, can factor into those.

Moderator: Perfect. Moritz, if you want to go next.

von Knebel Moritz: Yeah, I’m gonna just add to that, more generally speaking, adding nuance to the dialogue. So overcoming the simple dichotomies of it’s innovation versus regulation. You can have innovation through regulation. We’ve had that for decades. Overcoming the US versus China or the human rights-based versus risk-based approach. Yeah, breaking away with these dichotomies that are not helpful and that ignore a lot of the nuance that is embedded within these debates.

Moderator: Moritz, I’m going to ask you to elaborate more because this is such an interesting point to make and adds so much value to the discussion. If you can elaborate more, I think we might give you one more minute.

von Knebel Moritz: Yeah, maybe I’ll touch on the, I mean, there’s much in here, but maybe the one thing I also touches on a question that was raised in the chat is on balancing ethics and innovation or regulation and innovation. And again, this is often pitted as a, you can choose. You can either regulate or you can innovate. And the EU is at a crossroads and we can’t fall behind. And yeah, we got to innovate, innovate, innovate. Whereas the reality on the ground is that safe and trustworthy frameworks that people, that give companies also predictability about the future and safety and know that their customers will like and feel that their products are safe is integral to innovation. And we’ve seen this in the past, the nuclear industry, the aviation industry, they took off after we had safety standards in place because that made it possible then to scale operations. And so I think this is just a very fascinating. for those of you interested, I’ve previously done work on this, writing up case studies on different safety standards in other industries and how they contribute to the development of a technology. So, yeah, going against the, we have to choose, the UK is an example of a very pro-innovative regulatory approach, and they didn’t step back and say, we’re not going to regulate. They were thinking about how regulation can serve innovation. And I think there are many ways that we can do this. And this often, unfortunately, gets ignored because it is easier to craft a narrative that pits two things and often two people and two camps against each other.

Moderator: Thank you so much. And what I take away from this is that building safe and trustworthy frameworks is due to these brilliant speakers. I also want to thank our audience, both here and online for their presence and for the conversation as well. Your presence on the final day of IGF 2025 is very important to us. And thank you to the wonderful IGF media team for coordinating the technical aspects. Before we close, I’d love to invite everyone on for a picture. First, we’re going to have a picture with the speakers, and then I’m going to invite the audience if they can come on the stage and have a picture with the speakers and myself. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional.

Agreement points

Need for multi-stakeholder approaches in AI governance

Speakers

– Alexandra Krastins Lopes
– Deloitte consultant

Arguments

Ethical foresight requires proactive mechanisms and organizational structures, not just theoretical principles

Multi-stakeholder approaches must include youth voices and create spaces for real co-creation

Summary

Both speakers emphasize that effective AI governance requires engagement across multiple stakeholders – Alexandra mentions engagement from product designers, data scientists, business leaders, and board-level commitment, while the Deloitte consultant specifically advocates for civil society, private sector, and public sector collaboration, with particular emphasis on including youth voices.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Frameworks must be adaptive rather than static

Speakers

– von Knebel Moritz
– Deloitte consultant

Arguments

Need for adaptive regulatory architectures with principle-based regulations and streamlined processes

Use case-based approach would be more effective than current risk-based categorization

Summary

Both speakers reject static, rigid regulatory approaches. Moritz advocates for adaptive regulatory architectures that can evolve with technology, while the Deloitte consultant proposes moving from risk-based to use case-based approaches that better account for context and application.

Topics

Legal and regulatory

International cooperation and coordination is essential

Speakers

– Alexandra Krastins Lopes
– Phumzile van Damme
– von Knebel Moritz

Arguments

Need for context-aware approaches that consider local realities rather than one-size-fits-all models

International law through UN processes could enable more inclusive AI governance

Need for shared language and consensus on key terms like systemic risk and AI definitions

Summary

All three speakers recognize the need for international coordination while respecting local contexts. Alexandra calls for global AI governance platforms with minimum safeguards, Phumzile advocates for binding international law through UN processes, and Moritz emphasizes the need for shared language and consensus on key terms.

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Current regulatory approaches are insufficient and reactive

Speakers

– von Knebel Moritz
– Alexandra Krastins Lopes

Arguments

Reactive frameworks that respond to known harms rather than anticipating emerging risks

Moving from ethical intention to institutional implementation within companies and organizations

Summary

Both speakers criticize current approaches as inadequate. Moritz identifies reactive frameworks as a key problem, while Alexandra emphasizes that ethical foresight cannot remain theoretical but must be institutionally implemented with concrete structures.

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for flexible, principle-based regulatory approaches that avoid rigid definitions and false dichotomies. They both support the idea that regulation can enable rather than hinder innovation when properly designed.

Speakers

– Alexandra Krastins Lopes
– von Knebel Moritz