WS #133 Better products and policies through stakeholder engagement

Summary

This discussion focused on the importance of stakeholder engagement in developing better technology products and policies. Participants from various sectors shared insights on effective engagement strategies and challenges.

Richard Wingfield from BSR emphasized the need for companies to engage with diverse stakeholders, especially vulnerable groups, to understand potential human rights impacts of their products. He outlined a five-step approach for meaningful stakeholder engagement. Thobekile Matimbe highlighted the importance of proactive engagement with communities in Africa, suggesting platforms like the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum for companies to connect with stakeholders.

Fiona Alexander, drawing from her government experience, stressed the value of targeted questions and political will in successful stakeholder engagement. She noted that while the process can be messy, it ultimately leads to better policies and buy-in. Charles Bradley shared Google’s approach, describing their External Expert Research Program and how it has improved product development by incorporating stakeholder feedback early in the process.

The discussion also addressed challenges, including time constraints, the fast pace of technology development, and potential disincentives for companies to engage meaningfully. Participants debated the effectiveness of regulation versus voluntary engagement, with some arguing for a combination of frameworks and impact assessments.

Overall, the panel agreed that while progress has been made in stakeholder engagement over the past decade, there is still significant room for improvement. They emphasized the need for more transparent, proactive, and meaningful engagement practices across the technology sector to ensure products and policies better respect human rights and meet community needs.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The importance of meaningful stakeholder engagement in technology product and policy development

– Challenges and best practices for effective stakeholder engagement by companies and governments

– The role of regulation and other external pressures in driving responsible tech development

– Unique challenges of stakeholder engagement in the fast-moving tech sector

– The need for more proactive and inclusive engagement, especially in regions like Africa

Overall purpose/goal:

The discussion aimed to explore how stakeholder engagement can lead to better technology products and policies, sharing perspectives from industry, civil society, and former government officials on effective approaches and ongoing challenges.

Tone:

The overall tone was constructive and solution-oriented, with speakers acknowledging progress made while also highlighting areas needing improvement. There was a shift to a more critical tone when discussing ongoing shortcomings in tech company engagement practices, but the conversation remained professional and focused on identifying ways to advance meaningful stakeholder engagement.

Speakers

– Jim Prendergast: Moderator

– Richard Wingfield: Director, Technology and Human Rights, BSR

– Thobekile Matimbe: Senior Manager Partnerships and Engagements at Paradigm Initiative

– Fiona Alexander: Former official at the U.S. Department of Commerce

– Charles Bradley: Manager for trust strategy on knowledge information products at Google

Additional speakers:

– Lena Slachmuijlder: Executive Director, Digital Peacebuilding, Search for Common Ground; Co-Chair, Council on Tech and Social Cohesion

Stakeholder Engagement in Technology Development: Challenges and Best Practices

This discussion focused on the critical importance of stakeholder engagement in developing responsible and effective technology products and policies. Participants from various sectors, including industry, civil society, and former government officials, shared insights on effective engagement strategies and ongoing challenges in the rapidly evolving tech sector.

Importance of Stakeholder Engagement

All speakers emphasised the fundamental importance of stakeholder engagement in technology development and policy-making. Richard Wingfield from BSR highlighted that stakeholder engagement is critical for responsible business practices, referencing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as a key framework. He also stressed the importance of prioritizing engagement with communities most likely to be at risk. Charles Bradley of Google noted that proactive stakeholder engagement builds trust and improves products, while Thobekile Matimbe stressed the importance of meeting stakeholders where they are, especially in Africa. Fiona Alexander, drawing from her government experience, argued that despite taking more time, stakeholder engagement ultimately leads to better policies and products.

Challenges in Implementing Effective Stakeholder Engagement

The discussion acknowledged various challenges in implementing effective stakeholder engagement, particularly in the fast-paced technology sector. Richard Wingfield pointed out the unique challenges faced by the tech industry due to the rapid pace of development. Charles Bradley highlighted the difficulty of engaging stakeholders early in the product development process when many products may not make it to market. He also noted internal pressures and incentives that can work against meaningful engagement. Thobekile Matimbe called for more proactive and meaningful engagement from companies, especially in Africa, noting a lack of willpower from some companies to engage effectively. Fiona Alexander added that cultural differences impact approaches to engagement and regulation across different regions.

Best Practices for Stakeholder Engagement

Speakers shared several best practices for effective stakeholder engagement:

1. Richard Wingfield outlined a five-step approach toolkit developed by BSR to help companies implement stakeholder engagement.

2. Charles Bradley described Google’s “External Expert Research Program,” which integrates stakeholder input into product development through regular engagement with a panel of experts.

3. Thobekile Matimbe suggested leveraging multi-stakeholder platforms like the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF) for companies to connect with stakeholders in Africa.

4. Fiona Alexander emphasised the importance of setting clear goals and deadlines for engagement processes, as well as transparency, including discussing when products are not released due to stakeholder feedback.

Specific Examples of Stakeholder Engagement

Charles Bradley provided concrete examples of Google’s stakeholder engagement efforts:

1. The development of the Circle2Search feature, which involved extensive consultation with accessibility experts.

2. AI overviews for various products, created in response to stakeholder feedback requesting more transparency about AI use in Google’s services.

Role of Regulation and External Pressure

The discussion touched on the role of regulation and external pressure in driving stakeholder engagement. Richard Wingfield noted that regulation, particularly in the EU, is requiring companies to engage with stakeholders as part of their risk assessment processes. Charles Bradley explained that Google views regulation as a way to level the playing field and ensure all companies are held to high standards. He argued that proactive engagement can help companies get ahead of regulatory pressures. Fiona Alexander expressed uncertainty about the impact of recent regulations like GDPR, suggesting their effectiveness is still unclear.

Critique of Current Practices

Lena Slachmuijlder raised important questions about the effectiveness of current stakeholder engagement practices in big tech. She challenged the notion that existing approaches are sufficient, highlighting the need for more upstream testing and transparency in product development. This critique sparked a discussion about how to make stakeholder engagement more meaningful and impactful.

Unresolved Issues and Future Considerations

The discussion identified several unresolved issues and areas for future consideration:

1. Balancing the need for stakeholder engagement with the fast pace of technology development and market pressures.

2. Ensuring stakeholder engagement is truly meaningful and not just a ‘tick-box’ exercise.

3. Addressing the ‘de-incentives’ that work against thorough stakeholder engagement in some companies.

4. Assessing the effectiveness of recent regulations like GDPR and the EU AI Act in driving responsible technology development.

5. Exploring ways to combine frameworks with impact assessments, as suggested by Avri Doria.

Conclusion

The discussion underscored the critical importance of stakeholder engagement in responsible technology development while acknowledging the complex challenges involved in its implementation. While progress has been made in recognizing the value of stakeholder engagement, there remains significant room for improvement in creating more transparent, proactive, and meaningful engagement practices across the technology sector. The conversation highlighted the need for continued dialogue, innovation in engagement strategies, and a commitment to ethical product development that respects human rights and meets diverse community needs.

