Main Topic 1: Keynotes 

EuroDIG Forum Addresses Digital Transformation in Europe with Emphasis on Human Rights and AI Regulation

At the EuroDIG forum in Vilnius, the session commenced with a focus on Europe’s digital transformation, emphasizing the importance of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in this process. Rasma Ramoskaite, from the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, delivered a keynote speech highlighting the opportunities and risks associated with digital advancements, particularly the misuse of artificial intelligence by hostile actors.

Ramoskaite underscored the need for a global response to ensure AI development and use are governed by principles of fairness, non-discrimination, transparency, and legitimacy. She proudly referred to the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on AI, which aims to establish global standards for protecting human rights in the context of AI. The convention, to be signed in Vilnius and named after the city, represents a significant step in international AI regulation efforts.

The pervasive challenge of disinformation was another focal point of Ramoskaite’s address. She detailed its detrimental effects on democratic institutions and public trust, and outlined Lithuania’s comprehensive strategy to combat disinformation through national initiatives and international cooperation. Ramoskaite also highlighted the economic impact of disinformation, pointing to the substantial costs associated with countering malicious information campaigns.

Ramoskaite critiqued the lack of cooperation from digital platforms in complying with the EU Digital Services Act and the EU Code of Practice on disinformation. She called for continued efforts to enforce these regulations, emphasizing the EU’s market power and the necessity for platforms to respect European values.

A startling statistic was presented by Ramoskaite, revealing that 71% of the world’s population lives under authoritarian regimes, posing a significant challenge to the global promotion of human rights and democracy. She advocated for the Global Digital Compact proposed by the UN Secretary-General as a vital step towards a unified digital governance approach, highlighting the importance of involving a broad range of stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector.

The session concluded with Lithuania’s commitment to ensuring that the digital future reflects shared values and benefits society. The importance of international cooperation, robust legal frameworks, and a multi-stakeholder approach was emphasized as key to tackling the complex challenges posed by technological progress.

The moderator and other speakers added to the discourse, reinforcing the significance of the topics discussed. The session underscored the need for strategic communication, joint actions to counter foreign information manipulation, and the enhancement of synergies between various digital initiatives to prevent duplication and financial burdens. The overall sentiment was one of determination to work collaboratively towards a digital future that upholds human rights and fosters a safe, inclusive, and equitable digital environment for all.

Moderator:
So, good morning. Good morning all the participants. I hope we’ll have more of you here. I know it’s morning. It’s always difficult in the morning. And I wonder how many of you here is like for the first time or you’ve been here yesterday. So, for the first time. Oh, God. Like you’ve been here yesterday. I saw you. I remember your face. Okay. But who came just today to Vilnius, for example, and to this building? So, only a few newcomers. Yeah. So, I don’t need to introduce myself a lot. I’m Rimoka Stolyta. I’m leading all these days as a moderator in Eurodic. And it’s my pleasure and honor to see you all in Vilnius, who are not from Vilnius and not Lithuanian faces, I know very well. Today, we had a zero-day introduction of speeches, quite good party with dancing and singing. But today, we have the very first day and the day will be long and really we’ll be working hard to collect all the insights you have, all the ideas we can share. And as I said yesterday, you know what? Born here in Vilnius, all your ideas and insights can travel all around the world and spread the message. So, the first topic for today, our main topic is about European policies and strategies. And as Europe’s digital transformation gets underway, it is vital to address both the challenges and the opportunities arising from rapid technological development and innovation. Measures need to be based and guided by human rights. But going deeper, let me to introduce the first keynote speaker, Rasma Ramoskaite, Director at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, and she will tell everything for us to go further. Yeah, please, Razmara, the floor is yours.

