Center for Global IT-Cooperation participated in the Think20 project of the Group of Twenty (G20)

The Center for Global IT-Cooperation (CGITC) participated in the Think20 (T20) pre-planned events held annually in the run-up to the G20 Summit. This year the summit will take place in October in Indonesia.

As part of the Think20 project, Policy Briefs (PBs), that is, analytical overview reports providing key policy recommendations, are prepared by experts from various countries. The T20 is the research engagement group of the G20 and a kind of bank of ideas and research that help the Group of Twenty to develop all kinds of documents and resolutions. In 2022, reputable think tanks and research centers that had submitted their applications and undergone a special selection process participated in the T20 events.

Within the framework of the “Cybersecurity Risks, Threats, and Data Privacy” Policy Area agenda of the Task Force 2 “Meaningful Digital Connectivity, Cyber Security, Empowerment,” the CGITC has been working on a series of consultations since February 2022 and prepared a report on “Deepfakes and Security in the Information Environment: Challenges for Governments, Society and Business.”

The analytical report was published in September 2022 on the Think20 website https://www.t20indonesia.org in the run-up to the Think20 Summit, which took place on September 4–6, 2022, in Indonesia. The document is available at the following link: https://www.t20indonesia.org/tf2/

Authors of the report described and systematized the main challenges and risks associated with deepfake dissemination and proposed balanced recommendations concerning the approach to deepfake monitoring, detection and labeling as well as development of concerted, step-by-step deepfake regulation measures that can be implemented at governmental, business, and societal levels. Special emphasis was placed on the need to conduct case studies on the full range of relevant problems, from deepfake generation technologies to the not-so-obvious ways deepfakes affect the society and people. The importance of high public awareness of the risks associated with deepfakes was also recognized by the authors; therefore, it was proposed to raise people’s awareness as well as contribute to the spread of knowledge and reliable information concerning various types of deepfakes and their means of dissemination in the information environment.

According to the existing practice, certain points of the reports presented by member countries get included in the T20 Final Communiqué; a selected number of points may even be used in preparation of the G20 Declaration.

While working on the project, representatives of the Center for Global IT-Cooperation participated in the following G20 events:

·      T20 Inception Conference (February 2022)

·      Goesmart 2022 Workshop “Recover Together, Recover Stronger,” attended by over 140 international participants. At the invitation of the “Initiative for Strengthening Cybersecurity and Protecting Privacy” section organizers, CGITC experts presented a report on establishing approaches to deepfake regulation and summarized key contents of the forthcoming policy brief (April 2022)

·      Work meetings that were held in March and April of 2022 and brought together Task Force 2 co-chairs, staff and authors to discuss issues related to the final documents’ drafts, structure and content

·      Interim meeting held to discuss draft reports on the 8^th Policy Area of the Task Force 2 (May 2022)

·      Workshop on “Meaningful Digital Connectivity, Cyber Security, Empowerment,” at which the CGITC presented the report on “Deepfakes and Security in the Information Environment” (August 2022).

Based on the material on the deepfake problem, studied by the Center for Global IT-Cooperation experts, and the experienced gained through participation in the international project, the experts are now preparing an updated study in Russian, which will later be presented to the Russian community and field-specific national organizations. To download the English version of the study, follow the link: https://cgitc.ru/en/brochures/deepfakes-and-security-in-the-information-environment-challenges-for-governments-society-and-busines/