Richard Wingfield: you you you you you you you and rights and lead our work with technology companies on how to act responsibly as a company and to build products and services that align with international human rights standards. So really pleased to be part of this conversation because stakeholder engagement is a critical part of the way we work with companies at BSR. And the approach that we take is very much in line with a number of existing frameworks and standards that exist in relation to stakeholder engagement. And for companies, whether in the technology sector or any other sector who are looking to be responsible businesses, to build trust and confidence, to align with what being a responsible business means, one of the most critical frameworks that is used and where we draw our inspiration from is the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. So the idea that states have human rights responsibilities is one that is well-established in international law, in various international treaties. But in the last few decades, there was increasing concern from a number of external stakeholders that businesses also should be taking a role in making sure that the human rights of people affected by their businesses were respected as well. And that resulted about 15 years ago in the endorsement by the United Nations Human Rights Council of this framework called the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. So this is the framework that sets out what business and human rights looks like. It has various obligations that are imposed on states in terms of regulation of businesses. It imposes responsibilities on businesses to respect human rights. And it also imposes expectations as to how individuals who have been adversely affected can seek a remedy for any harm that has been suffered. And the most critical part of the UN guiding principles as a framework when it comes to businesses is that pillar that is specifically about how businesses should respect human rights. Now, the reason why I’m sort of mentioning this framework in a conversation around stakeholder engagement is because the UN guiding principles on business and human rights make regular and explicit recognition of the importance of stakeholder engagement and meaningful stakeholder engagement when it comes to companies behaving responsibly. And this exists in a number of different aspects. One of the things that we do a lot of work with companies at BSR is to try to think through the way that companies have human rights impacts at all. And those can be risks to human rights. So for example, the way the use or misuse of a particular technology might cause harm to somebody, perhaps restrictions on their freedom of expression or impacts upon their rights to privacy. We also look at the way that companies can advance human rights, the way that different technologies can be developed and used in ways which advances societal goals, for example, supporting freedom of expression or enabling education or improving healthcare. So looking at the way that the actual technological products and services can sort of both improve but also create risks to human rights. But we also look at the way that company’s own policies are also relevant here. And obviously company’s policies are pretty instrumental in the way that technologies are designed, the way they are used. And these can be everything from a company’s AI principles, which might govern the way that it develops and uses AI. If we were looking at social media or online platforms, the rules that they impose as to how people can and cannot use the platform in different ways. So there are a range of different ways that companies can sort of have impacts upon human rights. And what the guiding principles say is that in trying to understand those impacts. need to speak to the people who are actually ultimately affected. So when we’re working with a company at BSR we put a huge amount of effort into alongside the company talking to and working with stakeholders to understand the risks that might be connected to a particular company, so what’s happening in practice in different parts of the world and with different communities, the opportunities that can be provided, so the way that different technologies are being used in ways that can create benefit for communities, but also the company’s own policies, so the way that the rules that the company sets relating to how they develop and use technology or the way that users can and cannot use those technologies, how they might also themselves be having impacts upon human rights. So what does this look like in practice? So one of the complicating aspects of technology as a sector is that so many people are affected and often the impacts of technology are global in nature, so if you’re looking at a large online platform that might be used by people across the world, potentially hundreds of millions or even billions of people across the world, that’s a huge number of people who might potentially be affected by the way that that service operates or by the rules that that company imposes, and so we really try to prioritise our stakeholder engagement with the communities that are most likely to be at risk. So we know, for example, that there are certain groups around the world who are particularly vulnerable to human rights harms. We know, for example, that persons with disabilities, for example, have historically been marginalised, may not be able to access or use technologies in the same way. We know that certain groups are vulnerable to things like hate speech or other types of harmful content online, particularly minority groups. We know that there are certain groups who might be vulnerable to discriminational bias when it comes to AI systems because of the lack of data that was used connected to that group when those AI systems were created. So we try to prioritise our stakeholder engagement by working with those communities and groups that are going to be particularly affected by the risk or particularly vulnerable to that risk. And so that might mean working with women’s rights organisations, it might mean working with organisations that support persons with disabilities, it might mean working with groups representing those who are vulnerable to discrimination within different societies. But we also know that the ways that technologies are used and the ways that the rules that companies impose can be felt very differently in different parts of the world. There are different cultural contexts, there are different language issues depending on the company and the primary language that it uses, there are different levels of digital literacy in different parts of the world and so familiarity with technology and the way that it can be used or misused. So we also try to make sure that we take a global approach to our engagement with stakeholder and that we talk with groups that can either speak to the experience of people in different parts of the world or in some cases we talk directly to groups in certain parts of the world where their experiences may be different from elsewhere. So that’s the kind of approach that we take to stakeholder engagement is really trying to, particularly when you have potentially hundreds of millions or billions of people who are using a platform or affected by a technology, prioritising our engagement with those groups who are going to be most vulnerable or most at risk but also making sure that we are geographically and culturally diverse so that we hear the full range of experiences and can provide recommendations that are nuanced appropriately. What the UN Guiding Principles don’t give a lot of detail on however is the actual mechanics of stakeholder engagement. So yes they talk about the importance of talking to a diverse range of stakeholders and meaningful using what they tell you in the way that the company develops its technology or it or it creates or modifies it rules. But it doesn’t really tell you how to do it in practice. And so we use a range of different ways, depending on the company we’re working with and the issue in question. So it can be something like organizing one-on-one interviews. So we might just simply organize a number of sort of one-on-one interviews with different organizations around the world. We ask them questions. We talk to them about their concerns. We might get into some specificity about a particular rule or a particular product, depending on the work that we’re doing in question. We might also organize workshops where we bring together a broader range of people. And sometimes that can be helpful because then you have a diversity of opinions within a room and people are able to counter each other or raise different perspectives or push back. And so you get much more of a dialogue. So sometimes we’ll use workshops or those broader interviews as a way of seeking engagement as well. We also know that there is a lot of stakeholder fatigue as an issue. So a lot of stakeholders constantly being asked to participate in interviews and meetings. So we also try to use existing spaces where people are talking about the issues that concern them. And the IDF is a great example of that. There are other conferences around the world like RightsCon, TrustCon, the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights. So there are many existing spaces where NGOs and other stakeholders come and talk about the issues that are most important to them, including the impacts of different technologies and different technology companies. And so quite often we will come to these events, run sessions ourselves, participate in other sessions, and use that as an opportunity of hearing directly from people on the ground. So we use a variety of different tactics and techniques to ensure that we are not only talking to a broad range of people, but also not adding additional burden and time to them, but using existing spaces wherever possible. What the Ewing Guiding Principles also don’t give a lot of guidance on is how you then incorporate that feedback back into company decision-making. So, and I’m sure perhaps some of our company colleagues on this call will speak to, decision-making at a company is not a straightforward exercise. The design and the creation of new technology products, the way they’re launched, the way the policies are created and modified, these are complex processes. And so it’s not always straightforward simply to take the results of one interview or one workshop back and then to very quickly and easily make changes as a result of it. Stakeholder engagement and the feedback received will be one of a number of different sources of input into the ultimate decision-making of a company. So what we at BSR try to do is to make the feedback that we get from stakeholders as practical as possible. We try to make sure that it’s very clear in exactly what stakeholders would like to see from the company and how that can be measured and assessed in time. One of the things that we also try to do is to build long-lasting relationships between companies and stakeholders as well. So simply bringing in one organisation for one interview at a point in time and then never speaking to them again does not encourage a sort of a long-standing and trusted relationship. So we often try to make sure that companies are providing updates to the stakeholders on what’s happened, involving them in later decision-making and trying to create relationships rather than something which is merely transactional. So the Ewing Guiding Principles as a framework is a really helpful starting point in setting out that companies should engage with stakeholders. This should be used to understand the company’s risk profile but also where there might be opportunities as well and ensuring that there is a diversity of opinions in terms of the range of stakeholders that you speak to and the nuance that you get from those engagements. And then at BSR we’ve tried to add a bit more practicality to that framework in terms of what those engagements look like in practice and how we make sure that they are meaningful. and impactful rather than transactional. So that’s the approach that we take. Jim, maybe I’ll pass back to you for our next speaker at this point.

Jim Prendergast: Yeah, great. Thanks, Richard. So yeah, turning to our next speaker, Thobekile, I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly. You know, one of the things that Richard talked about was going to various fora where stakeholders are, and I know you’re heavily involved with DRIF, which is the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum. Could you share with us sort of your take on this concept of stakeholder engagement and maybe any outcomes from that conference that may be relevant to our discussion today?