Rasma Ramoskaite:
So, hello, good morning. Is it working? Okay, perfect. Welcome to Vilnius. It’s my pleasure to welcome you to Vilnius on this beautiful summer day and welcome to those who are in Vilnius for the first time. And it’s, of course, a great pleasure for us to host Vilnius Eurodic here in our city as one of the featured events of our presidency for the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers. So, digital dimension of freedom, including artificial intelligence and human rights, as well as fight against disinformation, is very important for Lithuania. It’s been the cross-cutting priority across the multiple fora, so it was only very natural that it was also chosen as one of our priorities for the presidency. So, no doubt, the digital transformation offers unprecedented opportunities for human development and innovation, with the potential to generate social and economic benefits. And as has been said, they can contribute to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, yet they also present risks for human dignity, autonomy, and privacy. Hostile actors are also using rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and other hybrid tools to boost existing information manipulation strategies and spread their lies, especially on social media platforms. That has been one of the concerns we were trying to address at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We have many worrying signals that platforms are less collaborative and avoid compliance with the EU Digital Service Act and the EU Code of Practice on disinformation, so we must continue to work together to oblige platforms to comply with the rules. The EU is a powerful market of 500 million people, and platforms shall take into consideration the values and principles of the European way of life. This trend is particularly worrying, and I have been discussing the number I have here in my notes with another keynote speaker. This trend is worrying because 71% of the world’s population are now living under the authoritarian rule. So, when I heard this number first, I think, in the meeting in Vienna with a representative of Media Freedom, I really was shocked by this number. I thought this is a shocking number, and it creates a huge challenge for us. So, it’s necessary to find a response not limited only to the European region. This number definitely tells we need to ensure that fundamental principles of fairness, non-discrimination, transparency, and legitimacy are applied globally when artificial intelligence is designed, developed, and then eventually used in ways that promote respect for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. So, in this light, and coming back to the Council of Europe, I’m very happy and proud that the Council of Europe adopted the first-ever Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law. And we’re especially honored that we will have the opportunity to open this convention for signature in Vilnius on the 5th of September, and giving this convention the Vilnius Convention name. So, it’s a huge honor for us. It is the very first legally binding treaty to establish a global minimum standard for protecting human rights from risks posed by artificial intelligence. And it serves as a policy framework that signals the direction of the future regulations and aims to align procedures at the international level. And as I mentioned before, it’s very important to work not only regionally, but at the international level. We believe that this convention, among the other related developments within Europe, is setting the scene for addressing the potential issues globally, and we should use it to our advantage. So now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to briefly touch upon the aspect of disinformation, which has been at the key of our foreign policy efforts. As I mentioned before, in the different multilateral fora, I myself joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, coming back from New York, where I was working at the mission to the end, and disinformation was one of my key topics. We really tried to promote, raise awareness, and to share our experience and good practices developed here in Lithuania with our international partners. Talking about disinformation, we’re deeply concerned about the growing spread of it online, and it puts democracies and human rights at risk, erodes public trust in democratic processes and institutions, so Lithuania actively supports efforts to counter negative impact of disinformation on human rights nationally and internationally. We adopted a comprehensive, whole-of-society approach to combating disinformation, engaging state institutions, NGOs, media, and businesses, and we believe that preventing the spread of harmful narratives is crucial. So, needless to say, we all live in the very difficult world right now, and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is ongoing for already two and a half years, and Kremlin’s propaganda machine continues to create a parallel reality of lies and malign influences, both inside Russia and worldwide. Faced with restrictions within the EU, Russian propaganda channels are looking for other fertile ground to stir ethnic conflict and accelerate instability, and one of the examples, again, that was when the information was revealed to me back when I was working to our mission in New York was the information about what is the first channel for the information in Latin America for finding some news about what’s happening in Ukraine. So, it was very shocking to find out that actually Russia invested so much into its propaganda and disinformation efforts that it actually translates one of their channels, RIA Novosti, into Spanish, and this is the first channel where people are actually looking for the news on what’s happening in Ukraine, so you can imagine what kind of news they find there. So, it is key to continue to enhance our strategic communication capacities and joint actions to counter foreign information manipulation and interference. Another aspect of this information that is almost never assessed is economic damage. The cost of responding to malicious actions, human resources, organizational costs, other security investments, is actually very significant. So, by taking a firm stance and reducing the spread of disinformation, we will also reduce the economic costs to respond and mitigate the damage caused by foreign information manipulation and interference. So, EU already possesses legal instruments to combat disinformation and propaganda, and it is essential to use them wisely. So, to date, the EU has suspended the broadcasting activities and licenses of around 20 Kremlin-backed disinformation outlets. However, broader and more comprehensive measures are needed to suspend the channels that are controlled by maligned state actors. So, coming back to Lithuania again, we have centralized disinformation monitoring at the National Crisis Management Center, helping to ensure quick detention and rapid state response. Cyber attacks are dealt with the National Cyber Security Center under the Ministry of Defense, and we also have the necessary legislation to deal with hostile information attacks against Lithuania, ensuring the flexibility to adapt as threats evolve. One more thing I wanted to mention in this regard is that Lithuania, in collaboration with the OECD, developed a training program for international experts to counter disinformation and other malign foreign influences. So, with strong international partnerships, we are able to work in a more coordinated manner for protecting human rights in the digital realm. And the first training session has already taken place with participants from 14 countries. So, ladies and gentlemen, your participants in Europe, as I said, already have legal instruments and know-how to deal with the digital threats. And I’m confident that we can offer these and contribute towards the ongoing efforts to shape the global digital agenda. So, one of the examples I wanted to mention here is the Global Digital Compact proposed by the United Nations Secretary General. And as he outlined, the Digital Compact is another step towards having a common approach, and it strives to promote a digital ecosystem that is more inclusive, interconnected, innovative, and competitive. Simultaneously, it addresses the escalating global security concerns relating to preventing and countering cyber attacks, hybrid threats, and disinformation. As a country, nationally, Lithuania closely monitors the progress of the Global Digital Compact, and we recognize its significance to the global standard setting. Similarly to the process of the Council of Europe AI Convention, we believe that the meaningful multi-stakeholder approach is key here, and we strongly advocate for the Global Digital Compact to involve civil society, including groups of vulnerable and marginalized positions, the private sector, and other relevant actors with the expertise of the subject matter. And the work with civil society, the work from the grassroots, it’s gaining the importance again, coming back to the number of the autocratic regimes that prevail now in the world. In the slide, I also wanted to mention that it is important to enhance the synergies between different instruments and initiatives that contribute to the Global Digital Agenda. We need to avoid duplication and to clarify the roles and linkages of existing agencies, forests, instruments that work on the subject matter, because it also creates a necessary financial burden due to the establishment of overlapping… mandates and bodies and mechanisms. So in this slide, I just wanted to stress that we attach the great importance to the ITU’s role in addressing the global connectivity and new technological challenges, including artificial intelligence. Also, the Internet Governance Forum must be acknowledged by strengthening its role in internet governance policy processes. So to conclude, I want to wish everyone fruitful discussions and tangible outcomes throughout the rest of EuroDIG here in Vilnius. I believe that it will lead to the meaningful impact both on the European and global level. Hopefully you can address some of the issues that I have also highlighted here in my short speech. And at the same time, I want to also to reaffirm Lithuania’s commitment to ensure that our digital future reflects our common values and serves our benefit instead of posing threats. And with that, I thank you.

