The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: Good morning to all of you, such a pleasure to have your presence here in this beautiful, beautiful setting of Kyoto. It's my pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the organizers and the hosts themself and on behalf of the many hands who have worked so hard to put up this event, this convergence in Kyoto, to welcome you all with the deepest felt warmth to the 2023 IGF.
In the face of so much dynamism and so many elements and aspects of life on planet earth, of course, it's, the Internet's ability as we all know to adapt and be a catalyst for economic resilience has, we believe you agree, been never, never as important.
And it is at the heart of the solutions and the deliberations that we seek providing us with innovative tools, global connectivity and opportunities to forge ahead on the path of the aspired prosperity, solidarity and collaboration.
Ladies and gentlemen, these are the very opening thoughts that we would want to share as we look forward to opening the very first engagement here at this main hall of the 18th IGF.
And I'm your privileged moderator. I'm Shivanee Thapa, a senior news editor with Nepal television and I feel very honored and privileged to have this responsibility of steering you through the first panel, the high level track session here in the main hall of this venue. It's a matter of great pride and pleasure that we are having the participation of 8,000 participants across 117 countries at the IGF, which is a demonstration of the gravity of the agendas and the sector that we represent and will be deliberating herein. Allow me quickly to join the esteemed panel who are here, and I feel privileged to be placed beside them as we look forward to beginning the very first high level track session. For your kind information, we have translation services in six different UN official languages.
If you seek to have those services, we have provision of headsets which are placed at your tables and allow me now to kindly set the context for the first high level track session of the 18th IGF.
In this very digital age it is certainly needless to say this, but in this digital age we find ourselves in an era where data has become the life blood of the global economy, and society at large as well.
Now, the rapid development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT as well as the Blockchain and so many more. These have fosters unprecedented growth in the volume as well as the velocity of data. However, the need is for us to recognize that along with this enormous potential for progress, there are complex challenges and risks that come with it, and also there are needs which are, which need to be addressed as, at the soonest to create a synergy amongst the stakeholders. Most important in a bid to understand the chemistry of all of these elements. Now, the first high level track session, ladies and gentlemen, 18th IGF is all about data flow.
The concept of data free flow with trust, that DFFT as you all know, technology, commerce, governance, and many other aspects and dimensions.
At its core DFFT proposes facilitating unimpeded movement across geographical boundaries.
This session will seek to give better general understanding of DFFT, examine its implications and identify potential areas of agreement for its applications.
And I am indeed very, very much pleased in fact it's my distinct honour to introduce to you all our most esteemed and distinguished panelist, first and foremost welcome Mr. Taro Kono, the Honorable Minister for Digital Transformation, Japan. Our second panelist. Courtney Gregoire, Chief Digital Safety Officer Microsoft, our third panelist, we have Junhua Li, the United Nations Under Secretary‑General for Economic and Social Affairs and last but not least, Leonida Mutuku, AI Research and Strategy Lead Local Development Research Institute.
With much pleasure and privilege, I extend a warm welcome to all distinguished panelists. Considering the theme of the session, I will initiate our discussion by posing questions and I will take turns in placing questions to our panelists.
So beginning with the first question of the session, first and foremost moving to Honorable Minister of digital transformation of Japan, there certainly is no doubt that countries understand the importance of securing the cross‑border transfer and access of data. We also have seen domestic approaches to data flow emerge in domestic privacy and national security concerns and a lack of trust among major trading partners. Honorable Minister, what can DFFT do for a fragmented global landscape on data flows by enhancing trust?
>> TARO KONO: Thank you. Good morning, welcome all to Kyoto. Well, our economy has become data driven economic, and new technologies such as Generative AI, you have to field a larger data set to train them. So data is very important and the life blood of our economy. But if we look at the global landscape of data or data governance, it's very much fragmented.
So everyone agree that data need to be able to travel around the world without interruption or delay, and with very predictable manner. It is quite difficult because people have different ideas about privacy and security. It is more ideological or even theological. I mean, you can talk to each other and understand what the other side actually think or believe, but it would be very difficult to have a convergence. So DFFT need to address the way to increase interoperability of data related regulations DFFT need to discuss issue of reliability and accuracy of data itself. Right now we see a lot of misinformation or disinformation coming up, so accuracy and reliability of data is important.
Thirdly, we need to discuss issues of credibility of originator or sender of data and the history of how the data has been modified. So in order to talk about privacy and security or trustworthy of data, I think we need to solve the issue of gaps. So DFFT is to enable policy makers, academia and private sector to collaborate with discussion and technology. We have had so many forum to talk about data, but it's ad hoc. It's more sectoral.
