The Third Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Specialized Committee (STC) on Communication and Information Technology (ICT) urged the AU and its member states to jointly address some of the challenges of the digital age. African countries and pan-African institutions were called upon to build a continental cybersecurity guard, reach consensus on an integrated [...]

A  report launched at the Annual Meeting of the World Bank Group has shown that Africa will need $100 billion investments in order to achieve universal, affordable and quality Internet access by 2030. The Broadband for All Working Group of the Broadband Commission that prepared the report which was communicated via a press release also gave [...]

The day before the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights presented his annual report to the UN General Assembly in New York on digital technology, social protection and human rights, Privacy International announced the launch of its own series on surveillance in the provision of social services. According to the privacy group, “corporate, [...]

According to a news report, social media websites Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp were restricted by Turkish authorities in “at least three cities in the southern part of the country for about 48 hours”. This occurrence happened in the wake of the attack launched by Turkey on Northern Syria with data collected by the civil society group [...]

European Digital Rights (EDRi), along with four civil society groups, urged in an open letter to EU member states to conclude the negotiations on the ePrivacy regulation. The letter highlights the urgent need for a strong ePrivacy Regulation in order to tackle the problems created by the commercial surveillance business models, and expresses the deep [...]

The Dutch government has launched a Strategic Action Plan for Artificial Intelligence, outlining goals and actions for the country to take advantage of the social and economic opportunities offered by artificial intelligence (AI). Increasing public-private investments in AI (to support researchers and entrepreneurs) is one of the main action lines. The plan also focuses on [...]

 Ciudadania Inteligente and women@thetable launched ‘<A+> Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms’ platform along with the Affirmative Action for Algorithms (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, & Gender) Declaration. In the focus it has ‘women and girls and all their intersections and forms’ calling for women to be ‘influentially involved in all levels of decision-making before old norms and [...]

A UN event was convened under the theme Climate Action: Latest Business Technologies for Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on 4 October 2019 in New York, United States. The event which was organised by the Government of Slovenia, NGO Sustainability, and ROTH Capital Partners, was attended by a number of stakeholders including governments, private [...]

Pathways for Prosperity Commission released a new paper on Digital diplomacy: Technology governance for developing countries that looks at possible ways to make cross-border governance of technology work for developing countries. The research suggests that international cooperation is crucial to making the governance of digital technologies work for developing countries. It further pinpoints key technology [...]

NSO group, an Israel-based spyware company, has announced a new human rights policy to embed relevant human rights protections throughout its business and governance systems. This announcement came after repeated scandals, as  NSO Group’s spyware, Pegasus, was found to be used to target activists, journalists, and members of civil society in countries such as Mexico, [...]