Moderator:
Even the short speeches can be very informative, so thank you for all your insights. And now, please welcome the representative of Council of Europe,Irena Guidikova. I’ll say it in Lithuanian version, okay?Irena Guidikova, head of Democratic Institutions and Freedoms Department. So let’s hear the second keynote speaker.

Irena Guidikova:
Thank you. You said it perfectly well. Good morning, everyone. It’s a privilege to be here in Vilnius, which is not only one of the most beautiful, or it’s my personal opinion, one of the most beautiful capitals of Europe, but also hub of a vibrant, deep tech startup community as far as I understand. So it’s really a very appropriate place for this forum. The focus of the debate on internet governance in the digital environment has shifted considerably since the early days of internet governance exchanges. I think most of you are too young to remember the Geneva Forum, UN Forum where the WISES was born, and the Tunis Commitment 20 years ago. The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society in 2005, which launched the global internet governance processes, focused on the development of capacity, access, and equitable infrastructure investment on sustainability, on inclusive governance. These were all the promises of the emerging internet at the time. And unfortunately, the focus of the debate has now shifted 20 years later considerably towards other topics, for instance, online harms. And we already heard Mrs. Ramos-Kaitis spoke about the scale of democracy backsliding, which is fueled partly by disinformation. But that’s not the only worrying trend with the digital environment, and I have some more shocking figures to share with you. According to UN data, two in five women experience online sexual harassment. 96% of deepfakes are non-consensual pornography targeting women. 59% of teens report being harassed or bullied online. And nearly 50% of LGBTI plus students experience cyber bullying in a given year. The most targeted age group by cyber criminals are people 60 and above, and these are all UN data. As we speak, the digital world is flooded with harmful content and behavior, and bear with me for the dooms list. Child pornography, hate speech, gender violence, and stereotypes, identity and intellectual property theft, deepfakes, disinformation, terrorist recruitment, illegal gambling, promotion of self-harm, and much more. Yesterday, we were discussing in another session the challenges of the metaverse and the opportunities that it promises, but also the immense potential for harm, including the so-called meta-crime, in the absence of proper governance and law enforcement. Now, the Council of Europe that I represent here is legitimately, and its member states, legitimately worried about all these developments. And the Council of Europe is one of the organizations that are spearheading regulation on online safety through its own instruments, international treaties. In the first place, the AI Framework Convention was already mentioned, but also its monitoring mechanisms that follow up the implementation of the treaties, its soft standards, and its research and field work. So it’s really a comprehensive mechanism for supporting member states in addressing the positive, but also the negative features of the digital environment. And all of this is creating a distinctly European approach to, in human rights-based approach, to digital governance, which is anchored in the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. That approach has, I must say, four distinct building blocks. First of them is cross-sectoral cooperation and dialogue, and this forum, EURODIG, but also the IGF and others, are really an example of that kind of partnerships that are key to unlocking the positive potential and building the defenses against online harm. Multi-stakeholder cooperation is one of the fundamental principles for human rights-based rulemaking on digital technologies, media, and communication governance. And we in the Council of Europe are therefore really keen to implement it in our own work, although we, of course, work with governments primarily, but we engage very much with civil society, academia, and the businesses, including through a digital partnership that we have created a few years ago, and which includes some of the main digital companies worldwide. The second building block of the European approach to digital governance promotes robust and human-rights-compliant legal frameworks to harmful the serious forms of online content. And these legal frameworks enable us, or enable the policy makers, to balance the defense mechanisms and the criminalization of the most serious offenses with the protection of other rights. So it’s always a very fine balance to walk. And the instruments such as our Cybercrime Convention, or the Budapest Convention, the Convention for the Prevention of Terrorism, the Istanbul Convention, I’m sure you’ve heard about it, on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, as well as the so-called Lanzarote Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse are our key instruments for balancing state policies so that we protect societies and human rights by infringing as little as possible on the human rights of individuals. Ultimately, it’s the Court of Human Rights that effectively judges whether that fine balance has been found. So it’s very important also to follow the case law of the court. I’ll give you an example. These