So we are talking about creating an international arrangement to provide permanent space to discuss issues concerning data, and we need to create a momentum not just for policy maker, but for private sector and academia to talk about these data issues.
And data, you have to discuss not just the policy alone, you have to discuss the issue of technology. You need to incorporate technology to make data reliable, trustworthy, and make data travel across the border. So we need to create the momentum and the space to discuss and implement concrete project to enable data to travel cross‑border with trust, and that is the concept of DFFT. So hopefully as we agreed among G7 and agreed among G20, we would like to set up on international arrangement for partnership to discuss data issues, cross‑border data issues with many countries, not just limited to G7 or G20, but we need to include every country to join the discussion, and we need to implement concrete project to allow data to travel cross‑border even though we may not agree on how we are going to regulate data transfer. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Thank you, Honorable Minister. That is quite an optimistic view where he says it's pretty much doable to fill the gaps and loopholes through institutionalizing partnership and arranging for covering the loopholes and voids. Moving to His Excellency, the UN Under Secretary‑General, what would be your say in this particular regard?
>> JUNHUA LI: Well, thank you, Madame Moderator. Good morning, everyone!
It is a great pleasure to join all of you in Kyoto, and together with some outstanding panelists. I just want to underline our special thanks to the government of Japan and the remarks by Minister Kono with regard to the initiative DFFT. As we all know it was suggested by, it was proposed by the G7 and discussed at the G20. I just want to follow Minister's remarks.
Today it's a good opportunity to further develop this idea, and hoping that we could arrive somewhere at a global scale, but how we can do that, then I took your word trust to UN, trust means partnership, trust means general participation, and I guess everyone knows that about three weeks ago in the UN headquarters, we had the SDG Summit, the sustainable development Summit.
Why we had that? Because we did not have a rosy picture before this. The SDG program was initiated 2015, and after eight years only about 15 targets will be on track, and more than one third either off track or recessioned.
So it's a very, very severe situation we are facing. So how we could advance the 2030 Agenda, data, digital, that's one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. So to advance DFFT we need more participation from the majority of UN members in its contents and its regulations and its potential benefits.
And also, not only limited to the Government, but more essentially we need to involve the general public or stakeholders including NGO's, civil society, private sector, academia, technical communities, youth because they are the future users, and the deciders of all of this.
So that is something that we care about. We hope that based on our discussion today we may see new ideas for this new initiative. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Let us take the remaining panelists now the same question, what can DFFT do for a fragmented data landscape on data flow by enhancing trust?
>> LEONIDA MUTUKU: Good morning, everybody, and thank you for that question. I'd like to take a moment to reflect on some of the points that my fellow panelists have brought about, specifically the issue of participation. I think with DFFTs that when this created trust in the data flows, then it increases the likelihood of participation from everyone, but no one is left behind. However, as part of responding to your question, I would like to take the time to reflect a little bit on the recommendations of the Africa Union data policy framework, and this was ratified by African Union Member States last year, and the policy really adopts an approach of people‑centred approaches to cross‑border data sharing and policy frameworks around that. So this means that we locality the people at the centre of this data ecosystems, and allow policy makers to leverage on that as they are creating policies.
And so this in a way considers the economic and human development that sends to take place in marginal economies such as the one I represent.
So for data flows to really build that trust, of course, now we need to move beyond the utopia that is created by this concept, and thinking about I would suggest three things to start with, data categorization. What kind of data do we actually want to flow across borders? This personal versus non‑personal data, and what is the purpose of this data flowing across borders, and then how will the beneficence of that realized? Are the data flows unilateral?
I think for data flows to be trustworthy, they have to move both ways. That also contributed to mutual beneficence, both from the country receiving the data, but also exporting data. And then finally, the quality of the data itself. As was mentioned earlier on, we need high quality data that can be used across different sectors and some of the standards have already been established by movements such as open Government, Open Government Partnership.
And so by having high quality data moving, then we increase the level of trust that there will be representation, but also that we do not exacerbate any discriminatory practices because different groups of people are represented in this data. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for those very comprehensive and very invaluable observations.
Coming to Ms. Courtney Gregoire, if you could add onto these observations.
>> COURTNEY GREGOIRE: Sure. Microsoft strongly supported facilitation of cross‑border data flows and the data free flow with trust, and at the outset, I want to acknowledge heartfelt thanks to Japan for leading this initiative.
As former Prime Minister stated in the G20 Declaration, cross‑border flow of data, information, ideas and knowledge generates higher productivity, greater innovation, and improves sustainable development.
