This article is written by Alex Nicholson, Head of Multilateral Strategy (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, United Kingdom) and Head of the UK Delegation to the G20 Digital Economy Task Force

As we now enter the third decade of the 21st century, the role of digital technologies in realising the opportunities that benefit every individual is more important than ever.

This has become even more necessary in our response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and this has been at the forefront of initiatives progressing through international fora including the G20, G7 and OECD - this blog sets out the steps the G20 have taken to harness the opportunities that technology provides, whilst ensuring appropriate ‘safeguards’ are in place.

Over the past six months, the G20 have agreed and launched two digital ministerial declarations. The first was an extraordinary Ministerial Declaration in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, demonstrating how G20 Members can work quickly and positively to address the most pressing global challenges. It reinforced the major role of ethically developed and deployed technologies in our immediate response to this pandemic, in accelerating our recovery, and in delivering our longer term health and economic resilience.

This Declaration also saw a commitment to developing policy options to support digitalisation of business models during this pandemic towards achieving this crucial aim. This document collects and shares new, re-adjusted and emerging policy examples and practices, to help accelerate the availability and use of digital tools to strengthen business continuity and resilience. It included a number of UK domestic initiatives including “Be the Business” and “The Skills Toolkit” and was formally launched as part of the second digital ministerial declaration.

This second Declaration was launched on the 22nd July, and focused on the role of digital technologies in realising the opportunities of the 21st Century for all — this included dedicated chapters (and complementary reports) on AI, and data free flow with trust and cross-border data flows.

Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence

This year saw the G20 take steps to advance the non-binding G20 AI Principles, that were introduced during Japan’s 2019 Presidency and drawn from the OECD Recommendation on AI. In July, the OECD released a report that highlights national strategies and initiatives from the G20 countries that demonstrate practical implementation of these G20 AI Principles - this was endorsed by G20 Ministers.

In addition to being an informative report on domestic approaches, it also ensures that the G20 stays close to parallel work in the OECD, illustrating the benefits of institutions working together and combining collective strengths to advance trustworthy AI.

The report also rightly recognises the contribution that AI technologies could make to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This provides a helpful framework for the shared global challenges we in the UK hope to address jointly with all accountable stakeholders, notably through the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI).

AI technologies could make a specific, positive contribution to 80% of the Sustainable Development Goals

The analysis being undertaken by GPAI ahead of their December 2020 multi-stakeholder experts plenary builds upon a bedrock of evidence on the potential contribution AI technologies could make. For example, analysis published in Nature on “the role of artificial intelligence in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals” concludes that AI technologies could make a specific, positive contribution to 80% of the goals.

It also provided the UK with an opportunity to share a handful of our own initiatives. For example, to ensure that any AI related technologies implemented by the UK Government are ethical and adhere to the G20 AI Principles, we have developed Guidelines for AI procurement in partnership with the World Economic Forum.

These guidelines provide a set of guiding principles for central government departments, and other public sector bodies, on how to buy AI technology, as well as insight on tackling challenges that may arise during procurement.

Free flow of data

The Ministerial Declaration also saw an agreed chapter on Data Free Flow with Trust and Cross-Border Data Flows — this is not always an easy discussion to find consensus within the G20, where even agreed terminology is tricky!

For our part, we welcomed the support for Data Free Flow With Trust, which provides continuity to Japan’s great work in 2019. Data Free Flow With Trust focuses on the importance of maintaining high standards of data protection and also on finding pathways for advancing interoperability within existing regulatory frameworks, in order to remove barriers that inhibit the flow of data.

There remains crucial but exciting work to be done in this area, including the need to collectively look at the global landscape of different national privacy regimes

This chapter also saw a background report produced by the OECD on mapping approaches to data and data flows, which were a sensible first step in identifying cross-border transfer barriers, and the tools that could be developed to reduce them. It also again enabled the G20 to work in partnership with the OECD who themselves are advancing work to address issues related to the interoperability of differing data protection regimes.

There remains crucial but exciting work to be done in this area, including the need to collectively look at the global landscape of different national privacy regimes and see how best to drive interoperability to help consumers and businesses alike to navigate the global digital economy.

This article unfortunately excludes a number of the other ambitious but tangible deliverables agreed under this years’ Digital Economy Taskforce — perhaps a focus area for another article!

For now, attention turns towards the Leaders Summit in November, and the continuation of more excellent collaboration within the G20. — Alex Nicholson

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