Thobekile Matimbe: Thank you so much. So hi, everyone. I’m Toba Kile Matimbe, and I work for Paradigm Initiative, which is an organization that promotes digital rights and digital inclusion across the African continent and within the global South. And I work for PIN, Senior Manager Partnerships and Engagements. So this is a very important conversation around stakeholder engagement. And I’m happy that Richard was able to unpack the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and what they say with regards to corporate responsibility, which is something that is critical. And one of the key things, you know, that point towards adherence with corporate responsibility is obviously stakeholder engagement is something that is critical to ensuring that we have better products that are out there and that also take into consideration human rights. So as I reflect on, you know, that topic on stakeholder engagements and better products, it’s important to articulate that it is important, I think, for the private sector to sort of, you know, within their quest for due diligence to be able to think about what stakeholder engagement looks like. And from where I’m sitting, I think for me, one thing that I’ll echo is the importance of meaningful stakeholder engagement and not just tokenistic stakeholder engagement. where, you know, it’s just sort of like ticking the boxes, but how can engagements become more and more meaningful? And thinking about it, it’s so important for companies to think about how they can meet the community where they are, as opposed to perhaps, you know, scheduled meetings that come in once off, probably as a way of transactions. I think Richard just mentioned transactional engagements, but more proactive, you know, strategies to actually meet the community where they are. And that’s what DRIF is. The Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum is a platform that Paradigm Initiative hosts annually. And we’re looking forward to hosting the 12th edition in Lusaka, Zambia next year, from 29 April to 1 May. But what happens at DRIF, which is the acronym for the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum, is that we have multi-stakeholder engagements where we have different actors coming into the room to discuss trends and developments in the digital rights space. And we have governments come in, we have civil society organizations, the media technologies, you know, companies as well. But we’ve not seen as much companies coming on board to engage with the community. This year alone, we held the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum in Accra, Ghana, and we had just almost 600 participants who were there, and from not just Africa, but around 40 countries that were at DRIF. And we had attendees from Africa and global South spaces as well. So it’s a really rich platform where any product designer would want to be there to be able to engage with the community interface and discuss products. But thinking about it, the key players really, with regards to better products, these would be those who use the products, and that’s… why I’m saying that it’s important for companies to think proactively about engaging with those who use their products to be able to flag out what they think about when they are designing products and how they can even improve those products better and what better place than to be in platforms where there are different stakeholders that can be able to input into the design process of technology. I would also highlight that one critical thing in the design process is obviously the do no harm principle, especially in the context of human rights and who are those who are bearing the brand of bad products that are unleashed on the market. It’s the users of those technologies, those who are probably marginalized groups, those are minority groups and their voices can only be heard in spaces where human rights are discussed, even discussing as well persons with disabilities, what are their challenges? And this is why I think it’s important for more and more companies to find themselves in platforms where there are such conversations happening and DRIF is one such platform. And I think one key thing when we’re looking at policies themselves, maybe community standards, for instance, if we’re looking at social media platforms, we’ll find that they come up with community standards and it’s always important to circle back to the community and say, this is what we have, is this still fit for purpose because technology does not wait, it’s fast evolving. So it’s important as well to always have that interface with the community proactively. And I’ll give an example that for us as Paradigm Initiative just recently, we had a very interesting engagement with one telecommunications company that reached out to us after seeing one of our reports that we had done on surveillance in Africa and they were so keen and they laid their hands on this research and they literally reached out and requested a meeting with us, which was a proactive action as opposed to a reactionary, probably reactionary stakeholder engagement process where. perhaps if we had risen to them and say, look, there’s this challenge that we’ve seen that this has happened in this country based on your product. But they were proactive in terms of reaching out to us and say, let’s have a conversation. And it was one of, I would say, one of our best engagements with the private sector, especially around community standards. And I think, as policies are being developed by different private sector actors, it’s important to always figure out where is the community that uses our product? Where can we get to? How can we reach the community to be able to get feedback on what we are churning out so that we strengthen what we develop and we put out something that is good and robust and rights respecting, mitigating as well human rights impacts. It’s also important as well to reflect on some of the outputs that have come from the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum. So every year we come up with community recommendations and we gather these from the people who attend the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum from across underserved communities across the global South and they give input. And I think for the private sector, what has been clear is that need for that engagement around policies and how they are developed to better strengthen security and safety. When we’re talking about trust as well, and safety is something that is critical to the context of products and how they can be better and better serve the users themselves. So I think one thing as well that I would highlight that has also come up is the importance of having policies that ensure that vulnerable groups as well are not left behind. So you have your human rights defenders or your media who feel that sometimes when policies are being developed, they are not really addressing some of the lived realities that they face. So I think reflecting more on the do no harm principle is something that I really want to echo. It’s something that is really important. and it’s actually something that should be embedded at every point of the product design process. So it’s really critical that we continue to have this conversation and also hear from colleagues within the private sector as well with regards to their views as well around proactive stakeholder engagement as opposed to stakeholder engagements that are reactive or just a ticking of the boxes and what they are doing as well to ensure that they are able to meet the community where the community is. And it’s something as well that I’ll highlight even as I conclude my reflections that due diligence is something that demonstrates corporate responsibility is important primarily as a corporate practice towards better products that within themselves respect human rights and echo the importance of mitigating human rights impact. So I think I’ll leave it at that for now and I’ll post in the chat as well the link to more about the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum. And currently we actually have a call that’s out for session proposal. So that’s a good opportunity for those in the private sector who would want to engage around their products or discuss more about them with the community to be able to possibly consider being at the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum in Lusaka, Zambia next year so that we continue to have meaningful, proactive stakeholder engagements.

Jim Prendergast: Great, thank you very much. Thanks to both of you. Now we’re gonna turn the perspective a little bit away from product development to policy development. You know, Fiona, who’s sitting across the table from me here in the room, you spent a long time at the Department of Commerce. I’ve known you for a long time and you were heavily engaged in stakeholder engagement. I think the U.S. government has been a leader in that aspect. So can you share with us sort of what you found worked with stakeholder engagement when it comes to developing government? and policies and maybe what didn’t.

Fiona Alexander: Sure, happy to. And let me turn one ear off. Maybe I’ll take both off. It’s hard to hear yourself when you’re talking. So thanks, Jim, for inviting me and to everyone remotely. You’re missing a beautiful venue. So sorry, you’re not here to join us in person for today’s conversation. But as Jim mentioned, I was at the Department of Commerce in the US government for about 20 years. And in terms of the conversation for today about better policy from my perspective through stakeholder engagement, I think it’s important to note, at least in the US government system, there’s a couple of different ways and processes that are used. So for regulation and under our regulatory regimes, our legislature will pass a law, but our independent regulators or other parts of the government will actually do a lot of stakeholder engagement to actually produce the specifics of how a law is implemented through regulation. And we actually have a pretty prescribed process for that through the Administrative Procedures Act, where actually a particular agency will get an assignment, they’ll have to put draft rules out, or they’ll do a notice of proposed rules. And there’s pretty formulaic 45 days, 90-day stakeholder feedback, that kind of stuff. And that’s on the sort of regulatory side in the United States, and that’s across sectors. So it’s not just technology sectors, but all of our sector regulatory approaches work that way. Where it becomes a little bit more flexible and a little bit different is with respect to broader policy setting. And in the agency that I worked at in the Department of Commerce, NTIA is a big proponent and has been historically with the multi-stakeholder model in places like the IGF and things like that. But we also talked about, and we talk about government as a convener. So there’s the idea of similarly seeking public input or stakeholder engagement on what should be the priorities and policies of your office or your administration. Sometimes you do a public meeting, sometimes you do a notice of inquiry and you ask for written feedback. And the outcome of these efforts is really, government policy setting or government priority setting. and it impacts what the team does and how advocacy happens across different parts of the world or bilateral engagement. But then there’s also government as a convener in terms of actually trying to set policy or participate in policy. And I had the great experience of being involved and responsible for the US government’s relationship with ICANN. So I was very much involved in the IANA Stewardship Transition, which is a big, probably one of the largest examples of a multi-stakeholder decision-making process versus a multi-stakeholder consultation process. And in that regard, we were sort of instrumental in setting some of the key foundational principles, participating in the process, and actually evaluating it. But something that’s probably not as well-known in this environment is at the time, NTIA actually tried to deploy sort of a multi-stakeholder decision-making process domestically, and it was much more challenging, actually, than it was globally. And the example I give is we were trying to actually implement some sort of baseline privacy rights without congressional legislation. And in the absence of that, tried to convene stakeholders and actually said, okay, what should we be talking about? And what do you all wanna talk about? And what policies do you all wanna set? And I will say the very first meeting of that was very strange for a lot of people because they were much more used to what I described at the outset, the Administrator for Teachers Act, where government comes in and says, here’s the particular problem we’re trying to solve. Here’s some of our initial thinking. What do you think? In this case, we were like, nope, nope. My boss at the time, we’re gonna let the stakeholders decide what did they wanna focus on? What did they wanna, what rules do they wanna set? And that those processes were much more uneven. Some yielded some specific, you know, voluntary codes around mobile apps transparency, but a couple of those stakeholder processes actually fell apart. And I think we’re, you know, it was a learning experience, I think, for the team, but didn’t yield any actual policy outcomes because the stakeholders themselves didn’t have a particular focus that they wanted to talk about. So again, I think when we’re talking about better policies through stakeholder engagement. Some of the lessons learned, at least from my experience, depending on how you’re handling it and setting aside again our required regulatory approach, but if you’re going to try to deploy a multi-stakeholder process or if you’re going to try to do stakeholder engagement, it’s better when you have a targeted question you’re asking people, just like when you’re developing a particular product. If you’re developing a particular policy and it helps people focus, that tends to be a little bit more useful. At least in the governmental sense, there’s got to be political will to actually want to follow this approach because there’s a lot of people that will challenge the approach and there’s a lot of people that, when they don’t get exactly what they want from the approach, will try to go around you or go to other parts of the government to get what they want. So there’s strong commitment to political will is an important thing. You’ve got to also, as someone else mentioned as well, it can’t just be a check the box exercise. You actually have to always be talking to people. It can’t just be, okay, I have this particular problem, I’m going to talk to you now. You’ve got to build relationships and you’ve got to sustain the relationships and you’ve got to actually keep working with people so that you understand each other and can talk. There’s also got to be enough resources. Not just in the sense of stakeholders being able to participate, which can be a challenge if you want a broad range of stakeholders, not everybody’s resourced the same. The same is true of governments. You’ve got to actually have enough staff and enough people and resources to do them. And then again, I go back to, at least in my experience, where better policy through stakeholder engagement has occurred when the questions have been a little bit more focused and the problem set has been a little bit more narrow. We have a broad problem set. I think it lends itself to inertia sometimes and it’s hard to get past some of the different competing perspectives. The other thing that helps is having a deadline. There’s a clear deadline. It drives people to particular outcomes. And that was kind of my takeaway from my experiences. And maybe I’ll end there and keep the conversation going.