We have a very good question on the table. How do we help everyone understand what is the value behind the free flow of data with trust? And that means getting first and foremost the concept of what is trust? We all, all users, all citizens of the world must feel confident that our data is moving securely and our most sensitive information is protected. This means keeping core principles at the heart of the work that is privacy, safety, security, and transparency.
We need strong commercial privacy protections to ensure that all those know that their information is being protected and we need trusted mechanisms to transfer information. Because at the end of the day, the reason behind this must be human‑centred for all to gain value and opportunity.
We need clear rules to regulate Government access to data for that same purpose and moving forward. At the end of the day, we know that trust is best built through multi‑stakeholder collaboration, where there is true conversation around the table with all of those that are interested and their interests are well respected.
I think at the end of the day, the heart of the institutional arrangement partnership is to bring that multi‑stakeholderism together, to learn best practices and ensure that as we are advancing this framework, we do this with trust at its centre, the trust that users know that their trust is going to be respected and their value that they will get out of this work.
There is more work to do to make this a reality, but it needs to be brought about with all of the principles we've talked about here. Core to that is how data will be used to advance privacy, to advance safety and security.
We do get to have a conversation about what this means in practice, but the opportunities it means both to advance environmental sustainability, to think about truly pressing global health issues and to have a more equitable economic opportunity are things we could floor more, I think. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: We can see there is a great understanding of the common issues and problems in despite us all having a great as suspicious to creating the aspired, however, there could be, there could be hurdles and obstacles to realizing what we aspire for and among the range of the hurdles or obstacles, one important is the inequalities prevalent among the stakeholders and among the nations.
A pillar of this, a pillar of the SDG agenda is the reduction of inequalities within and between the countries as outlined in SDG10. So data and cross‑border data flows are increasingly important for development and in many ways considered the life blood of current economies. Data‑driven technologies as we know rely on large amounts of data yet Developing Countries with smaller populations may be at a natural disadvantage in this context.
So how could responsible cross‑border data flows address this prevalent imbalance? I want to come back to Ms. Courtney Gregoire.
>> COURTNEY GREGOIRE: I think this is a great question. We need to realize, and it's been said by all almost of the panelists including the Minister that we are at this era in which we are at a data driven economic opportunity. And as we think about bridging the gap from an inequality perspective, that means really having a serious conversation about where is the future opportunity and growth. It was a 2020 world economic forum study that found that approximately half of cross‑border services trade is enabled by digital connectivity.
If we are looking for the opportunity and the future growth for all countries, in particular, micro and small and medium‑sized enterprises it means truly that bilateral, that fully flow of data that advantages all for the future of economic opportunity. I think we have to fake a hard look at the reality of right now. Data is flowing in many ways, but that may be flowing unilaterally and not raising all opportunity around globally.
So as we have this conversation, we know that innovation will be fueled by a truly protected data free flow and economic opportunity when given to all will rise an economic and global equitable context. This is the opportunity that we want to think about. Moreover, if you think about equity, we need to about economic, we need to think about social opportunity and we need to think about what it means from a global health perspective.
We will talk more about this, but if there hasn't, if there has truly been the mother of all innovation. It would be the COVID‑19 pandemic that made everyone understand the core role data has in unlocking not just economic innovation, but health innovation that is core to opportunities.
Think about what that means to addressing some of the true global health inequity that has kept back many across the globe. So these are the places that we have to have a more tangible conversation about what data means. What does data mean for the lives of those individuals? What it can mean as an opportunity for both future growth and future opportunity.
It may feel esoteric. We need to make it real and have the conversation as to why this is important.
>> MODERATOR: Could you add to these observations, please?
>> Thank you very much. When I think about how to address this issue of inequality, I think about what it means to actually first of all exacerbate it. And we see that with data flows as has already mentioned that are happening, data tends to be extracted from one jurisdiction to another.
The question is once this data moves across borders who is processing it, and do they understand the context and nuances of where the data originated to be able to counter the imbalances that would arise, then it is really important to have at this juncture participation also in the processing of data but people who have context and understanding of the nuances that the data holds from the jurisdictions in which they were extracted from.
Secondly, it's the issue of scarcity mentality, having been an AI researcher, one thing we like is to have as much data as possible to create these systems that will make decisions on behalf of people. The question is do we really need all of that data or should we be very critical and careful of the data that we want to access and utilize to these decisions.
So in this sense if we are only using the relevant data, then it doesn't matter how much data, let's say, is possessed or could be collected from a population. What matters is what specific data will be utilized to make decisions in that context.
