DW Weekly #169 – 19 July 2024
Welcome to another issue of the Digital Watch weekly!
The OEWG is a process encompassing all interested UN members, and it adopts its decisions by consensus, so adopting APRs is always a momentous effort. This time, 80 UN member states participated, with their views on what the APR should or should not contain. The chair opened the session by pleading for members to maintain a dynamic of mutually agreed additions to the text of the APR, not mutually decided deletions leading to the document being empty.
Things were tense through the penultimate meeting (the OEWG sessions are typically made of ten meetings), while Iran held that they could not accept the document. The crux of Iran’s unwillingness was paragraph 27, which Iran feels does not accurately reflect the international legal order because the text says that states have obligations stemming from voluntary norms. However, at the very last meeting, Iran distanced itself from paragraph 27, and the APR was adopted.
What is not solved in the OEWG will undoubtedly make its way into the agenda of the next mechanism, but not everything should be deferred, or the delegations will be in for quite a headache in 2026. Town halls and intersessional meetings can be held to discuss international law and to agree on the elements of regular institutional dialogue, and we know Chair Burhan Gafoor is good at that – last year, the pace of meetings was near-breakneck speed.
A summary of the discussions is available on Digital Watch. AI reports and transcripts from the 8th substantive session are available on our dedicated web page – a more in-depth human-generated analysis is planned for next week.
UNFOLDING NOW
A major tech outage today (19 July) is disrupting operations across different industries worldwide, including air travel, healthcare, financial services, and media. The outage’s root cause was traced to a software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, whose CEO stated, ‘The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed.’ We’ll follow the story as it develops.
Andrijana and the Digital Watch team
Highlights from the week of 12-19 July 2024
Key sectors including media, healthcare, and financial services also experienced significant impacts.
As OpenAI’s Strawberry advances the reasoning capabilities of models the company must face off with its employees who consider such models a threat to humanity.
Nvidia could face charges if the investigation yields sufficient evidence, hinting at the gravity of the situation.
The incident has led to a surge in wild claims and disinformation online
The FBI was assisted by the Israeli firm Cellebrite.
Kaspersky will continue operations outside the US, focusing on other strategic markets.
TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, must comply with EU gatekeeper regulations CJEU rules.
US senators press AT&T, Snowflake on data breach, fearing sensitive customer data auctioned or compromised, demand accountability.
Nokia and Telecom Egypt have partnered to introduce 5G technology to Egypt, enhancing connectivity in major cities with Nokia’s AirScale portfolio. This collaboration aims to revolutionise Egypt’s digital landscape and support innovation.
The EU’s new regulation requires Digital Product Passports for most products by 2030.
Kenza Layli, an AI-generated Moroccan influencer, has been crowned the first Miss AI. Created by Myriam Bessa, Layli promotes diversity and inclusivity in the AI creator landscape, outshining 1,500 entries worldwide.
Do we need a new international treaty to protect critical infrastructure (CI)? Which challenges would this help to address, and why? What could be the scope of this treaty? We asked our guests, Aude Géry, Senior Researcher in Public International Law and Digital Security, Geopolitics of the Datasphere (GEODE), and Marc Henauer, Senior Politics and International Affairs Officer, Swiss National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
This webinar will focus on leveraging technology to enhance preparedness, response, and recovery efforts in the face of natural or man-made disasters on the African continent. This webinar aims to explore the use of cutting-edge cyber tools and technologies to improve disaster management in Africa. It will delve into innovative solutions that enable quicker, more coordinated responses to crises, ultimately enhancing overall resilience in the region.