instruments already, of course, they are treaty-based and they are fixed, but they also evolve. Through the interpretation work of their follow-up committees, as well as through having additional lawmaking, for instance, additional protocols. For instance, the Cybercrime Convention has two additional protocols. One of them, the second one, is really important because it enables states cooperating within that international treaty to ensure that when harmful or illegal content is taken down, the evidence that is needed for prosecution is not lost. So I encourage really all those present here that come from public authorities to ensure that protocol is ratified. You will hear additional presentation for the Budapest Convention later today. Another example, for instance, Lanzarote, the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. You know that today there is a really worrying trend of child-generated sexual content. So children, unfortunately, take images or videos of themselves and share them among peers. But unfortunately, these end up often within criminal networks, pedophile networks. So the Lanzarote Committee, it really, its approach is to ensure that the grooming of children, the solicitation of self-generated pornographic content of children is criminalized, but that the children themselves are not subject to criminal prosecution for having created that content. And it’s really important that also the existing, the evolution of EU legislation aligns with the Lanzarote Convention’s recommendations because in Europe, we need to have a single legal space that really is harmonious and compliant with the same principles. The third building block of the European space to prevent online harm is future-proof legal and policy frameworks. Self-regulation was, in the early days of the internet, the go-to approach. So we were, I guess, also because it was very much business-driven. It was like, okay, companies will self-regulate, the users will self-regulate, self-police. A few years on, we saw that self-regulation is not really working. So most recent Council of Europe documents and standards increasingly point at necessarily the necessity to develop core regulatory frameworks to address in a transparent manner the risks posed by platforms. Imposing on the platforms and companies the duty of care, which is proportionate, of course, to their size and reach. We’re not going to have a one-size-fits-all approach. And to prioritize safety by design, especially with regard to children. So age-appropriate content being locked out behind firewalls and age verification being enforced. This is essential, but there are much more to the safety by design and privacy by default that the platform should respect. And I’m happy that some states have already enacted legislation to that effect, controlling and effectively regulating how the companies have to enforce human rights and have to ensure human rights. You already heard about the AI Convention, which was adopted in May. It’s really the Council of Europe’s star instrument at the moment. I really hope that it will be very soon signed by many state parties and ratified eventually so that it can actually be implemented. And it will be also complemented by sectoral initiative because it’s a framework convention. It states basic principles about human rights, risk assessment and mitigation through the lifecycle of AI, but we need to go much deeper into specific areas of life. So at the moment, we have a new committee on AI discrimination and equality, which will draft a soft standard on the potentials and risks of AI for equality. And similar committees are working on AI democracy, AI and artistic creativity. So there’s a proliferation of very specific instruments in the Council of Europe regarding AI. For instance, also the Lanzarote Committee is working on AI generated child sexual abuse because that’s also an ongoing concern. There’s more and more harmful sexualizing images of children that are entirely generated by AI. And the Lanzarote Committee is calling for the criminalization of that content too. Finally, the fourth building block and there, it’s really what’s happening offline because the online environment clearly is connected to the real life and it also represents what’s happening there. And the denizens, the citizens of the internet are also essentially citizens. So we really need to work across the community, across the tech community, but also educators, young people, NGOs, to make sure that those that are online are behaving as responsible citizens, that there is a culture of respect and responsibility. And this goes through education, it goes through working with the communities, grassroots work, especially the most marginalized people who are the most easily affected by disinformation, but also by the different criminal activities happening online, elderly people as well. It’s everybody’s responsibility in a way to protect themselves and protect others, but the existence of robust policy frameworks to ensure the structural conditions that they have, of course, is essential. So I thank you very much for listening and for being here. It’s a really important dialogue that’s happening year by year in the Eurodig. The Council of Europe is a traditional longstanding partner of the Eurodig, and it’s a forum that brings ideas and knowledge and issues into our daily policymaking work. So thank you very much for attributing, and I look forward to exchanging with you later on.