And one example I would like to give to illustrate this is the issue of language data. We do want, of course, for instance some of our most under resourced languages to be represented in systems of the future, but there is the issue of if you are not participating on the other end of it to process this data, then the issues such as mistranslations or that missing of context may arise. So even as we think about data, data flows, I think it's the ultimate use of that data that could potentially increase the inequality and having participation by also representatives of the data in processing it can help mitigate that. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. My next question is centrally directed to Mr. Li, and then I will come to Ms. Leonida Mutuku. Monitoring progress towards the SDG's required high quality disaggregated data and mapping interactions among initiatives to meet the goals can monitoring and data flows across borders be significant for cooperative SDG efforts particularly in surveillance of ecosystems and for environmental cooperation.
>> JUNHUA LI: Yes, very positively because cross‑border data sharing and international cooperation are essential for achieving the SDG's. People may ask why. I guess everyone would agree with me that the SDGs are about the global in nature. It is not about an individual country or individual group. It is about the whole membership or the human kind.
So many of our challenges we are facing is cross‑border. It's a global. So definitely logically, naturally we call for the international cooperation and the data sharing to tackle all of those challenges and monitoring and sharing the data, of course, are essential to tackle those transborder challenges, but I have to stay that just now we talked about inequality in data or digital divide, within countries, that is one of the serious phenomenon we have to tackle with. We need to give the policy consideration how we could bridge the gap to addressing the quality data and to ensure the data sharing across the border, and lay down sort of the basis of what international cooperation.
And, of course, we United Nations and particularly my department, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, we have devoted 70 years to facilitate the Member States, capacity building and norm setting, international norms, governing data sharing and data collecting, of course, and its utilization.
It also just recently my department launched, we called it a UN data comments for SDGs, a platform that integrated into the SDG data and information sources found at all UN entities. It is not about a single UN entity. It is cross cutting from all UN entities.
One thing that I just want to underline that it's cross‑border sharing also foster the collaboration and knowledge exchange, just to give you an example for the disaster reduction. We need early warning system. That essentially means the data sharing which serve a very fundamental thing for early warning system.
>> MODERATOR: Ms. Leonida Mutuku, what would you say to this?
>> LEONIDA MUTUKU: I would actually say 100% agreement around the partner ships and I would like to highlight, for instance, when we talk about ecosystems that one of the interesting partnerships coming around are around observations, for instance, and when we look at a continent like Africa, initiatives that are propose data partnerships amongst nations enable us to be able to surveil ecosystems at the same time being able to collect data through observations that the country may not necessarily have the capacity to do themselves, but with institutions such as the space agencies who are already surveilling. The question, again, comes back to what is the capacity then to provide policy oversight and to manage these partnerships.
This is where it’s really interesting to be able to capacitate the Government institutions, policy institutions to provide oversight over cross‑border data sharing to support SDGs, but at the same time creating that ability to trust in the institutions themselves that are collecting this data by people whose lives will be impacted by the decisions made from this data.
And this trust is built by understanding whether these institutions are transparent and accountable to the people, but at the same time whether there is relevant engagement, especially in mass surveillance systems if there is relevant to these systems being utilized for these specific indicators. It creates that trust.
And one thing that we have to be cognizant about is that a lot of societal issues that the SDGs aim to address are intersectional. That means that issues touched by different data sets collected for different reasons and in different sectors.
When we think about for instance, trying to ensure that different genders, women and marginalized groups are represented in the data. In the context of agriculture, there is nutrition, energy, and health that are intertwined in that issue. So the partnerships then enable you to be able to address this intersectional issues because you are able to bring all of the relevant data collectors onto the table to collectively address the SDGs.
>> MODERATOR: Quite relatable and realistic. What would your thoughts be.
>> COURTNEY GREGOIRE: I reflect on our opportunity we had to chat back stage before coming on this panel. It's worth noting that our conversation couldn't help but drift to the impacts that climate change were having on all of our lives. So thinking about this important question is at the heart of what data can do to really truly drive sustainability changes and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. Microsoft has been making a deep investment in this for many, many years and if we think about what data can do in this context through policy and investments that harness this power, we can think about the future for climate, water, ecosystems and a resilient energy grid. I'm going to give two concrete examples. First, all of us want to make sure that those who have made true committed to achieving climate targets are actually achieving them at the community level, at the business level at the nation state level. That means being data driven in the approach.
Microsoft has invested with global renewable watch to track energy resources like wind and solar installations to make this a reality and bring transparency to those who have made commitments and should be held accountable. At the end of the day we have a pressing issue and that is helping those around the world adapt to changes in climate.