Jim Prendergast: Yeah. Thanks, Fiona. And, you know, as you were speaking and giving some of your best practices, I could see Charles reacting on screen, you know, deadlines and political will. And, you know, so let’s flip it back to product development. I see you reacting to a lot. of what Fiona says. Why don’t you share with us some of your experiences at Google in the product development lifecycle and this engagement process that you’ve undertaken? Absolutely, yeah. So,

Charles Bradley: hi everyone. I’m Charles. I’m the manager for trust strategy on knowledge information products here at Google. So, just a bit of context of what that means. Knowledge and information products are our search, maps, news, Gemini products. So, anything that connects people with information rather than our hardware or cloud work. And manager of trust strategy, well, our role in our team is to shape our products and our product strategy so that we continue to build trust with users. And so, sort of a department that was built about three or four years ago. And a fundamental part of that is our stakeholder engagement. We built a program at Google called our external expert research program, which is all about ensuring that we get meaningful expertise into the product development lifecycle in a company that’s moving at a million miles an hour at all times. We, having been on the other side of this conversation for many years now, I totally understand some of the challenges that have been raised by my fellow panelists. I was one of the stakeholders who’s fatigued about being asked the same questions by different companies over and over. I was also one of the stakeholders who sort of would come to consultations and be like, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve been thinking about this question for three years and you’re asking me to split a hair on something in 15 minutes. Maybe a bit of context would have been helpful and you could have helped me sort of understand the problems to base a little bit more. So, I think that might be why I was hired in the first place was to try and bring a bit of that understanding from the stakeholder perspective into the product development lifecycle, which is at Google. run by product managers and engineers who are trying to build and ship products to millions and billions of users. So when we come along and say, hey, we need to be speaking to a wider range of expertise, often we get sort of flags being flown of that’s going to slow us down, how do we get the product market fit faster, etc, etc. So the program was built as a way of showing that if we do this right at the beginning, our products will be more successful, and we’ll build greater trust when they launch rather than having to build that over time. And I want to talk about two sort of examples that we’ve done in 2024, which has been quite an exciting sort of year for us in this space. Firstly, it was on Circle2Search. Circle2Search is a new feature available on Android, where on any surface on an Android device, you can long hold the bar at the bottom and circle a bit of your screen, and that will send a search up to Google Search. Why is this useful? Well, people are finding information in many different ways. They’re looking for access to information, not just coming to search directly anymore, but coming from different platforms. And we thought it was a great way of meeting users where they’re at. So if you’re on a video somewhere, or you’re on some other piece of content, and you want to know a bit more about that, why can’t you just circle it and off you go? Well, there were a number of key risks to launching this product, including some of the privacy risks you could imagine associated with it. So our product manager, who’s leading this, is very familiar with some of these risks and forced a opening in the product development lifecycle to ensure that we went out and got expert feedback. And we got expert feedback through a number of one-on-one consultations to start with, so thinking through what Richard was talking about in terms of formats. The format of engagement has been very important to ensure that we can get direct and specific feedback from individuals as well as group feedback. So we went out and spoke to dozens of experts in human-computer interaction, as well as privacy and human rights experts. And then we went and after a few one-on-one engagements with these experts, we also brought them together in a group setting. And we came back with five key themes, which actually led to amendments to the product. So the first issue that we heard was, how do you prevent unintentional feature activation or sharing of data? So if you don’t want to have this product on your phone, how can we stop that from unintentionally opening us, sharing data with you? So we ensured that there was explicit user action to launch and to actually activate the product, rather than it being auto-on. And we also provided access in the search itself to delete that search, because we wanted to make sure that people had the closest control to deletion. We also heard, how do we ensure that users can access the controls over this information as well? So we integrated a delete the last 15 minutes search, which is something that we’re trying to do more broadly across a number of our products. We understand that deleting your whole search history might not be what you want to do, but you may have searched for something that might be a present for someone, or it might be a more sensitive query that you want to be able to quickly delete your last 15. minute search. So we integrated that as a feature. Meaningful disclosure, so what on earth is going on? How do we ensure that there’s a meaningful consent to what’s happening with this product and how do we educate users? So in the first launch of the product, we provide a lot more clear language explanation of what this product is and how it works. And we provide much clearer control and consent to how we’re using your data. One risk that also came up, so the fourth of the five points, was around facial recognition technology. So we use visual search a lot in this. This is like our lens product you may have come across before. And people were very worried that we were going to be using biometric technologies for this. We don’t use biometric technologies. We’re using a similar image-to-image matching service. So if this picture is available in the open web, it’s indexed and then we’ll be able to find you a similar copy of that. But we don’t know who that person is and we’re not taking a photo of Charles Bradley and saying, oh I know that’s Charles Bradley, let me return you other photos of him. It’s purely on a visual match-to-match basis and we’re explaining that to users. And then what information are we using and what data are we storing when this product is being invoked was one of the key points as well. So the whole point of the circling part of it is that users can precisely select a part of their phone that they want to search for. Nothing outside of that search is used or collected in the process. And what we’re doing here is actually turning, if it’s an image we’re return that image into text or we’re using the text to create a search and that text is stored as part of your search history but no other information is stored. So we’re not taking the photo of it and storing that photo against your account or anything else, we’re just using the text that we’ve generated from that. So these were sort of five really critical things that came up through these engagements and I think the team had a good sense of some of some of these issues but not the level of priority to some of them and I think the stakeholder engagement we were able to more clearly develop escape hatches or solutions for users which met users needs so providing control front and center in the product as you’re using it rather than back in a setting or some account profile which is often how products provide you with control over search history and everything else. So it really fundamentally changed the way in which we launched this product and has resulted in a really good launch for us and a product that’s been used quite a lot over the last few years. Just one example where we’ve done a very specific product development thing and I think to some of Fiona’s points we had a very clear deadline, we had a very clear problem statement and scope, we were looking to launch this product and we’re looking for ways in which we could build it more sustainably, more suitably for users. Another example which I’ll use just to sort of show some of the other strategies that we have is our work on AI overviews. So now if you go to search you may see an AI overview where we generate a response to your query using generative AI, and then below that provide you with 10 blue links. This is something that we launched about 14 months ago in beta in labs, which is all like beta opt in service on search, and have recently rolled out to over 100 markets. But when doing so, we knew that there were going to be a number of broader challenges to sensitive queries. So things that may not be a very straight tie, a straight line answer to a factual response, there, there, obviously, we apply our product policies to, to ensure that we don’t trigger an AI overview on something that is policy prohibitive. So it’d be that about illegal activity or hate speech, etc. But there are obviously a number of gray area queries where we could with Google voice and our point of view, provide a less than suitable answer to that. And to do this, we didn’t, we didn’t really have a very clear sense of what the product, like strategy should be, and how we should and how we should do this, because it’s such a new and evolving space. So we built a panel of experts that we are now in the second year of engaging. And we work with on a monthly basis, either through one on ones through online virtual calls or through in person meetings, who are giving us much higher level advice around like the product strategy and direction, as well as providing clear guidance on when we have quite specific questions to ask them about whether we should respond in this way, or what frameworks we should be using to train our models to respond here. I think the benefit of this has been that it’s such a complicated space, and the asking an expert in a one or two, like one hour calls, we would be really under utilizing the expertise of these experts. There was a quite a large ramp up to build a clear and consistent understanding amongst our experts of what our ultimate challenges were with this. Like how is the model actually being trained and what different strategies do we have within our model and like product launch strategy do we have at our disposal? And then going iteratively across a number of these, looking at different verticals of sensitive queries, stack ranking them and working through some of those strategies has been very, very fruitful. And I know that the experts that we’ve worked with in this program have found it very rewarding because not only can they see some of their works of directly being integrated into the product and being launched and we’ve now had many billions of queries trigger overviews now, but also they get to sort of learn about the different strategies that we’re focusing on and some of their expert work is actually based on this, but they’ve never had the opportunity to integrate that within a business context. So there’s two things within the program. We’ve now done about 30 studies this year and we’re sort of focused on a number of areas for next year and always we can do a better job, but we think we’re sort of moving in the right direction to provide clarity over how we integrate experts into product development. Pass it back to you, Jim.

