Let me begin by commending France and President Macron for hosting this important and timely event.
It is excellent that representatives from governments, the business and tech communities, and civil society are all present here today and ready to tackle pressing issues, particularly in the digital domain. The problems we face require a holistic approach and cooperation—and initiatives like the Paris Call and today’s discussions serve as a positive and important initiative in this regard.
Digitalization entails not only technological transformation but more importantly, fundamentally changes how our societies operate. These changes entail immense opportunities but also challenges to the lives we as Europeans led in the pre-digital era. And with that, new vulnerabilities. For example, cyberattacks, cyber bullying, fake news and terrorist content online have shown us the “new quality of evil.” Thus, digitalization compels us to defend critical infrastructure and fundamental freedoms and children’s rights in the digital domain, as well as to ensure data protection and adequate levels of cybersecurity investments.
Steve Jobs once said, “Technology is nothing. What is important is that you have faith in people, that they are basically good and smart – and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.”
This is a beautiful sentiment but reality, unfortunately, has proved more complex. Technology has the capacity to empower both the best and the worst in us. Examples of the latter are plentiful—just consider the daily malicious attacks against kids, private individuals, states, companies.
Clearly, good faith alone is not enough. Leadership matters: it is up to us to pave the way forward by writing the rules of the road for everyone to follow. From my perspective, the digital transformation hinges on three key elements: regulations, education, and connectivity.
First, regulations. We must ensure that cyberspace is not a “Wild West” where one can carry out malicious attacks without consequences. We can establish accountability through responding to harmful incidents.
Thus, we need to implement the existing norms and provisions of international law, and improve respective regulations. Societies govern themselves with rules and regulations offline—the same should apply online. Human rights and the rule of law do not simply cease to be when we turn on our laptops or smartphones. Our political and legal systems ultimately govern the operation of technology in particular and the digital transformation in general. New and emerging technologies can work as enablers of rights and freedoms, but without appropriate safeguards, they may seriously threaten the realization of human rights.
Estonia is glad to join the Call for Action for standing up for children’s rights in the digital environment, as well as the Christchurch Call initiative and the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cybersecurity.
Second, education. We must enhance our digital resilience and our capacity to defend ourselves from cyberattacks and cybercrimes.
On the one hand, it is a question of increasing investments into cybersecurity. On the other, it is about improving education. Education and innovation are Estonia’s priorities in the Executive Board of the UN Children’s Fund (i.e. UNICEF). The digital environment can expose children to harmful and violent content, manipulated information, and privacy breaches. Through education, we can improve the digital literacy of children from an early age.
Third, connectivity. We must adopt a framework that binds together the various connectivity initiatives among democratic countries. Connectivity intersects the aforementioned elements and lies at the heart of the digital transformation.
We can begin with political and policy alignment so as to foster a rules-based, democratic, and inclusive world where the use of the Internet and digital technologies reinforces human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.
Then let us realize that in 2021 [twenty twenty-one], connectivity is not merely about roads and bridges, it is virtually inseparable from information and communications technology. In the digital age, democracy and human rights hinge on meaningful access to and the use of digital technologies for all.
As part of Estonia’s efforts in this regard, we recently introduced Trusted Connectivity as a unifying framework that democracies currently lack. By optimizing cooperation across different connectivity initiatives, Trusted Connectivity amplifies them and drives values- and market-based investments by the public and private sectors into transparent, sustainable, high-quality, and high-standard infrastructure projects.
Trusted Connectivity also makes of use digital public goods which involves open-source e-governance building blocks that governments can use to build their digital societies. Initiatives such as GovStack—where Estonia has partnered with Germany, the International Telecommunications Union, and the Digital Impact Alliance—enable us to institute the highest standards regarding data protection, cybersecurity, and the free flow data not only on the level of individual infrastructure projects, but on the microscopic level of lines of code.
Through Trusted Connectivity and GovStack, we strengthen the international rules-based order and help build a prosperous, secure, inclusive, and sustainable future.