One of the partnerships that is AI powered through data, we have done through project farm vibes to help farmers adapt to climate change make better decisions around planting, water and fertilizing crops. We know this is the underlying infrastructure to achieving our sustainability goals and helping everyone around the world to adapt to a changing and evolving climate.
And these concrete examples we believe could help change the conversation at a realistic at all.
>> MODERATOR: Lastly, I turn to the Honorable Minister to share his perspectives of this.
>> TARO KONO: Let's say for curbing climate change, in order to do that, we need accurate and trustworthy data on carbon footprint throughout the supply chain, and the supply chain nowadays will be on the national border. So we need to make sure the data measures accurately and numbers calculated correctly, and data are not tampered. And I think countries need to share those data and interoperable manner.
So that's where DFFT comes in. In order to do all of those SDGs projects, no country can do that alone. Everyone needs to exchange data and make sure that data is accurate, correct, and not tampered.
So we need to increase interoperability of cross‑border data flow. So it is important for across the board on SDG projects. That's where the DFFT comes in.
>> MODERATOR: Great. Coming from the reflections of the observations and perspectives shared by the panelists we understand the needs and urgency as well and if you look in the recent past the COVID‑19 pandemic has been an awakener for almost all of the global entities and nations. It has awakened our perspectives, our thoughts, the needs, everything, and many things surrounding data itself.
So the discloser of health‑related data across borders during the COVID‑19 pandemic was critical as you have acknowledged in mitigating the harm to these societies back then in the time of chaos and even in the aftermath. Considering the 2030 Agenda imperative to ensure health and wellbeing for all and that risks are increasingly borderless as we have seen by ourselves, what are the possible scenarios for trusted and equitable data sharing for health. Over to Ms. Leonida Mutuku.
>> LEONIDA MUTUKU: Thank you so much, I would like to bring your attention to the surveillance systems that a lot of at least African countries use for health. This is use of the DHIS2 which is an open source tool that countries can periodically log different health related indicators in the system, when you look at DHIS2, the demographic and health surveys, data that populates it tends to be anonymized and disaggregated enough to pique trends outcomes across different areas. In this sense these data sets are granular enough to make relevant decisions and can be shared safely especially when you consider that personalized data is not included in the systems.
So having different countries create frameworks around sharing of DIHS2 data and how that could be used to surveil potential outbreaks or potential health issues that could ideally be reviewed in original perspective. The second thing I would like to reflect on is when we move away from these larger data sets to now thinking about where we are going creating health systems using AI, some interesting data sets that are collected in countries such as X‑rays and scans could ideally be utilized and shared safely to support disease discovery as well as new ways of treating them. However, an issue arises in this sense, the data attribution. How do we know that these data sets were selected by who and what is the level of trust in that data. At the same time, what dividends do the owners of those data sets get once the data is utilized globally?
So even as we reflect on this positive opportunities for cross‑border data flows, we need to really think about the contributors of the data, the authors, what dividends they do get from this as well as how we can attribute their contribution to these systems.
>> MODERATOR: Coming to Minister Kono, I'm sure Japan has a wealth of experience and knowledge to share from the pandemic and the post era?
>> TARO KONO: For COVID, in order to analyze what COVID is, to develop vaccine and in order to administer vaccination, we needed to use data and we need to share the data and we need to increase our computer power to analyze those data.
We will probably have another pandemic sometime, and we need to be prepared, but health‑related data is very, very sensitive, so we may be a bit more careful using those personal health data.
There is something called federated learning AI technologies which is to make AI trained for diagnosis and prescription of medicine without sharing, without gathering personal health data at one point. So the policy makers are not always aware of new emerging technologies, so it is very important to have policy makers sit down with engineers, experts, academia, private sector to discuss what is available at that moment. What is the latest technology?
So the policy makers, politicians understand what is available, what is the latest technology available to do each project? So that's why we believe it is important to have Government and non‑government stakeholders to sit down and discuss each issue.
That is particularly important for health‑related projects.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Can I turn to Mr. Li, if you could add your insights to these possibilities?
>> JUNHUA LI: Well, I guess if we do have the participation from all stakeholders on this DFFT and certainly we would have a much more promising future for this kind of instrument, policy instrument and technical instrument.
>> MODERATOR: Coming to Ms. Courtney Gregoire.
>> COURTNEY GREGOIRE: I think this has been well said, but it's true that we experienced the COVID‑19 epidemic becoming somewhat a mother of innovation, that incentivized nations to shift approach and understanding that immersive sharing of data was critical to the future from a public health perspective and they need to do that in a way that this trustworthy frameworks that enhanced the privacy.