Jim Prendergast: Great, Charles. Thanks a lot. You know, it’s really interesting to see how the product development life cycle did take into account the outside expertise and feedback. I can only imagine your engineers looking at you saying, are you kidding me? You want to do this on the front end? But as you said, it probably saved time and a lot of aggravation in the long run. So for those in the room, we’re gonna be moving to discussion and question and answer. We do have a couple of microphones up here. I can play Phil Donahue for your Americans who understand that reference and move the microphone around. There’s one up here on the table, but I’ll sort of get the conversation going. I know Richard, you engaged with Avri Doria just about a five-step approach toolkit that you’ve developed. Do you want to just, for those who aren’t in the chat, do you want to give a quick overview of what that is and how folks might be able to access it?

Richard Wingfield: Yes, absolutely. So the approach is linked to in the chat, but you can also find it by using the search engine of your choice and looking up BSR stakeholder engagement five-step approach. In short, the approach is, it’s a toolkit that we’ve developed, which helps companies think about how to approach stakeholder engagement. The steps are, first of all, developing a strategy. So basically setting out what you want to do as a company in terms of your vision for stakeholder engagement, your level of ambition, maybe reflecting on existing stakeholder engagement. This is obviously something that will vary depending on the resources of the company and what it wants to achieve through stakeholder engagement. Secondly, stakeholder mapping. So when I was talking earlier, I mentioned the kind of the breadth and diversity of stakeholders that exist or people who might be affected by a company’s products or policies. And so undertaking a mapping of which groups or organizations or individuals you need to speak to and maybe where those relationships already exist. Third, preparation. And this is sort of coming back to some of the points that Charles and others have made around making sure that stakeholders are able to… to engage in that process with confidence and with an understanding of what’s happening. So that’s everything from building those relationships, thinking about what the logistics might be for those meetings, preparing and capacity building beforehands that people can come to them and genuinely participate in a helpful way. The fourth stage is the actual engagement itself. And we provide some guidance there on how to manage difficult situations. For example, making sure that all voices are heard in dealing with some of the barriers that might exist to stakeholder engagement relating to language or accessibility, for example. And then fifth, setting out an action plan as to how you’re going to use the inputs for that engagement, either to make changes or just to make sure that the people are kept in the loop about what’s happening. So those are the five steps of the approach and the toolkit is available via the link or just by searching BSR, Stakeholder Engagement Five-Step Approach.

Jim Prendergast: Great, thank you, Richard. Thobekile, a question for you. You know, for many companies, Africa is an opportunistic market. It’s a growing market. It’s a place where they want to do business, but there are unique challenges to it as well. And what would you say are, you know, some of the challenges that for companies that want to engage in stakeholder engagement across the continent, what might they face and what are your recommendations, how they might overcome those?

Thobekile Matimbe: Thanks, Africa is a very great place where there is room to engage with civil society actors on what they’re facing, what the challenges are. But I think the challenge has been really, you know, having more of, you know, willpower from private sector actors to actually want to meet with, you know, the community on the ground to be able to engage on key challenges. Like I mentioned, we host the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum and we’ll have, there are definitely companies that we’ll know will be there, will be in the room, will have Google in the room, will have Meta there to be able to engage. engage, but we feel that there’s a whole lot of other private sector actors who would want to be in the room. We really have had several actors that have been able to come through and be able to engage. But I think what is important to highlight is that the environment that we operate in on the African continent, it’s marked by repressive governments that obviously have their own calls on companies and they might want to also make certain orders even as well on companies. And that’s the kind of challenging atmosphere, environment that companies face when they come on the African continent willing to engage. But I think there’s a way around it. I think that proactiveness in terms of stakeholder engagement will be able to ensure that even when there has been a challenge and companies have been forced to do certain things or even not to be able to respond according to their policies effectively to certain situations, they can still have a space to engage with actors on the African continent to say, what else can we do and support other forms of strategies that civil society actors might be using to actually address some of the challenges that we face. So with regards to stakeholder engagement, there’s a willing civil society space and it’s open because I think the ways we’ve been engaging, the formats of engagement, they can always be adapted to context. So there is room to actually engage. I think what we need to see is more willpower from private sector actors to actually meet the community where the community is.

Jim Prendergast: Great. Thank you very much. And that’s good insight and good advice. I’m going to look at Fiona and Charles virtually. I’m going to look at you. Charles, you each, Fiona, from your perspective talking to, well, as a former government official speaking to other governments, what one key piece of advice would you give governments who are looking to engage in stakeholder advice? And Charles, yours would be, what piece of advice would you give to other private sector entities about government? going down this path?

Fiona Alexander: So I think I just might say that as I listen to others speak and Charles in particular, I think it’s easy or even natural, right? If you’re the decision maker, whether you’re a company making a product or a government making a policy, it’s kind of natural to be like, I know best. I’m gonna sit in my office and talk to my team and I’m gonna decide. And that’s just a natural, I think, human way of thinking. It’s really important though to take a step back and realize that even though talking to people might take more time, and if you’re doing a multi-stakeholder process, it probably is a little bit messy. At the end of the day, you’re gonna get a better product or a better policy and you’re gonna have buy-in if you actually take the time to talk to people in a meaningful way. And I think that’s my advice to people is to actually take that step back. And I’m not on my computer in front of me, so I don’t know who’s on, but you mentioned that Avri was on and I don’t know why, but it makes me think of that maybe sort of stakeholder engagement or participation almost needs ambassadors to make the case as to why this is actually a better way to do policy and the better way to make product is to actually convince people that’s the best way to do it. But I think it’s natural to be like, you know, I know best, I’m just gonna make my own choice. And I think we realize that the outcome of that isn’t always the best.

Jim Prendergast: Great, Charles?

Charles Bradley: Yeah, I mean, I sort of agree with all of that. I’d be willing to further on the knowing best point. I think sometimes people do know that they need to do it, but there’s just so many other pressures on time and some of the skills needed to be able to do this. I think there’s a confidence issue as well with some people who are very familiar with engaging with different internal stakeholders, but not external stakeholders and a concern about what they might hear or how they might get that feedback. I totally agree with Fiona’s point around champions. I think the smartest. thing that my boss did was turn this into a formal program at Google with high visibility and structure to it so that we could build champions underneath that program. And champions not just who are staffed to this program, but also champions in different parts of the business who have utilized the program and deliver greater products. We get all sorts of challenges from other product areas, as Jim alluded to, of you’re going to make me want to do this beforehand. Why aren’t we doing this down the line to see what actual risks there are or harms there are, rather than foreseeing them? And I think that once we’ve got a bunch of case studies within a formal program with a bunch of ambassadors, the inbound requests for this have really started to appear. And we have a number of expert engagements at the moment that are underway, which came to us saying, oh, I really want to make sure that my product lands in the right way. And I know that you’re a team that can do that. But you can also do that at pace and with inside the infrastructure of the business. So it’s internalizing it, creating a formal program, and then building champions who can drive up demand would be my advice.

