IGF 2024 Open Forum #35 Advancing Online Safety Role Standards

Introduction: Context and Objectives

The session focused on addressing how human rights standards, traditionally applied offline, can be effectively upheld in the digital realm. It convened experts to discuss the challenges and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence (AI), online safety, and discrimination against groups in vulnerable situations. Key areas of focus included violence against women and children, the role of generative AI, and ensuring a multi-stakeholder approach to human rights in the digital age.
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1. Human Rights in the Digital Era
•    Council of Europe’s Commitment:
Octavian Sofransky outlined the Council of Europe's role in fostering a balance between innovation and regulation. He highlighted key initiatives, including the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, aimed at safeguarding democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
•    Core Challenges:
o    Applying well-established human rights frameworks online.
o    Addressing online discrimination, violence, and misuse of digital tools.
•    Opportunities:
Properly harnessing AI to align with human rights while mitigating risks.
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2. Violence Against Children: The Lanzarote Convention
•    Overview:
Naomi Trewinnard from secretariat of the Lanzarote Committee emphasized the treaty's focus on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse of children and presented the Declaration on emerging technologies: threats and opportunities for the protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, particularly addressing online crimes such as grooming and extortion.
•    Emerging Risks with AI:
o    Generative AI is used to create and manipulate child abuse material.
o    AI tools are exploited for grooming and blackmailing children.
•    Recommendations:
o    Strengthen legislation to criminalize AI-enabled exploitation.
o    Leverage AI for identifying victims and perpetrators while preserving privacy.
o    Promote awareness through annual observances like the 18th of November, a day dedicated to preventing child abuse.
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3. Violence Against Women: Istanbul Convention
•    Policy Recommendation:
Claire McGlynn discussed the Istanbul Convention’s recent focus on technology-facilitated violence, such as online harassment, cyberstalking, and deepfakes. A 2021 General Recommendation No. 1 on the digital dimension of violence against women interprets these as extensions of offline violence.
•    Key Insights:
o    Violence against women and girls is inherently gendered.
o    Domestic abuse now often involves online components.
o    AI tools amplify risks but can also offer solutions, such as automated content moderation.
o    Undertaking initiatives to eradicate gender stereotypes and discrimination, especially among men and boys.
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4. Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities and Risks
•    Framework Convention on AI:
Ivana Bartoletti introduced the CoE Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law. The first international treaty addressing AI's impact on human rights. She also spoke about the Study on the impact of artificial intelligence systems, their potential for promoting equality, including gender equality, and the risks they may cause in relation to non-discrimination and outlined the dual nature of AI for discrimination and upholding equality:
o    Risks: Amplification of societal biases, misuse in creating harmful content, and threats to privacy and democracy.
o    Opportunities: Leveraging AI to identify discrimination, analyze large datasets for systemic inequalities, and foster inclusion.
•    Key Challenges:
o    Algorithmic discrimination arising from biased datasets.
o    Intersectional vulnerabilities exacerbated by AI's decision-making processes.
o    Limited applicability of existing non-discrimination laws to novel AI-driven harms.
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5. Collaborative Efforts and Recommendations
•    Importance of Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration: Governments, tech companies, and civil society must work together to:
o    Ensure transparency and accountability in AI development.
o    Create regulatory sandboxes to test AI solutions.
o    Enforce robust legislation to protect groups at risks of discrimination, abuse and violence online.
•    Education and Awareness:
AI literacy is crucial to empower individuals to critically engage with technology. Campaigns and training must focus on fostering "distrust by design" to encourage questioning of AI outputs.
•    Transparency and Regulation:
o    Platforms must implement proactive measures for content moderation.
o    Governments must enforce clear, enforceable human rights standards for the digital era.
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Conclusion
The session underscored that human rights apply equally online and offline. While AI and digital tools pose significant challenges, they also offer opportunities for enhancing equality and safety. Key takeaways include the necessity of collaboration, strong regulation, and proactive innovation to ensure that technology upholds rather than undermines human rights.

The call to action includes prioritizing human rights in AI policy, expanding protections under existing conventions, and fostering public-private partnerships to address these complex issues effectively.
 

Key take aways:

• The standards and safeguards of the Lanzarote Convention and Istanbul convention apply whatever the means used to commit the abuse: online and offline as outlined in the Declaration on emerging technologies: threats and opportunities for the protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse; and the General Recommendation No.1 on the digital dimension of violence against women.
• The CoE Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence is the first-of-its-kind legally binding instrument that covers the principles of equality and non-discrimination, the principles of human dignity, transparency, accountability, and safe innovation in its chapter 3. 
• Risks: online solicitation and grooming, exposure to harmful sexual content, witness sexual acts, sexual extorsion and blackmail children using AI generated or altered child sexual abuse materials. But also Opportunities: AI and virtual reality technologies can be used to: strengthen detection and removal of illegal materials, use extended realities in therapeutic interventions, train law enforcement, teach children about online safety.

Action points:

• To effectively use human rights instruments ensure that policy, tech sector and civil society work together, and involve those concerned, children and representatives of groups at risk of discrimination.
• Expand the use of positive action measures to tackle algorithmic discrimination and to use the concept of positive obligations anchored in human rights case law to create an obligation for providers and users to reasonably prevent algorithmic discrimination.  
• investigate the new forms of ‘algorithmic’ vulnerability that emerge with the use of AI systems and consider legal protection against such vulnerability.