When we talk about core health data, as the Minister noted this is the most highly sensitive. This is the area that will be the biggest concern for users to think about what does this mean to me? How could I be disadvantaged? Would sharing of the data impact my privacy or impact my future ability to access healthcare or get the right treatment?
And so we recognize the public health opportunities, but the fear from a user perspective means that privacy must be at the heart. While we have seen progress, we also see the lack of clarity around regulatory requirements for health data truly impacting. Restricting, slowing global advanced in some research areas. So this is an area that we just heard from everybody, you have to have all of the stakeholders around the table.
Those that understand the technology opportunities that mean we can truly do this in a privacy, not just protective but enhancing manner for the public health opportunities we want around the globe. It is an area that is going to make perfect sense that needs multilayered regulatory approach given the sensitivity of the underlying data.
>> MODERATOR: Summing up from all of the opinions and perspectives or insights that have been shared at this forum so far at this moment. We look in common consensus that we need to create the synergy and find a mechanism or put that mechanism in place to address, identify, overall the loopholes in helping us reap or harness from the prospects and potentials that data flow brings along. The question is what kind of mechanism? What kind of mechanism of framework for cross‑border data flow is required to bring the Government and the stakeholders together to achieve the goals that we discussed here today? May I begin with the Honorable Minister.
>> TARO KONO: Thank you.
Well, in the past discussion on data or data governance was quite ad hoc and sector‑based, I guess. You can talk about data in terms of trade policy or in terms of privacy or when you are talking about environment, you talk about the data policy or health. We need to, when we talk about data, I think we need to talk across the board, we need to talk about how we are going to govern the data policy itself.
And we also need to create a continuous discussion. So that's why Prime Minister Abe back in 2019 proposed the idea of DFFT. In order to operationalize DFFT, we have been talking about an international forum with a permanent Secretariat. We have been talking among the G7 countries, and this year there was a G7 digital Ministers meeting, and we agreed among the G7 countries, we have agreed to set up international framework with the permanent Secretariat that was endorsed by the G7 leaders.
We have agreed to set up international forum under umbrella of an international organisation. Well, we can talk about data policies, data governance policies, but Europeans have a GDPR, United States have, well, the wild west, anything goes in U.S., so it will be very difficult to have convergence. But as I said, it's going to be theological issue.
The data policy set aside, we need to operationalize free flow of data with trust. So this international framework we call it international arrangement for partnership. We will discuss a concrete project to operationalize DFFT. So what we are thinking about is we will set up this international forum and under the umbrella of international organisation with permanent Secretariat. We need a Government panel among the policy makers.
But we also need known governmental experts panel, experts invited from the private sector, academia. We need to take up concrete project. I believe we need to talk about international database on data regulations, data governance policy of each Member States so you can go into their database and find out what each country requires you to do if you want to do business in certain countries. We constantly need to update.
We also need to create a regulatory sand box. There is a lot of new emerging technology or PETS, Privacy Enhancing Technologies. We need to create a regulatory sand box to test each emerging technology and if it passes, if it's passed, it should be able to apply each member state. And it will probably need to take up some concrete project for each issues like health, environment, things like that.
So we will probably need permanent Secretariat and Government panel, non‑government panel. That's what we are trying to do.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you Honorable Minister. Moving to the rest of the panelists beginning with Mr. Li, what are your thoughts on this?
>> JUNHUA LI: Thank you.
I just want to follow the comments by Minister Kono. We all recognize that there is a huge gap in the global data governance strategy. So definitely we need a global framework or mechanism to enhance the global data governance including data flow with trust. However, I just want to share one aspect during my conversation with some policy makers from the Global South, developing members, they are very concerned that now probably they will be becoming the primary data providers to the business located somewhere, but not in their own territories.
So potentially limiting their Government's and the local business access to their own data, this dynamic could potentially disadvantage them in international markets and in international cooperation. That is why we need to strengthen national institutions and accountability, particularly with regard to the global assistance to the Global South, to bridge the gap in the digital divide.
And this requires not only the assistance from the Global South, but it also needs a regulatory framework and a stronger public digital infrastructure and data capacity. And this requires the buy in and the participation from almost all stakeholders on agreement on the robust data sharing practices and the governance structure. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Coming to you Ms. Courtney.
>> COURTNEY GREGOIRE: I'm also echoing what I think was very well said, a recognition that the gaps that inhibit the ability to truly achieve the goals we've talked about here both come in the form of national laws, lack of adequate mechanisms, lack of technology understanding of how one can do this in a privacy enhancing way.