Jim Prendergast: Great. Thank you. So you’ve created almost like a little cottage industry within Google on how to engage on this, so maybe a profit center someday. So turning to the audience, I know we have a question here. If anybody else has a question, let me know. I don’t have eyes behind my head, so I don’t think we have any there. To be fair, just please identify who you are. And if you have a question directed to one of our panelists, just let them know. Thanks.

Lina Slakmolder: Thank you, everybody. My name is Lina Slakmolder. I work with Search for Common Ground, which is a community-based platform that is a part of Google Cloud Platform. And I’m here to talk to you about how we’re going to make sure that we’re able to make the most of Google Cloud Platform. So I’m going to start with a little bit of background on Google Cloud Platform. So Google Cloud Platform is a platform that’s been around for a number of years. And it’s been around for a number of years. an international peace building organization, but I also co-chair the Council on Tech and Social Cohesion, which brings technologists, peace builders, academics, policy influencers to influence tech design for social cohesion. And listening to this panel, each of you are saying things that are true, but I feel like there’s some other truths that also need to be put on the table. And then I’m curious to hear what are some of your thoughts about those, right? And I want to say, Charles, that, you know, just dovetailing from where you left it, like the rest of the industry has completely depleted trust teams. It’s extraordinary that you’ve built it up and that you just said that, you know, that your senior leadership is actually trying to incentivize this, because this is the first thing I want to say is that there is actually a de-incentive for this kind of engagement, even when organizations like Tobaz and others are bringing forth the harms to these companies, right? They’re basically saying it’s not going to be prioritized over profit. We’re looking for growth. We’re looking for engagement. And to you, Richard, you know, I wonder if you also feel like there is a real changing narrative in the sort of business and human rights space when it comes to big tech today, and that the things that are really leading to most of the changes, again, not in any way excluding, Charles, those excellent examples of how you’ve made change, but in most cases, the changes that the tech companies are making in their products is due to litigation, fear of fines, reputational damage, and things like that. And somehow, even with really good multi-stakeholder-ness, the companies are not necessarily interested in making these changes. And I’ll go one step further, that in Africa, there’s places where these companies are even trying to damage the reputations of organizations that that are pointing out the harms of these products, right? They’re using money to fund other groups that may be saying what they want to hear, and they’re actually damaging the other organizations that are being more critical. So even with multi-stakeholder engagement, there’s something that’s going really wrong when we look at big tech. And it’s why, and I’ll end with this, that we still see a number of products, whether it’s the chatbots, whether it’s the notify things, there’s a whole range of products coming out on the market each week that are not doing an upstream test on safe, that are not being transparent. And without the transparency, again, what kind of stakeholder engagement are you really looking at, right? When you ask people for the consultations, you’re not subsidizing them to give you all those consultations, right? So again, I’d just love to hear from the panelists, are we recognizing that we’re at a different time here? And even with all the good five-step skills in multi-stakeholder consultations, there’s still a real issue on the table here.

Jim Prendergast: All right, who wants to go first on that one? Maybe Richard, do you want to take it from the high level?

Richard Wingfield: Yeah, I’m happy to. I’m hesitant to generalize too much by saying that all technology companies do or don’t do something. I think there is huge variation in terms of maturity and attitude towards the importance of being a responsible business with some taking that responsibility a lot more seriously than others, for sure. But I can understand why there is a sort of feeling that the overall, the sector still hasn’t done enough on this and it still isn’t doing enough. And I think one of the real challenging things, and I don’t have a solution to this, is that meaningful stakeholder engagement takes a long time and it requires organizations to be brought in at a very early stage. If you’re a company with potentially thousands of- different products that might be developed, some of which will never make it to market. You often don’t know until a relatively late stage, which ones are ultimately likely to launch or not. And by that point, it’s very difficult to then bring stakeholders in unless you want to exhaust them by constantly asking them about all of the different options that there might be at every single stage. And of course, technology moves so fast. And that when you’ve got, you know, companies and we think about generative AI and the rush for companies to make sure that they are leading on this as a new technology, you know, bringing in stakeholder engagement slows the process down. And that’s not to say that we shouldn’t do it. But I’m just saying that there are ways that I think the technology sector is faces unique challenges when it comes to meaningful stakeholder engagement, because it does run contrary to a number of other business interests potentially. So I think the solutions to that and these aren’t none of these are silver bullets. One is regulation. And we’re seeing more regulation, particularly in the EU, which requires companies to engage with stakeholders as part of their risk assessment processes, things like the EU’s Digital Services Act, the AI Act, the Corporate Sustainability Diligence Directive. Second is to find it make it easier for stakeholders to become engaged. And that might mean more sectorally focused engagement. So for example, at BSR, we’re now doing a human rights impact assessment into generative AI, which is across the sector as entirety. So not just individual companies, but working collectively to try to reduce the amounts and the demands on them. But there are some of those, as you know, what you call disincentives that are really hard to work around for sure. So I’m not going to pretend there isn’t a problem there. But I do think that there is huge variation still in terms of the approach that different companies take with some with some doing it better than others, for sure.

Jim Prendergast: Thobekile, anything to add?

Thobekile Matimbe: Thanks. I would just say that I think from from my earlier reflections, what I mentioned about willpower, I think on the part of companies to engage and not just engage, but meaningfully engage is something that we still as an organization are looking forward to experiencing more of. And more specifically as well, engaging where the community is, especially at community convenings, is something that we would love to see as well gain more traction. I think one thing that I would say is that what we have experienced, especially with engagements with the private sector company, is definitely those few that are willing to engage with us and that we engage with, it’s usually engagements that will have like side meetings, like closed meetings. And it’s not out there where we are engaging with the broader communities that we represent or that we support and stand for. It’s more of, OK, who are we going to engage with on the continent? OK, there’s this organization and that organization. But proactive stakeholder engagement is looking further than that and saying, hey, if you’re reaching out to Paradigm and say, hey, Paradigm Initiative, we are working on the African continent. We would like to meet the community. Where can we meet the community? And we open it up to broader actors on the continent. I think there would be much more enriching conversations around the challenges that the communities are facing with regards to products, as well as more better inputs into how to shape policies, even for big tech companies as well. So I think what we would definitely love to see is more interest in engaging, especially where the community is, meeting the community where it is, the broader community, and not just picking out or cherry picking those organizations that will know, OK, if we say we were in a room, we engaged with Paradigm, then tick. We’ve done our part. But we need it to be more meaningful and be able to, as well, address the concerns of the broader community on the African continent.

Jim Prendergast: Thank you. Charles, obviously, you can’t speak for the industry, but what’s your take from the Google standpoint?

Charles Bradley: Yeah, I mean, I’m glad that it’s been raised. And if it was very easy, and if it was all going swimmingly, we probably wouldn’t have our jobs trying to do this. I think there are two ways of seeing some of the more harsh government actions over the last few years, where the increase in regulation, which has been welcomed and important to ensure that decision-making about the way in which products are developed and deployed to users, is much more democratic and organized by nation states and regional bodies. It’s been really important to see, and we’re really encouraged by the stable engagement that the different national governments and regional bodies have done there, as well as you mentioned some of the fines. I mean, our view of this has been that we can either continue to wait for these fines and more regulation that may or may not be fit for purpose, or we can engage more with stakeholders to ensure that our products are more aligned with expectations and the values that we’re trying to inhibit. And that’s actually been a strategy that’s got a lot of traction at a leadership level. And as you say, that’s not the case for every company, and we are very fortunate to be able to take a long-term view on this. But it has been sort of part of the business’s DNA for a long time to be able to engage with stakeholders and bring that expertise into product development. I think we’re just getting much sharper at doing so in a more meaningful way, i.e. actually showing impact at the product level. And there are hundreds of success stories where products have never, ever been launched because we have spoken to external stakeholders and experts who have given us very clear guidance on what the risks will be, which are way beyond thresholds of… that we would be able to accept. But internally, we didn’t see those, those issues, we didn’t pattern match those or, or understand the trends there. So I think there’s, um, there are different viewpoints from different businesses, obviously, our viewpoint is that, you know, with the increase of a harder government action in this space, we’re going to end up with greater need for stakeholder engagement and building trust and strength and safety into our products, rather than the opposites, where people are racing to get things out the door to try and get product market fits.

Jim Prendergast: Thanks to all three of you. I’m looking around the room just to see if there are any other questions. I’m not seeing any hands. Oh, Fiona.

Fiona Alexander: I might just respond a little bit to this one as well. Because I think it’s important and I get the perspective that you’re bringing, but there’s no universal solution. And there’s not a single path that will fix all of these things. All companies are slightly different. All products are very different. And not all products or policies are equal in terms of their purpose and their impact. And this is why frameworks and the one that I think Richard mentioned is why frameworks can be useful, because you can talk about how to implement those frameworks and how you can incentivize action, and how to get to that. I will just say that the idea that regulation is going to solve all these problems, I think it’s slightly misguided. I think we’ve seen a lot of regulation emanate from Brussels in the last five years. And I think it’s unclear yet what the implication of that regulation is going to be, how damaging it’s going to be, how effective it’s going to be, or if it’s going to be good. So I think the jury’s out on all of that. I think if GDPR is any example, I think that’s probably not going to help on the innovation side, at least from coming from Europe. But again, we’ll wait and see. And I think a lot of this culturally depends on sort of where you come from, from my perspective, a policy and regulatory perspective. But even I guess, from a company perspective, engagement perspective, and this gets back to ex ante or ex post, right? Do you deal with something once something’s out, and there’s a proven problem? Or do you try to look at something? mapping, map out all the possible potential things and then decide whether to do it or not. And I think that probably goes for products as well. And you have to kind of decide what’s your risk factor and what you’re willing to do and not do. And a lot of that I think comes from culturally where you are. Western philosophy, a U.S. approach versus a European approach, they’re very different. They’re not the same. And I think companies have that same dynamic and where they fit in that. Thanks. I’ll just read out a comment that

Jim Prendergast: Avri did put into the chat. Frameworks plus impact assessments. So probably the combination of the two will yield some effective outcomes for sure. I don’t see any questions online or in the room. So maybe just a quick sentence or two as a wrap up to sort of bring us to a close. I know everybody’s got busy schedules. And if I can give you 10 minutes of your time back, I’m sure you’d appreciate it. You could probably use it to get in line to the restrooms and for the rest of the session’s wrap up. So let’s go to you, Charles. Why don’t you

Charles Bradley: kick us off? Yeah. I mean, I think just, you know, this is such an important topic and one that I think needs to get, we need to move to very specific good practices and frameworks that can be used across industry. And I’m really glad that Richard and the BSR team are doing that for the industry and that we sort of try to bring the whole industry along on this journey. It’s not going to go away. It’s going to get more and more complicated. There are going to be more like unintended consequences or unforeseen utilizations of new technologies as the pace increases. And I’m excited that this is a space that continues to be a place where we can learn from each other and build some sort of like common understanding of how this is done well. So that our colleagues from civil society and academia. are not being asked to provide input into things that don’t go anywhere.

Jim Prendergast: Thobekile, please.

Thobekile Matimbe: Thanks. Thanks a lot. I think my last reflection is really that I think going forward, I think we are open as a paradigm initiative to engage as well as, you know, connect any, you know, product designers to, you know, the broader community on the African continent who are within our networks. And, of course, the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum is going to be hosted in 2025 from 29 April to 1 May in Lusaka, Zambia. It’s a multi-stakeholder platform and we’re looking forward to having at least 800 stakeholders from the Global South in attendance. So it would be a good platform to continue those conversations and obviously a perfect platform as well for any policy consultations or any other, you know, product launches. And, yeah, I think it’s something that we look forward to and look forward to building lasting relationships as well with the private sector around human rights, so to speak. So thank you so much for the opportunity.

Jim Prendergast: Great. Thank you. Fiona.

Fiona Alexander: I think my takeaway from all of this is that, you know, it’s important to always talk about to anyone and everyone the importance of getting stakeholder feedback. And I think we talk a lot about the successes of the processes, but the fact that sometimes it doesn’t work or it doesn’t work and you don’t release a product, we don’t talk about that. Right? So I think it’s equally as important to talk about why things don’t work or if the outcome of the stakeholder feedback is not to release the product, making that known. And I think the more transparent we can all be in all of this, I think the better it will be for everyone.

Jim Prendergast: Thank you. And Richard, do you want to finish it off for us?

Richard Wingfield: Yeah, I just want to kind of say as well that, you know, although there is still so much more to do and it’s right that expectations increase and that demands on companies, you know, continue to be ones that cause a lot of problems. them to do better. We are a lot further advanced than we were 10, 20 years ago in terms of this issue being one that’s on the radar of companies and on the sophistication of existing efforts. There’s huge variation still. There’s an awful lot more to be done. And I think some of the criticisms have been rightly called out today. But I do think it is something that companies are aware of and thinking about in a way that they weren’t 10 plus years ago. And there are opportunities there to use that and to use other tools to increase what we do. So I hope that things will continue to improve. But there is, as you say, still a lot more to be done.

Jim Prendergast: Great. Thank you very much. And I’d like to thank everybody who found our workshop room tucked over here in the corner. And also for those who joined online. And for our speakers, it’s unfortunate you couldn’t be here, but here in spirit and here in sight. And once again, thanks, everybody, for joining us. And we’ll enjoy the rest of your week.

Agreement Points

Importance of stakeholder engagement

Richard Wingfield

Charles Bradley

Thobekile Matimbe

Fiona Alexander

Stakeholder engagement is critical for responsible business practices

Proactive stakeholder engagement builds trust and improves products

Meeting stakeholders where they are is crucial, especially in Africa

Stakeholder engagement leads to better policies and products despite taking more time

All speakers emphasized the critical importance of stakeholder engagement in developing responsible and effective technology products and policies.

Challenges in implementing effective stakeholder engagement

Richard Wingfield

Charles Bradley

Thobekile Matimbe

Fiona Alexander

Technology sector faces unique challenges due to fast pace of development

Internal pressures and incentives can work against stakeholder engagement

Lack of willpower from some companies to engage meaningfully

Cultural differences impact approaches to engagement and regulation

Speakers acknowledged various challenges in implementing effective stakeholder engagement, including technological pace, internal pressures, lack of willpower, and cultural differences.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of structured approaches to stakeholder engagement, including formal programs, champions, clear goals, and deadlines.

Charles Bradley

Fiona Alexander

Create formal programs with champions to drive engagement

Set clear goals and deadlines for engagement processes

Both speakers stressed the importance of engaging with stakeholders in their own communities and contexts for responsible business practices.

Richard Wingfield

Thobekile Matimbe

Stakeholder engagement is critical for responsible business practices

Meeting stakeholders where they are is crucial, especially in Africa

Unexpected Consensus

Proactive engagement to address regulatory pressures

Charles Bradley

Fiona Alexander

Proactive engagement can help companies get ahead of regulatory pressures

Impact of recent regulations like GDPR is still unclear

Despite coming from different perspectives (industry and former government), both speakers agreed on the importance of proactive engagement to address regulatory pressures, while acknowledging uncertainties in the regulatory landscape.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers generally agreed on the importance of stakeholder engagement in technology development and policy-making, while acknowledging various challenges in implementation. They also emphasized the need for structured approaches and proactive engagement to address regulatory pressures.

Consensus level

There was a high level of consensus among the speakers on the fundamental importance of stakeholder engagement. This consensus implies a growing recognition across sectors of the need for collaborative approaches in technology development and policy-making. However, the speakers also highlighted various challenges and nuances in implementation, suggesting that while the principle is widely accepted, practical application remains complex and context-dependent.

Different Viewpoints

Effectiveness of current stakeholder engagement practices

Richard Wingfield

Thobekile Matimbe

We are a lot further advanced than we were 10, 20 years ago in terms of this issue being one that’s on the radar of companies and on the sophistication of existing efforts.

Lack of willpower from some companies to engage meaningfully

Richard Wingfield sees progress in stakeholder engagement practices, while Thobekile Matimbe emphasizes a lack of willpower from companies to engage meaningfully, especially in Africa.