It's because of this that we do embrace the broad agenda of the institutional arrangement for partnerships to think holistically about what are the regulatory and implementation gaps, how to promote interoperability of the roles and clarifying where international organisations with relevant expertise can lead.
We all understand that one of the fundamental drivers of mistrust and data flows, both at the consumer and the Government level is third‑party access to data. And specifically fear that another Government will compel a technology provider to release personal data belonging to an individual or an organisation. We are very glad to see progress both bilaterally, and at the international level to focus on this important issue bringing principles and trusted frameworks including most recently the OECD, trusted Government access principles that would create additional transparency about the rules for Government access and demonstrating the commonality that exists between rights‑respecting democracies. This is critical and foundational to continue to expand trust that is needed at the core of this work. We hope to continue to enhance that work across multilateralism, and, yes, between the U.S. and the E.U. as mentioned before as a critical place for framework of trust.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Coming to Ms. Leonida Mutuku, you if you could build on the prospect or add what kind of mechanism could work or more comprehensive?
>> LEONIDA MUTUKU: I think the emphasis on the multi‑stakeholderism, but what we could borrow from corporate governance practices really the establishment of data strategy before we even think about promoting trust within data flows. We need to define and categorize the data that will be subject to these data flows and the level of participation, especially when you start thinking about Governments that want to establish this partnerships. It's what left of participation are you, the companies and your jurisdiction as well as on the receiving end would they take place, and then this ensures that practices are not extractive, and that there is in the most ideal instance, there is reciprocal access that countries that work with partnerships hold strategic benefits for both countries in this partnership, and finally, one thing that this data strategies will ensure is that without thinking too much about sovereignty versus localization, that ethical and cultural sensitivity is still maintained, especially in cases where the data that might need to flow involves indigenous communities or there is the likelihood of sensitive cultural information.
So once the strategies are in place, then other operationalization initiatives such as what was proposed by Minister Kono including their regulatory or operational sand boxes then can be established and then finally it's very critical as this is happening to do monitoring and evaluation. That way we are assured that we can correct any missteps as they take place.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, this was an attempt from our side to bring forth the opinions and perspectives from the wide range of esteemed and distinguished panelists that represented policy leaders, academia, experts and the stakeholder community on a very pertinent topic which happens to be one of the main and cross cutting sub themes of IGF 2023.
And, of course, one of the most pertinent issues and topics of our time and the coming age which we all agree is going to be data mining for the economy and the overall wellbeing of us, of the global audience.
And we can see a common consensus among all of the panelists here for fostering a collaborative environment where they believe that diversity of realities, diversity of issues, viewpoints, would allow for fruitful exchanges. Now, as we come towards the very, very final moments of this high level discussion, may I now turn back to the panelists themselves to as we wrap up share some of their very forward thinking ideas as to how we can shape a comprehensive understanding on the topic we've just talked much about beginning with the Honorable Minister.
>> TARO KONO: Thank you.
Well, as we say our economy is most likely going along with this data‑driven economy, and the new AI technology needs a lot of data feeding to the accuracy. Trustworthiness of data is going to be very important, and people are now reading disinformation, misinformation on their SMS whether or not they have noticed that it's not accurate.
So I think among the policy makers, among the certain industries, academia, the importance of data is widely shared and we have been discussing issues concerning data. But as a policy maker, as a politician, I need to reach out to the general public, and just not me, I guess all of the policy makers need to reach out to the general public, industry probably reach out to the general public. When we talk to the general public, how we can make people understand importance of data or importance of accuracy trustworthiness of data? That is quite difficult so we constantly need to talk to the general public, and we need to constantly try to make them see the threat coming from disinformation, misinformation, threats to our common values such as democracy, freedom, rule of law.
That is under attack, under threat coming from disinformation, misinformation, fake news and all of those things. So and even media is under attack. The trust towards media is going down as well as many Government institutions.
So this information or data issue is not just an economy issue. It is an issue concerning our common values. And the issue is how we make general public understand the importance of this issue, how we are going to get them involved in discussion, and what kind of technology going to be available to counter disinformation, establish trust of data is going to be important. So this is not just a policy issue.
This is also technological issue as well. And this is going to be very important not just for economy, but for the society as well. That's what I would like to emphasize today. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Mr. Minister, may I turn to the Under Secretary‑General.
>> JUNHUA LI: Thank you.
As we move to the digital society and even beyond, I certainly believe to advance the DFFT is critically important for all of us. Based on our discussion, I think the three brief points I would like to share with all of you, first, it is important to bridge digital divide within a country or between countries.
We need to ensure that the digital divides are not exacerbated by free data flows. Because some countries do not have the resources to compete with others in the economy, and we must enhance the public trust and ensure that the full involvement of all stakeholders and all Developing Countries at all levels of the decision making.
Second, it is important to ensure the privacy and security of the data and the data application. We need to make sure the people's data is protected, especially when it is transferred to other countries.
Third, to respect data sovereignty is also important. This is an area we need to think about carefully. The Secretary‑General of the United Nations, Mr. Antonio Guterres actually proposed a Global Digital Compact which actually would address the global data governance structure.
This initiative will be discussed at the forthcoming Summit of the Future to be held in September, 2024. We hoped and we strongly invite and urge all stakeholders to be involved in this process to discuss, to consult with each other under the framework of the United Nations.
If this new digital, Global Digital Compact could be endorsed by leaders when they meet in New York next September, from UN we believe we do have a very solid basis to move forward to all of those global governance mechanism on data, on digital, or other related areas. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: May I come to Ms. Courtney.
>> COURTNEY GREGOIRE: I love the themes that have already been outlined. As we sit and think about this criticality, Minister, you have said it well. I think we are looking at a room of people who understand how core data including cross‑border data transfer is to economic opportunity, to innovation, to tackling some of the world's greatest challenges whether that is environmental sustainability or the world's next pandemic.
But our average person does not understand this at their core, and so we have come today to have a conversation about what does it mean to advance and institutionalize data free flow with trust. I think we need to think a little bit at the heart of what does the word trust mean.
Microsoft ran a multiyear campaign called Microsoft runs on trust. What that was was to have everyone understand that you build trust every single day by a constant investment, and you can lose it within moments. We need to build a multiyear effort that is thinking about how to build trust and continually in the face of innovation and change, and recognize that we are talking about in some spaces a very sensitive issue that can be lost in seconds.
We want the data to not just be a driver of innovation, but truly an economic opportunity for all, and that's the change that's into the future. At the end of the day, I think a conversation raised by one of our panelists here, if we think about who we need to have a conversation about bringing to the forefront of this conversation, it is the next generation of users, our children and our teens who are using technology at every phase of their life, and for which the decisions we will make around this will truly impact their lives for generations to come.
Their voices can bring a new perspective and a new thought about how to be innovative, thoughtful and truly build trust from a global perspective.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.
>> LEONIDA MUTUKU: Thank you for a very engaging conversation.
One thing I would leave us to reflect on is we should not just make a blanket request for data free flow with trust. Trust has to be gained first and foremost, and it is only gained when institutions that hold data on people and those appointed to govern these data flows have legitimacy. How will this legitimacy be built. It should be an opportunity to close feedback loops.
This means that this institution should be transparent and accountable on what they do with this data and that there is two‑way engagement with one, unquote, "data subjects," that and finally that these institutions are capacitated in the sense that they have the right skills to provide oversight and enforcement to ensure their adherence to any rules that are set in place.
So once this is done, it is easier to build trust in data and data technologies that can transform progress towards achieving the SDGs. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, towards the very end in wrapping up the session, we have witnessed a very subtle yet very insightful thought sharing from our very prominent and distinguished speakers herein. It is very, very evident that the dialogue around data governance may sound easy to the ears, but it is a very complex and multifaceted issue requiring a very, very delicate balance between the free flow of data and the establishment of trust.
We, the panel, just explored various perspectives, observation, of course, approaches as well where they shared how important it is to strike a balance between privacy, security, innovation, of course, they shared light of the potential benefits and challenges of data localization, the need for global consensus on data governance principles, and also they touched upon the critical role of transparency and accountability in fostering this much aspired trust.
Now, as we all look forward and move forward, the common reflection of the panel certainly is in maintaining an inclusive multi‑stakeholder approach to ensure that the policies and frameworks that we develop are reflective of our diverse realities, needs and perspectives with cooperation and collaboration at the centre of it all.
And the most important emphasis made by the panel was in continuing to engaging in dialogue sharing the best practices and innovative solutions while keeping in mind the fundamental values around which our overall wellbeing rests on.
Thank you. Thank you, distinguished members of the panel, for your very, very valuable time that you spent on this forum, of course, for your thoughtful contributions with the value that you bring to the entire forum here in Kyoto, and for the great work that you all have been doing in your own domains to shaping the digital future that is built on trust, inclusivity and mutual understanding.
With these words, that's all from the panel, ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for being a great audience, and as we call this session off, may I request the distinguished panelists to kindly walk towards the left of the stage for a quick group photo opportunity. Thank you.
(Applause).