Role of regulation in driving stakeholder engagement

Richard Wingfield

Fiona Alexander

One is regulation. And we’re seeing more regulation, particularly in the EU, which requires companies to engage with stakeholders as part of their risk assessment processes

Impact of recent regulations like GDPR is still unclear

Richard Wingfield sees regulation as a potential solution to drive stakeholder engagement, while Fiona Alexander expresses uncertainty about the impact of recent regulations.

Unexpected Differences

Cultural differences in stakeholder engagement approaches

Fiona Alexander

Thobekile Matimbe

Cultural differences impact approaches to engagement and regulation

Meeting stakeholders where they are is crucial, especially in Africa

While not a direct disagreement, it’s unexpected that Fiona Alexander highlights cultural differences between Western approaches, while Thobekile Matimbe focuses specifically on the African context. This suggests a potential gap in understanding or addressing regional differences in stakeholder engagement practices.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the effectiveness of current stakeholder engagement practices, the role of regulation in driving engagement, and the specific approaches to implementing stakeholder engagement across different cultural contexts.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is moderate. While there is general agreement on the importance of stakeholder engagement, there are significant differences in perspectives on its current state, effectiveness, and implementation. These differences highlight the complexity of the issue and the need for continued dialogue and improvement in stakeholder engagement practices, especially in the rapidly evolving technology sector.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the importance of proactive stakeholder engagement, but differ on the specific approaches. Charles Bradley focuses on internal company processes, while Thobekile Matimbe emphasizes the need for companies to engage with broader communities in their local contexts.

Charles Bradley

Thobekile Matimbe

Proactive stakeholder engagement builds trust and improves products

Meeting stakeholders where they are is crucial, especially in Africa

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of structured approaches to stakeholder engagement, including formal programs, champions, clear goals, and deadlines.

Charles Bradley

Fiona Alexander

Create formal programs with champions to drive engagement

Set clear goals and deadlines for engagement processes

Both speakers stressed the importance of engaging with stakeholders in their own communities and contexts for responsible business practices.

Richard Wingfield

Thobekile Matimbe

Stakeholder engagement is critical for responsible business practices

Meeting stakeholders where they are is crucial, especially in Africa

Key Takeaways

Stakeholder engagement is critical for responsible technology development and business practices

Proactive and meaningful stakeholder engagement leads to better products and policies, despite taking more time

The technology sector faces unique challenges in stakeholder engagement due to the fast pace of development

There is significant variation in how different companies approach and prioritize stakeholder engagement

Regulation is driving more stakeholder engagement, but is not a complete solution to addressing concerns

Creating formal programs and champions within companies can help drive more effective stakeholder engagement

Leveraging existing multi-stakeholder platforms and meeting stakeholders where they are is important, especially in regions like Africa

Resolutions and Action Items

BSR has developed a five-step approach toolkit to help companies implement stakeholder engagement

Google has created a formal program called the ‘external expert research program’ to integrate stakeholder input into product development

Paradigm Initiative invited companies to participate in the upcoming Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum in Zambia in 2025

Unresolved Issues

How to balance the need for stakeholder engagement with the fast pace of technology development and market pressures

How to ensure stakeholder engagement is truly meaningful and not just a ‘tick-box’ exercise

How to address the ‘de-incentives’ that work against thorough stakeholder engagement in some companies

The effectiveness of recent regulations like GDPR and EU AI Act in driving responsible technology development

Suggested Compromises

Using sector-wide engagement processes to reduce the burden on individual stakeholders and companies

Focusing engagement efforts on the most vulnerable or at-risk communities to prioritize limited resources

Balancing proactive engagement early in product development with targeted engagement on specific issues later in the process

The UN guiding principles on business and human rights make regular and explicit recognition of the importance of stakeholder engagement and meaningful stakeholder engagement when it comes to companies behaving responsibly.

speaker

Richard Wingfield

reason

This comment introduces a key framework for understanding stakeholder engagement in the context of business and human rights.

impact

It set the stage for the rest of the discussion by grounding it in an established international framework. This led to further exploration of how companies can implement stakeholder engagement in practice.

We try to prioritise our stakeholder engagement with the communities that are most likely to be at risk.

speaker

Richard Wingfield

reason

This insight highlights a strategic approach to stakeholder engagement that focuses on the most vulnerable groups.

impact

It shifted the conversation to consider how companies can identify and engage with the most relevant stakeholders, rather than trying to engage everyone equally.

I think reflecting more on the do no harm principle is something that I really want to echo. It’s something that is really important and it’s actually something that should be embedded at every point of the product design process.

speaker

Thobekile Matimbe

reason

This comment emphasizes a core ethical principle for technology companies to consider throughout product development.

impact

It broadened the discussion from just stakeholder engagement to the broader ethical considerations companies should keep in mind, leading to more discussion of responsible product development.

Where it becomes a little bit more flexible and a little bit different is with respect to broader policy setting.

speaker

Fiona Alexander

reason

This insight highlights the differences between regulatory processes and broader policy development in terms of stakeholder engagement.

impact

It added nuance to the discussion by distinguishing between different types of stakeholder engagement processes, leading to more specific examples and recommendations.

We built a panel of experts that we are now in the second year of engaging. And we work with on a monthly basis, either through one on ones through online virtual calls or through in person meetings, who are giving us much higher level advice around like the product strategy and direction, as well as providing clear guidance on when we have quite specific questions to ask them about whether we should respond in this way, or what frameworks we should be using to train our models to respond here.

speaker

Charles Bradley

reason

This comment provides a concrete example of how a major tech company is implementing ongoing stakeholder engagement in practice.

impact

It moved the discussion from theoretical frameworks to practical implementation, sparking more conversation about best practices and challenges in real-world stakeholder engagement.

Even with multi-stakeholder engagement, there’s something that’s going really wrong when we look at big tech. And it’s why, and I’ll end with this, that we still see a number of products, whether it’s the chatbots, whether it’s the notify things, there’s a whole range of products coming out on the market each week that are not doing an upstream test on safe, that are not being transparent.

speaker

Lena Slachmuijlder

reason

This comment challenges the effectiveness of current stakeholder engagement practices and raises important critiques of the tech industry’s approach.

impact

It significantly shifted the tone of the discussion, prompting the panelists to address criticisms and limitations of current stakeholder engagement practices in tech.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by moving it from theoretical frameworks to practical implementation, highlighting the challenges and limitations of current practices, and emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations throughout the product development process. The discussion evolved from a general overview of stakeholder engagement principles to a more nuanced exploration of how these principles are (or aren’t) being applied in the tech industry, with a particular focus on the challenges faced in different global contexts and the need for more meaningful, proactive engagement with diverse stakeholders.

How can companies better meet communities where they are for stakeholder engagement, especially in Africa?

speaker

Thobekile Matimbe

explanation

This is important to ensure more meaningful and inclusive engagement with a broader range of stakeholders, rather than just select organizations.

How can the disincentives for meaningful stakeholder engagement in the tech industry be addressed?

speaker

Lena Slachmuijlder

explanation

This is crucial to understand why some companies may not prioritize stakeholder engagement over profit and growth, and how to change this dynamic.

How can stakeholder fatigue be mitigated when companies seek input?

speaker

Richard Wingfield

explanation

Addressing this issue is important to ensure continued meaningful participation from stakeholders without overburdening them.

How can companies better incorporate stakeholder feedback into decision-making processes?

speaker

Richard Wingfield

explanation

This is critical to ensure that stakeholder engagement leads to tangible changes in products and policies.

What are effective ways to build long-lasting relationships between companies and stakeholders?

speaker

Richard Wingfield

explanation

This is important for creating trust and ensuring ongoing, meaningful engagement rather than transactional interactions.

How can companies balance the need for stakeholder engagement with the fast-paced nature of technology development?

speaker

Richard Wingfield

explanation

This is crucial for finding ways to incorporate meaningful engagement without significantly slowing down product development.

How can the impact of recent tech regulations, particularly from the EU, be assessed?

speaker

Fiona Alexander

explanation

This is important to understand the effectiveness and potential consequences of new regulations on innovation and stakeholder engagement.

How can companies be more transparent about stakeholder engagement processes and outcomes, including when products are not released?

speaker

Fiona Alexander

explanation

This transparency is crucial for building trust and demonstrating the value of stakeholder engagement.